Учебное пособие 1519

In the second exercise, the students are supposed to select the definitions for the lexical units, and besides, these definitions reflect such aspects of the lexical units meanings, which the teacher considers important to highlight. For example, the definition of the word refreshments emphasizes the fact that these are food and drinks that are served at the event called function.

Exercise 3. Match the words from columns A and B to form the collocations.

In the third exercise, the aim is to draw the students' attention to the collocations functioning in the English language that contain the lexical units under consideration.

After the students identify these collocations and translate them into Russian independently or with the help of a teacher they can be suggested to make sentences with them, stimulating their further usage of in the speech.

The process of familiarizing students with the traditions and conventions of the English native speakers’ speech culture is not only interesting for them, it also contributes to the more effective formation of their sociolinguistic competency, and, therefore, gives them the opportunity to feel more confident when choosing a language unit suitable for the specific communicative situation.

Thus, the process of forming a foreign language sociolinguistic competency (as part of the socio-cultural competency) of the students of a technical university is inextricably linked with the study of the cultural and historical heritage of the countries of the target language, the norms and characteristics of the native speakers’ speech behavior.

The research also shows that an effective way of developing the sociolinguistic competency of the students at the lessons of English is to fulfill the work of eliminating the typical mistakes made by them and to overcome their difficulties that arise in the process of communication.

The mistakes in pronunciation require the acquaintance of the students with the main differences between the British pronunciation norm and the other pronunciation variants, primarily American English, as the world's most widespread version of English. Students should be advised to adhere to any one of the pronunciation variants (preferably the British variant, since it is this classical type of pronunciation that students are taught at the educational institutions of our country). At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the great influence of the American pronunciation variant on the British one at the present stage.

Meanwhile, the strategy of the work with the British and American terminological variants in accordance with the specialty chosen by the students is of the exactly opposite character. Due to the fact that in the course of the lessons, students get acquainted with not only the British experience, but also with the world experience in their professional activity, the teacher should strive for a comprehensive students’ learning of both the British and American variants of the terminological units, for developing students’ ability to correctly translate these

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terms into their native language and use them in their speech.

The difficulties of students related to the translation and the use of the English classdetermined lexical variants in the process of communication can be eliminated due to the purposeful work with this lexics in the classroom under the guidance of a teacher, the fulfillment of the exercises that actualize the differences in the meanings of these units and in the situations of their application.

References

[1]Reznik S.D., Konovalova E.S., Sochilova S.S. Konkurentoorientirovannost' i konkurentosposobnost' studncheskoj molodezhi Rossii: opyt, problemy, perspektivy: Monografiya / Pod red. S.D. Reznika. – M.: INFRA-M, 2013. – 292 s.

[2]Solovova E. N. Metodika obucheniya inostrannym yazykam: bazovyj kurs: posobie dlya studentov ped. vuzov i uchitelej / E.N. Solovova. 3-e izd. – M.: AST: Astrel': Poligrafizdat, 2010. – 382 [2] c.

[3]Gorina N.S. K voprosu o sushchnosti sociolingvisticheskoj kompetencii. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/k-voprosu-o-suschnosti-sotsiolingvisticheskoy-kompetentsii, (data obrashcheniya: 22.07.2020).

[4]Lomakina O.E., Gustomyasova T.I. Variativnyj status ponyatiya «Sociolingvisticheskaya kompetenciya» v sovremennoj lingvodidaktike. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/variativnyy-status-ponyatiya-sotsiolingvisticheskaya- kompetentsiya-v-sovremennoy-lingvodidaktike/viewer, (data obrashcheniya: 23.07.2020).

[5]CHashchina D. A. Vliyanie amerikanskogo anglijskogo na proiznositel'nuyu literaturnuyu normu britanskogo anglijskogo yazyka. URL: http://elar.rsvpu. ru/bitstream/123456789/23277/1/RSVPU_2017_719.pdf, (data obrashcheniya: 14.09.2019).

[6]Foks K. Nablyudaya za anglichanami. Skrytye pravila povedeniya. – M: RIPOL klassik, 2008. 512 s.

[7]Husnullina R.R. Nacional'nye varianty proiznosheniya anglijskogo yazyka v an-

[8]Amerikanskij variant anglijskogo yazyka. URL: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikanskij_variant_anglijskogo_yazyka (data obrashcheniya: 3.07.2020).

[9]Nizkodubov G.A. Sovremennyj etap v istorii razvitiya amerikanskogo varianta anglijskogo yazyka. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/sovremennyy-etap-v-istorii-razvitiya- amerikanskogo-varianta-angliyskogo-yazyka/viewer (data obrashcheniya: 2.07.2020).

[10]Dialekty anglijskogo yazyka v Velikobritanii. URL: https://lingua- airlines.ru/articles/dialekty-anglijskogo-yazyka-v-velikobritanii/ (data obrashcheniya: 16.09.2019).

