Impressions and Observations from the Erasmus+ Teaching/Training Mobility at Aleksandër Xhuvani Univ

Whenever travelling abroad, we tend to build our expectations concerning the country, people and the aim of our stay, to our previous knowledge based on information from tourist guidebooks or films.

First impressions. The sight of a broad public highway built from Tirana to Elbasan (its construction started in 2011) immediately removed my fears of a risky drive on narrow curvy mountain road in a steep terrain. When entering the capital, you can learn from a driver that “...and these houses were built only a few of years ago”. On the other hand, it is surprising to see spacious mansions in the middle of fields, far from any civilisation.

Central University Library. Although the end of term was approaching, I saw students sitting and studying in several study rooms of the library. At the same time, I was a witness to the process of building up a new modern resource centre. Pictures No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 show the interior of the Central Library. In one of those conference rooms, I delivered a lecture on Trends in the Development of Linguistics and Language Teaching to members of the Department of English and German Languages, Faculty of Humanities.

At the University of Elbasan, Erasmus+ programme is taken seriously. As an Erasmus scholar, I was officially welcome by the Rector of the University Prof. Dr. Skander Topi, by deans and sub-deans of two faculties, namely the Faculty of Economy and the Faculty of Humanities.

It was a pleasant surprise to learn from the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities Ass. Prof. Dr. Albert Riska that the ideas of Slovak members of the Prague Linguistic Circle (PLC) who continued in the Prague School functional structuralism as members of the Bratislava Linguistic Circle, were known and taught at their university, in particular ideas and works of Prof. Ludovit Novak.

There were app. fifty students present at the lecture conducted in the English language on Academic Writing. Given that lectures are facultative at the University of Elbasan. This indicates that learners do not want to miss the chance of learning more English on every occasion. The lecture I visited and observed was conducted in a lively interactive way, and all the time students were responding to the teacher′s questions.

I was glad to see that communicative approach is applied in teaching Business English. The topic taught was Working from home versus working in an office. Students were active in listing pros and cons of each of the two options and in commenting and supporting their opinions with arguments (see Picture 5). I joined their discussion and shared some of my own experience in this area. When teaching a course in English for Business at the Faculty of Economy to a group of 25-30 students, I presented the case study method as a suitable method of learning economics and business terminology in a meaningful context. The case studied dealt with corruption in a multinational corporation. Similarly as our students, also Albanian learners enjoyed especially the part of discussion which involved problem solving and decision making.

Another type of course similar to ours was a seminar in Translation and Interpreting in the English language. This type of course is also offered by the Department of Linguistics and Translation Studies at the Faculty of Applied Languages, UEBA, so it was a useful opportunity to compare the methods of teaching translation. It was in this lecture room that I saw the European Union flag next to that of Albania.

Whether we like it or not, Albanian students are more motivated to study English than most of our students. I did not notice, for example, any student sending sms messages or telephoning in class during the lessons.

The mobility at Aleksandër Xhuvani University in Elbasan has fulfilled my professional expectations and enabled me to gain interesting information and contacts, which could become part of future cooperation between our two higher education institutions. I am grateful for this opportunity and will always remember those precious moments when we discussed about our teaching careers, compared conditions on the education market in our two countries, and revealed numerous challenges in our study programmes at informal sessions in the teachers’ staffroom. In particular, I would like to thank to Dr. Gjolek Mera, Erasmus+ coordinator for arranging an interesting programme for me during my mobility.

Conclusion

My advice to anybody who applies for mobility abroad is:

To fully enjoy your mobility, the best way is to forget about widespread stereotypes and view the differences as welcome opportunities for learning. It means approaching the upcoming mobility with an open heart and mind.

All of these four students were writing pros and cons of Working from home versus working in an office. As you can see, they are very pleased with their performance.