Centre for Language and Communication

The Centre for Language and Communication was established on 1 January 2017 in TalTech School of Business and Governance based on the Centre for Languages of Tallinn University of Technology.

Communicative competence in languages is a prerequisite for people's success in various aspects of life, especially in the academic and professional environments. Members of the academia – both students and academic staff of TalTech- comprise a driving force for Estonia's integration into internationally recognized discourse communities to share their specific knowledge and promote their research and professional achievements.

The Centre for Language and Communication  has attempted to respond to the changes in educational and professional contexts, and the needs for both local and international students and academics to  enhance their proficiency of foreign languages to meet those needs. The Centre supports the teaching and learning of Estonian as an official language, English, German and Russian across the university and beyond.

The Centre's academic and professional activities are informed by recent international research in applied linguistics, L1 (native language) and L2 (second language and foreign language) methodology and acquisition, language for academic and specific purposes (EAP and ESP respectively), academic literacies studies, L1 and L2 academic writing, writing for science and research, text and discourse studies, socio-cultural studies, communicative competence studies, educational technology, and many others. Throughout 1996-2020, the staff of the Centre have contributed to numerous British Council, TEMPUS, Primus, Archimedes (INNOVE) and other international projects in syllabus design, advanced writing, testing, upgrading academic staff in ESP, LT management and quality assurance in LSP (languages for specific purposes).

The Centre has initiated two large-scale international writing conferences, including the Pan-Baltic International Conference of Advanced Writing (1996) with Dr Ron White and Clare Furneaux (the UK), and the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing 18th Conference (2015) with Dr Ulla M Connor (USA), Dr Jim Donohue (the UK) and Dr Terry Myers Zawacki (USA) as plenary speakers and over 300 delegates from over 40 countries of the world attending.