Enhancing language, literature and culture teaching and learning throughout ICTS implementation

Abstract

One of the guidelines of the Strategy for Education Development in Serbia 2020 implies the implementation of modern ICTs onto teaching and learning methods of both existing and newly developed study programs pertaining to higher education area. The Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, being a highly reputable and prestigious higher education institution and cherishing a long tradition in education and research in the field of language, literature and culture, strives to continuously and increasingly develop its study programs by introducing ICTs at all levels of study. Our main objective is to enhance language, literature and culture teaching and learning experience throughout blended learning. Namely, the Faculty of Philology offers, within its Moodle platform, the wealth of courses concerning different languages, literatures and cultures, as well as those belonging to social sciences (e.g. courses in developmental and educational psychology). In this way, we intend to provide our students the opportunity of acquiring comprehensive knowledge in the field of philology, literary science, cultural studies and social sciences in general, the kind of education which is indeed required of the modern age man. We also took into account the fact that the use of digital technologies is becoming prevalent in a number of learning processes and that, hence, their implementation is invaluable particularly in the field of higher education.  The Faculty of Philology is extremely proud of the learning content to be found on the faculty’s Moodle platform, and of the fact that it is becoming richer and more diverse every year. Courses on the undergraduate level of studies are currently divided in 20 subgroups out of 38 study groups, which involve the following: Serbian Language and Literature, Serbian Literature and Language with Comparative Studies, General Literature and Theory of Literature, General Linguistics, Library and Information Science, fourteen different languages or language groups (such as for example Scandinavian languages), as well as Seminar of Social Sciences. Each of these subgroups offers a variety of courses, which all together constitute a rich repository of knowledge in the field of philology, literary science and cultural studies. At the MA level of studies, the courses offered on the faculty’s Moodle platform within Language, Literature, Culture study program include over forty different subjects. We are currently working diligently as to offer the variety of high quality learning contents within the relatively new MA study program Cultures in Dialogue in a blended learning format. For now, the contents are available for the courses Encounter of Civilizations and Elements of Western Civilization. As for the courses belonging to Language, Literature, Culture study program at the PhD level of studies, these also include a vast number of courses on all three modules. In this paper, we intend to emphasize as to how far we have come in placing learning contents onto the faculty’s Moodle platform and the implications that this variety of content will have on educating future philologists in Serbia, who will, hence, gain more comprehensive knowledge than ever before in the field of philology and humanities and social sciences in general.