Roxana-Maria Nistor

Values and Virtues in Higher Education. Using an ESP Course to Teach Ethics Communication

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Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania

roxana.nistor@ubbcluj.ro

ABSTRACT

Teaching has always been an ethical profession (Fisher, 2013; Campbell, 2000), and given the globalised world we are living in and the highly globalised labour market, instructors’ mission is no longer to prepare students for local jobs only, but for international jobs as well. Therefore, the subjects taught in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) should not only prepare students for using specialised knowledge (hard skills) in specific professional contexts, but they should also instil values and virtues – those soft skills that are also essential on the (international) labour market. Consequently, ethics communication has become a pillar (Monteiro, Leite, & Rocha, 2018) in higher education studies, as it plays an outstanding role in the teaching process and in making sure that students – as future young graduates – have a strong work ethic. As such, our presentation focuses on how an English for Specific Purposes course at the Faculty of European Studies within Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) can help students acquire not only the necessary specialised vocabulary for their field of study, but also the values and virtues required for an appropriate work ethic and the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes when faced with an ethical dilemma to make sure that their solution maximizes the benefits of everyone involved.

Keywords

ESP; ethics communication; higher education; values & virtues; soft skills

References

1. Campbell, E. (2000). Professional Ethics in Teaching: Towards the Development of a Code of Practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 30(2), 203–221.

2. Fisher, Y. (2013). Exploration of Values: Israeli Teachers' Professional Ethics. Social Psychology of Education, 16(2), 297–315.

3. Monteiro, F., Leite, C., & Rocha, C. (2018). Ethical Education as a Pillar of the Future Role of Higher Education: Analysing its Presence in the Curricula of Engineering Courses. Futures, 111, 168–180.