Abstract:

Studying a foreign language is one of the most important parts of a university study. Slovakia, as a member of European Union, has understood that the necessity of graduates' language competence will increase year by year. Thus, those students who want to meet the market's demands should study at least one foreign language. When English has become the most used language in daily communication worldwide, the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava (Slovakia) decided to provide all the students of the faculty new subject "Technical English". Technical English is a two level English course. Its syllabus covers the core language that students need to be successful in all fields of technical and industrial work. After 3 years of Technical English implementation the faculty decided to find out the students' opinions on Technical English itself. The main aim of the survey was to find out if the students like Technical English, if they think that it is important for their future, if they think that they learn something new during lessons, how they find Technical English in a comparison with other subjects and finally if they would choose Technical English if it was a facultative subject. The survey was realised in February 2011 and more than 130 students participated in the survey. Within the questionnaire method they evaluated their opinions on Technical English. The results of the survey are interpreted in the paper. This topic has been solved within KEGA Project 031-035 STU-4/2010: "Models of project-based learning at secondary vocational schools".

Keywords:

Technical English, English lessons, questionnaire, students' opinions.