Abstract:

Today, prospective engineers should be trained so that they could handle their professional tasks not only in their mother tongue but also in the English language. The discipline of English for Professional Purposes is part of the bachelor degree program Electric Power Systems and Networks for students majoring in Power and Electrical Engineering. The discipline aims at improving the students’ oral and written communication skills to solve engineering, research, and application tasks. For a more effective training process, we have developed an online course meant for the blended learning environment. Teaching in higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that online courses should be flexible enough to be used remotely under sanitary restrictions. Here we present the content and teaching methodology for the discipline, as well as the online course developed for face-to-face training environment and adjusted to distance learning. Instead of face-to-face communication, the educator interacts with students by videoconferencing supplemented by Moodle tools in the online course. The learning outcomes were achieved due to a combination of simultaneous distance learning, continuous advisory support by the educator in forums and chats of the online course, as well as the opportunity for students to choose an individual learning path. The limitations of learning efficiency were associated with the infrastructure-related technical issues as well as the need for students to spend all the time in front of the screen, which was tiresome for them. Overall, the experience of training full-time students in the e-learning format has shown high potential of the online course for the customization and streamlining of the educational process as well as the possibility to promptly adjust it to the changing environment.

Keywords:

Covid-19, online course, blended learning, distance learning, face-to-face training, Moodle.