Types of Exercises and Activities Used in Teaching English for IT Vocabulary

Abstract

The ability to master specialised terminology in English is of an utmost importance in selecting candidates for employment, thus making it a primary concern for ESP teachers as well. Knowledge of a foreign language opens new prospects of mobility and collaboration for professionals in the modern world. Educators recognize the increasing role that English for Specific Purposes plays in the professional development of future scholars and try to introduce this subject at tertiary level. The present paper focuses on teaching English for IT vocabulary and outlines a number of useful exercises and activities that could enrich first year computer science students’ grasp of different terminology from various IT domains such as: input and output devices, the processor, the Internet, databases, programming languages, neural networks, programming languages, web design etc. These exercises represent the result of thorough research regarding the curriculum for Automatics and Computer Science Faculty, accumulated in more than ten years of teaching computer science students, and they are intended, on the one hand, to familiarize students with different topics they will study during the four years of study in higher education and, on the other hand, to provide them with a framework of general information that any future IT specialist must acquire. The approach used would be student-centred learning, whose purpose is to develop learner autonomy and independence and which encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the students, who have a primarily active role.