Abstract:

The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the extent to which technology should be part of seminars of foreign languages for Engineering students. The methodology used will be a combination of foreign language for specific purposes (in this case, technical and scientific English, since this is the language taught by the author of the present paper), teaching foreign languages with technology, and interactive language learning, while students will be placed at the centre of the teaching process. Students will practice active learning, as well as collaborative learning, which will make them learn through activities, instead of simply assisting passively to grammar and theoretical explanations.

Technology will be part of the background of the foreign language class, under the form of gadgets used to access electronic textbooks, to interact through applications with the language, as well as to collaborate with their colleagues on collective projects online.

While it can be motivating for students to use technology as part of foreign languages seminars, especially since, as engineers, they are definitely preoccupied by everything new technology-related that appears, and they definitely have the skills to use various gadgets and software programmes, how much should technology be around? Listening exercises can benefit from using short video clips, or only audio files, depending on the exercise, and on how much the students need to visualize the context in order to understand the situation of communication. Is it beneficial to present students with exercises on applications such as Kahoot during classes? Does the use of such application motivate interaction among themselves and with the teacher? Should students be given a selection of exercises available on smartphone applications in order to make drills more attractive? Is it beneficial for students to watch youtube channel lessons selected by the teacher, as a means to repeat some notions? What about drills done on Facebook groups, where they can interact with other users in the comments section?

Environmental psychology will be considered as part of the theoretical frame of analysis in the methodology section, together with motivational theories. Questions related as to how should technology be present in the classroom, for instance as laptops in a laboratory which they could use, as their own devices, laptops, smartphones, or tablets that they can bring during class, or as the old cassette and CD player, as well as what other decorations, such as posters with tenses, or their own or other colleagues’ projects on the walls are motivational or not should be considered.

The results section of this paper will deal with the way the teacher, the author of this paper, has observed the students in her classes from the academic year 2022-2023 react and solve tasks when technology was involved.
The concluding section shows that students feel more interested in using gadgets and applications to work together during class. On the other hand, students generally use their smartphones to look up words and seek information, and they also like to work in pairs or in teams on projects, which may make technology usage as secondary.

Keywords:

environmental psychology, Kahoot, applications, CD player, videos.