Synergy

3

Authors: Anișoara POP

This is a review of the book "ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. A PSYCHOPEDAGOGICAL APPROACH TO TESTING BUSINESS AND MEDICAL ENGLISH" by Ovidiu Ursa, published by Casa Cărții de Știință, in 2019. Among many significant personal contributions of Ovidiu Ursa’s book to the study of ESP testing and evaluation, one that addresses the practitioners rather than the researchers refers to the contrastive analysis of different materials used for testing Business English according to different criteria. This part includes a practical model of designing and administering a Business English test, with all it entails in terms of objectives, competences, content, etc. (p. 81), a model that can be safely applied and customised to other ESPs.

11

Authors: Irina DAVID, Anca-Teodora ȘERBAN-OPRESCU

This article aims to tackle the significant shifts in academic and administrative communication in higher education in view of the necessity to adapt to changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will, additionally, suggest a list of benefits and drawbacks as seen from the perspective of language trainers caught in the overbearing landslide brought upon by the unprecedented conditions. While being fully aware that this paper will join an already extensive plethora of international academic studies on the subject, we, the authors, consider it is relevant nevertheless, since it is only by sharing common experiences and successful and not so successful stories that we can find solutions, learn from each other and at the same time reconquer the feeling of community that the pandemic has affected to a large extent.

12

Authors: Blaženka ABRAMOVIĆ

This empirical essay shows how to bring, as a teacher, authentic and linguistically difficult texts closer to learners through playful forms of work. By presenting tested forms of work that have evolved over time through their use in classrooms, this article shows how cognitive learning, practical and creative activity as well as social and personal learning can be interconnected.

12

Authors: Doris SAVA

The competitive financing of research and the increased competition caused research practice to focus on citation indices and the scientific community on rankings, the demand for an improved response from research and for more visibility are developments that have often been criticized by the public. The change in the scientific landscape and the culture of quantification due to the competition for funds, grants and positions, the establishment of reputation through long lists of publications and third-party funding, decisive criteria for professions and recruitment, reveal grievances in the scientific community. The article therefore shows the consequences of these developments and names some challenges that the humanities, and in particular the philological disciplines, encounter in meeting scientific standards.

13

Authors: Maria PARASCA

The paper aims at an analysis based on the practical experience of the way in which the new online context of courses in German as a foreign language as changed rules and rituals. The analysis shows an increase in the importance of rituals in the courses as well as the need to adopt new rules to ensure a good teaching quality. During the online courses, rituals become very important to ensure a sense of belonging to the group, resulting in a better focus of attention and an increase in "time on task."

14

Authors: Mihaela PARPALEA

This paper presents some arguments based on research into multimedia opportunities in foreign language learning. It provides critical comments on different and sometimes controversial views of learners and teachers on how new media have been promoted in language teaching. The new media comprise combination of texts, sounds, computer-based exercises - like cloze passages exercises, jumble sentences rearrangements, or text reconstruction dialogues - and grammar tables and structures with supporting software tools enclosed in spelling programs, audio dictionaries and search engines, allowing the user to browse the entire range for specific topics of activities. All these are significantly beneficial to the language learning process. Notwithstanding all these benefits, it is doubtful whether these new computer-based methods live up to the claim to surpass the effectiveness of existing, traditional methods in language teaching and learning. Most of the traditional exercises, as well as those based on PC applications, largely rely on a substantial amount of authentic language contained in most of the reference works. All in all, we can say that neither of the two ways, the new or traditional media, is to be offered an absolute status.

16

Authors: Veronica CÂMPIAN, Sonia MALOȘ

The debates around the COVID-19 pandemic have been a sensitive issue for the citizens in the last two years and the authorities have tried to promote the vaccination campaign through different means. The aim of this paper is to examine the communication strategies used in approaching the COVID-19 vaccination campaign to the population, focusing on the Romanian cultural mindset, specificities, values and beliefs that have been addressed. The corpus of the analysis consists of the informative short films broadcast on TVR in early 2021, which carry the messages of well-known doctors. The content analysis focuses on three main levels: sensitising, informing and motivating. Each of these levels has been assigned structural and functional features to analyse key examples and have a critical approach.