The characteristics and the future of teaching foreign language for specific purposes in the digital presence

This article focuses on the characteristics of teaching foreign languages in tertiary education and describes the changes and shifts that take place in connection with the implementation of digital technologies. They bring new perspectives into teaching a language for specific purposes in business and economics. Besides the content and methods of education, these changes affect the teacher’s role and the position of the new generation of students, the production of teaching materials, the ways of evaluating the acquired level of foreign language skills and other aspects of teaching foreign languages. The author proposes the so-called hybrid-learning concept of teaching foreign languages, which enables combining traditional teaching methods with the elements of e-learning and m-learning, and which can be used in both full-time study and guided self-study. The author uses German for Tourism Industry as a case study to demonstrate the potentials of using digital technologies to reach greater authenticity and interactivity of the learning process, as well as better opportunities for its internal differentiation and further aspects of the acquisition of language for specific purposes.