Abstract:

The contribution deals with the new role of language teachers at the tertiary educational institutions in the Slovak Republic, which has currently been shifted from just being the language practitioners to be also the facilitators of interdisciplinary cooperation not only among the subject-specific departments or institutes at the Faculty but also beyond the academic area as well as they are challenged to be the supporters of the internationalisation of their institution. As the English as lingua franca is needed in the internationalisation process, which could enhance the attractiveness of engineering study and hence improve the Faculty graduates employability, the authors also propose some possible ways and solutions about how to incorporate the language – in our case the English for Specific Purposes – into the internationalisation process at the Faculty. The authors provide an insight into the situation at the Slovak University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava.

Keywords:

Higher Educational Institutions, English for Specific Purposes, internationalisation, new role of teachers.