[11]SHvejcer A.D. Nikol'skij L.B. Vvedenie v sociolingvistiku. M.: Vysshaya shkola. 1978.

–213s.

[12]Britanskij i amerikanskij anglijskij: razlichiya. URL: https://puzzle- english.com/directory/british-american-english (data obrashcheniya: 19.07.2020).

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DOI 10.36622/MLMDR.2021.61.75.005

UDC 803.0: 37. 022

ORGANIZING AND CONDUCTING FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES USING THE

DIGITAL POTENTIAL OF THE ТECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

(FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING GERMAN

DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC)

V.I. Chechetka

Voronezh State Technical University,

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor,

Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages

and Technologies of Translation

Valentina Ivanovna Chechetka

e-mail: ChechetkaValentina@yandex.ru

Statement of the problem. Nowadays, "digital media" is not just a term in everyday life, it is a common phenomenon. In connection with the emerging problem of combating coronavirus, there is a need to formulate new requirements for the educational design of higher education and/or make appropriate changes to them. Digital technologies provide the potential, on the one hand, to provide new ways of learning and support learning processes, and on the other hand, to prepare students for life and work in a "digitized" world. Consequently, teachers also need new competency profiles in order to reflect and use digital opportunities and digital tools in a timely manner.

The article analyzes the information openness of universities in accordance with the requirements of the current legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of education. The organization of the educational activities of universities and the ensuring of the access of students and research and teaching staff to the information and educational resources are considered. The stages of developing the digital learning blocks within the framework of the university training courses are defined.

The results of the research. Using the example of teaching the German language at a technical university, the functional strategies have been studied when planning and conducting distance and classroom classes. Conclusions obtained. When planning the classes it is necessary to consistently divide the individual competencies into distance and classroom lessons. Here, the starting point is a model in which students switch themselves between the distance and classroom studies in longer phases, such as weekly lessons.

Key words: digital technologies, electronic information and educational environment, content, digital learning blocks, distance learning of foreign language teaching, competencies.

For citation: Chechetka V.I. Organizing and conducting foreign language classes using the digital potential of the

Тechnical University (from the experience of teaching German during the COVID-19 pandemic) / V.I. Chechetka // Scientific Journal “Modern Linguistic and Methodical-and-didactic Researches”. – 2021. - № 3 (34). – P. 46-57.

Introduction.

The introduction of the digital technology is now much more common than just a term being used in our everyday language. In the digital world, higher education instructional design is more and more facing with the new demands and the changes that result from them especially when we overcome the pandemic coronavirus. Digital media obtain a potential in order to, on the one hand, provide new ways of teaching and support training processes and, on the other hand, prepare students to live and work in a digitized world. Therefore, more and more digital competencies are being formed to act in the changed world against this background. Consequently, teachers also need new competency profiles in order to reflect and use intelligently digital opportunities and digital means. Only in this way, all the participants can not only participate in the digitized world, but also actively contribute to it.

_______________________

© Chechetka V.I., 2021

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It should be emphasized that in modern society, which has entered the information age, in the last decade, there has been a gradual transition from traditional education with a limited access to information to a qualitatively new education using modern information technology focused on the implementation of the training processes.

Basis of the problem being researched

For this purpose, Voronezh State Technical University has created an electronic information and educational environment (EIEE) based on the Moodle platform. The purpose of the EIEE is to provide the information openness of the university in accordance with the requirements of the current legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of education, organization of educational activities of the university and providing access to the EIEE’s information and educational resources for students and teaching staff [1]. The EIEE is designed at the university, among other things, for the purpose of:

Formation of a unified educational space and organization of the educational process for the educational programs being implemented through the use of the EIEE information and the educational technologies and services;

Providing the educational process with the EIEE information and educational resources in accordance with the requirements for the implementation of the educational programs implemented in the university;

The access of students and university employees, regardless of their location, to the EIEE information-and-reference and educational resources of the university through the use of the EIEE information-and-communication technologies and services;

Ensuring communications and interaction between all the participants of the educational process who have access rights to the EIEE;

Providing the means and procedures for monitoring the educational process [1].

The university has developed the competencies with the help of which teachers can quickly and easily rethink the course of the classes, regardless of the knowledge of students using various content elements. For example, on the educational portal of the VSTU (https://education.cchgeu.ru), through the "VSTU Student Chat" (https://studchat.cchgeu.ru), "VSTU Cloud" (https://cloud.cchgeu.ru), educational units, and means for their solution are presented. Digital educational units serve as the practical examples describing specific teaching situations in vocational training with the help of the digital media. On the one hand, it is possible to access the highquality digital educational units having been already published. For example, according to the German experts [2; 3], such experience also offers the possibility to send and publish the own content for the digital training. On the other hand, it creates new opportunities for teachers, i.e. the internal education on all the three stages of 1)studies, 2) preparation), 3) improving the qalification which have deen developed in the new format of the digital training units and can be divided and applied due to the subsequent publication as well as phase and international ones. The units and the resources of the training course (educational subject) presented on the VSTU education portal provide a learner with a wide range of opportunities:

To download the teaching material on any subject to learn;

To view the attendance in any academic discipline;

To view the current performance in a discipline;

To attach own files (at the teacher’s request) for checking current test, laboratory and practical works, as well as the course projects (works).

