Purpose The paper aims to highlight how an applied learning framework or “community of practice” (CoP) combined with a traditional theoretical course of study enables the identification of teaching-learning processes which facilitate knowledge transfer from practitioners to graduate information technology (IT) students for quicker integration in the labour market. Design/methodology/approach CoPs are identified based on cluster analysis according to Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (1984), with data obtained through a survey. Empirical research is applied to the CoP developed within a non-formal learning framework, principal new actors being IT specialists linked to graduate IT students and teachers on a traditional university course. Graduate IT students can gain knowledge of the ideal employee and the social and emotional skills needed to integrate with the IT labour market. Findings The K-Means algorithm helps to identify clusters of graduate IT students displaying necessary knowledge acceptance behaviour to convert them into specialists. The results of the cluster analysis show different learning styles of the labour force, providing an overview of candidate selection methods and the knowledge, skills and attitudes expected by users. Research limitations/implications Although the research adds value to the existing literature on learning styles and the knowledge and core skills needed by IT specialists, it was limited to an emerging market. Originality/value The study provides a preliminary overview of graduate IT students’ attitudes from an emerging market to the re-engineering of academic learning contexts to facilitate professional knowledge transfer, converting them into IT practitioners and integrating them in the labour market of an emerging economy.

The paper reports on the quantitative data resulting from the questionnaires designed by the authors (language for specific purposes instructors) addressing both graduate students’ range of abilities, skills and competences and tourism employers’ expectations. Language proficiency and communicative competence (understood as specific purpose language ability) are discussed as indicative of graduate students’ rate of employment in their field of studies. The authors choose tourism graduate students as the focus group in their investigation of the possible factors impacting market employability and influencing the degree of socio-professional integration in Cluj county.

The paper is an investigation of the underlying factors that eventually lead to achieving autonomy and automaticity in the process of language learning. It starts from an experimental procedure of assessing speaking among students in Tourism, at Babes-Bolyai University. Initially designed as a task for developing fluency outside the classroom context (the test of real linguistic autonomy), the recorded spoken productions of students in Tourism were integrated in the final assessment. The paper discusses the importance of a task-based approach, a task-based syllabus and of collaborative tasks. It also questions the way technology assists the teaching and assessment practices by looking into the advantages of using wikis in and outside the classroom context. As assessing speaking is time and resource-consuming, solutions to making it more efficient and less class-dependent must be identified. Another key-issue that the paper addresses is that of authenticity: the authenticity of tasks, of context, of participants. Students' recorded productions were organized in an authentic context(hotel industry) and this helps develop communicative competence and an awareness of the needs of the job market. From a pedagogical perspective, a selection of the video recordings presented in class offered students the possibility to self-assess and inter-assess their linguistic competence (use of checklists). The role of feedback and washback is further analysed in relation to the question of the assessment impact on the overall teaching practice. This, in turn, should closely respect the basic principles of assessment (feasibility, validity, authenticity), as they are formulated in the Common European Framework of Languages.

The paper investigates the gradual transition from traditional methods of language instruction to delivering teaching material in a blended format and reports on some of the findings of a research grant dedicated to measuring the impact of flipped learning on students' development of productive skills. This transition reconsiders the learning/teaching stages and aims at both reducing teachers' lecturing time in class and increasing students' speaking time, so that more emphasis is given to productive oral activities and to fostering fluency. The process of reversing the learning and teaching stages prompts changes in the curriculum planning, in restructuring part of the materials available and reconsidering the role of both language instructor and student. These aspects are submitted under the concept of flipped learning and pinpoint the first steps involved in creating video materials for students in Cultural Tourism. The author reflects on choice of material (units, topics), curriculum changes (task-based and competence-based syllabi), comparing different learning environments and also on the advantages and challenges of implementing flipped methods. The benefits of transitioning from traditional to blended-learning methods stem from several aspects regarding the educational spectrum and its stakeholders. At the institutional level, it serves the language policy of the university and its long-term strategy of developing more blended teaching corpus and of encouraging multicultural and intercultural awareness through foreign language learning and teaching. At the European level, the focus on the proliferation of blended strategies, on Open Educational Resources and on facilitating the development of transversal and cross-sector skills are proof of the changes that need to be adopted by all European universities. At the local level, students' needs and their preparation for a mobile, ever-changing labor market acknowledge the role of language instruction in formal and informal interaction, inside and outside the classroom.