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A New Teacher: In Search of Identity
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This article explores new approaches to improve the efficiency of the study process in foreign languages teaching, which should help to fill the gap between the practical implementation and the theory to increase the efficiency of the study process. The principal aim of the research is to define possible ways to improve the efficiency of the study process for foreign languages teaching of bachelors for professional goals. The research objectives are the following: (i) analysis of existing approaches to understand the term “efficiency of the study process”, which means “to establish the most appropriate communication mean between student and teacher, to reach the highest performance indicator of the process”, (ii) definition and selection of efficiency criteria of the study process both for the teacher and the student (accurate selection of those criteria has a direct impact on how the target didactic goals will be achieved), (iii) discovery of practicable approaches to improve the efficiency of the study process. The article justifies the necessity to include professionally-oriented authentic texts, as one of possible options to increase the students motivation to solve cognitive tasks in foreign language. The performed research indicates that there is a significant didactic potential of authentic materials which can be realized only within a methodologically grounded system to incorporate them in the study process in the most efficient way. The author proposes a methodology to include professionally-oriented authentic texts into the study process while working with future specialists in advertising and journalism illustrated by the study guide “The language of the French press”. The novelty of this research is the following: for the first time the methodological approach with a particular focus to form professionally-oriented skills and experience developed by the author was tested between students of the second year of education, who only started to learn the French language. The results of the research demonstrates faster achievements of those study groups which employed such methodology, compared to other groups not involved in such study process. The article gives general guidelines for teachers to increase the efficiency of their lessons – to select the study materials and the type of lessons, to develop the necessary skills and to improve the communicative interaction of students. Specific questions to increase the efficiency of the study process in the context of foreign languages teaching for special purposes are introduced to the professional community. These include how to increase the students motivation, to incorporate professionally-oriented texts in the learning process, and to organize the communicative interaction in a system “teacher-student”.
Increasing workplace demands on foreign languages skills in professional settings call for a number of considerable changes in the university learning context regarding foreign language teaching. The present study aimed to assess the language needs within and across employed university graduates, 1st, 3rd and 4th year students of non-language majors to further inform such changes. All four language skills, the context of both current foreign language education programs and the use of a foreign language at the workplace were considered. Questionnaires including Likert scale, multiple choice and open ended items were distributed among 110 students and 35 currently employed graduates. Descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by post-hoc Turkey HSD and Holm-Bonferroni tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated several areas of agreement among the participants: a clear need for all four language skills to be developed as high as C2 level and the consistent need to improve speaking. However, several noticeable discrepancies between the perceptions of the target groups regarding the context of workplace language use, such as how often, where and with whom they expect to communicate and need for professionally oriented foreign language were revealed. Overall, students may need to be more informed about the challenges of the workplace context for language use. The pedagogical implications are drawn for curriculum and pedagogy.
Increasing workplace demands on foreign languages skills in professional settings call for a number of considerable changes in the university learning context regarding foreign language teaching. The present study aimed to assess the language needs within and across employed university graduates, first, third, and fourth-year students of non-language majors to further inform such changes. All four language skills, the context of both current foreign language education programs and the use of a foreign language at the workplace were considered. Questionnaires including Likert scale, multiple choice, and open-ended items were distributed among 110 students and 35 currently employed graduates. Descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey HSD and Holm-Bonferroni tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated several areas of agreement among the participants: A clear need for all four language skills to be developed as high as C2 level and the consistent need to improve speaking. However, several noticeable discrepancies between the perceptions of the target groups regarding the context of workplace language use, such as how often, where, and with whom they expect to communicate, and need for professionally oriented foreign language were revealed. Overall, students may need to be more informed about the challenges regarding the workplace context for language use.
The paper discusses the design and implementation of an English for Specific Purposes course offered to 4th-year Linguistics and Intercultural Communication majors at Lomonosov Moscow State University (Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies, 2014). Drawing on a selection of domain-specific texts (authentic research reports from professional journals in the fields of linguistics, intercultural communication, and foreign language education), tasks, and activities, the proposed instructional design (named “Scientific Presentation”) aims to promote students’ knowledge of the field’s terminology and concepts and to facilitate the acquisition and development of professional skills related to their future careers in Linguistics and intercultural communication.
The purpose of the article is to determine the main directions to develop foreign language teaching to non-linguistic students and verify the effectiveness of a comprehensive approach to the teaching of all foreign language skills on the base of ICT. Review of the national scientific and pedagogical literature on the problem of using ICT tools for teaching foreign languages in non-linguistic universities and modelling of the information system for professionally-oriented language teaching were applied. The authors come to the conclusion that Russian universities can and should implement ICT tools to create the information and educational environment that, due to didactic potential of ICT, contributes to the improvement of learners’ linguistic, professional and ICT competencies. Successful testing of the applied integrated foreign language teaching based on ICT proves its effectiveness. The article will be of interest to teachers, methodologists and researchers in the field of informatization of education.
This volume focuses on innovative approaches to teaching foreign language courses offered to non-language degree students. It includes essays related to the innovative use of ICTs, new developments in methodology, approaches to course and materials design, and the contribution of language theory to foreign language teaching. As the book brings together researchers and practitioners working in a variety of contexts, it provides detailed insight into ways the same challenges are dealt with in different educational environments.