Course Combining Language and Technology
A course of the University of Turku combining major subject studies with improving language skills is great preparation for the variable situations of working life.
Ilkka Norri and Seppo Virtanen are looking forward to the Computer Network Technologies course.
In the spring, a new innovative course will begin at the University of Turku in which students aiming for a Master’s degree in technology will be able to practice two skills in one package. They will have a chance to think about the simulation of network traffic or the parts of a computer in Swedish.
The course Computer Network Technologies is one of the first courses integrating language studies into other teaching. The Language Centre is currently planning several such courses.
–Network techniques and the different levels of the internet are studied in the lectures and in addition there are online assignments. A few of the lectures will be in Swedish and kept by Adjunct Professor Jerker Björkqvist from Åbo Akademi University, says the teacher of the Finnish part Adjunct Professor Seppo Virtanen from the University of Turku.
–The part in Swedish is planned to be completed before, during and after the course. The students will make preliminary assignments and they will be able to prepare for the lectures by going through vocabulary of the field. Afterwards, an essay will be written, explains Swedish teacher Ilkka Norri.
The lecturers highlight that expertise does not consist merely of knowing your own field, but communication and language skills are essential also.
–Luckily, good motivation can take you a long way.
When the teachers are asked about the challenges of such a course, the answer is unanimous:
–It is impossible to find anything negative about this. We are looking forward to spring.
Det är jo säkert. Jätte bra!
Text: Henna Borisoff
Translation: Jenna Sjöholm
Photograph: Hanna Oksanen