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Figure 1. Stages in the development of digital learning units within the university courses: own illustration

Stage 1: Contextualizing the form of training into digital time to begin a work-

shop.

Digital media should not be integrated into training for their own sake, but they should be rather designed to advance students' competencies to shape the participation in the world permeated by digital media. Following this goal, seminar leaders in the university education should first show why competencies for the digital world should be acquired or expanded by both the students and teachers. To contextualize the development of own digital educational units for students, it is suggested that you move to the competency framework established by the educational- and-methodical complex of the subject, to which all the presented and published digital educational units should be oriented. Instructions and methodological materials for working with digital educational technologies, developed by the Department of Digital Learning Technologies of the VSTU and provided to students are presented to visualize the content of the subjects.

Stage 2: Introducing the EIEE as an online competency center for organizing and delivering classes.

Provided that students-teachers develop their own digital educational units within the university educational activities in individual or group work, it seems reasonable to comprehensively present to students the EIEE platform with its functions at an early stage of their learning in terms of students’ motivation and management. To present the platform within an educational activity, the following approaches are suggested:

Sample presentations for free use,

A free online self-study course,

Presentation and discussion of the specialized didactically related existing digi-

tal educational units, which can be narrowed down using the filter function on the right or left navigation bar of the learning software.

Stage 3: Promoting the competencies for developing and publishing openlicensed teaching approaches.

Note, that publishing their own teaching online approaches will, as a rule. be a new experience both for the students and teachers-beginners. Here, there are questions about the technical functionality of the VSTU EIEE platform, and various legal issues related to the authorship and licenses. To empower students to safely develop their digital approaches to studies, topics such as Open Educational Resources (OER), Creative Commons, etc., authoring roles, and the use of free educational resources need to be addressed. To do this, they can resort to existing content, such as the German script "Introduction to Information Technology" developed by Axel Dürkop in Institute for Technical Education and Higher Didactics (ITBH) at TU Hamburg, or the online self-study course "Introduction to Open Educational Resources", etc. [7,8].

Stage 4: Guiding and accompanying the development of digital educational

units

If students have already reached a certain degree of maturity in the development of their approaches to digital teaching, in the second half of the university teaching event, they are proposed its technical implementation to perform and the others can move away. For this purpose, students are asked to register on the EIEE platform, seminars must also be registered. Then the technical steps to submit digital educational units with the students can be directed by manual input (not automatic). Students codevelop their digital educational block as a group; they must first create a new digital

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educational block for the group and then add all the other members, already registered as "co-creators." For better understanding these projects at various stages of digital educational block development the workshop leader must also be added by the students as their co-author. These regular checks can simultaneously contribute to the management of the teaching processes in the context of the educational activity.

Stage 5: Submitting digital educational units.

The studies can be designed so that the students develop digital educational units as their study or exam activity. In this case, students should inform the teacher of compliting their digital educational blocks at the last moment. Teachers can determine whether digital educational units are submitted by the VSTU EIEE editorial team with the submission of digital educational units for assessment or whether students should wait for the teacher's assessment and the feedback before sharing their developed digital educational units for assessment. If students have submitted their digital educational units for visualization by the VSTU EIEE editorial team, they cannot be edited during the teacher's review period. At the same time, the CHANGE function is present here.

After successful review by the editorial team, the EIEE either publishes the educational “building” block, or the students receive a direct feedback message in case of post-processing evaluators' wishes are available, and the base is released for the processing again. The current editing and submission status can be viewed by students, and the teachers can also view ithem under the menu item "Personal Office - My Content." After a successful review, the digital educational block will be published, and students as well as their teacher will receive a confirmation message.

Prospects of the further consolidation of open platforms in teacher`s education

After the successful testing of the possibilities of using the EIEE as an open teaching design platform in the period of remote learning of teachers in the university, ways of further consolidating the EIEE in the other places providing teacher education were identified. At the same time, further scenarios of use in all the three stages of teachers` education are possible, as well as the development of an international network of open digital teaching technologies. For this purpose, it is possible to present teachers with modern proposals for their professionalization in the designing of lessons in digital changes; we can look forward to further scenarios for the use of open platforms, such as the EIEE VSTU or the German digital.learning.lab TU Hamburg, where the experience can be considered and analysed.

Let us consider how the gained experience can be applied in teaching a foreign languageat the university

Foreign language teaching in a time of partially open universities with strict contact and hygiene rules is subject to completely new constraints and therefore requires a rethinking in the planning and conducting classes. The didactics of foreign language teaching, having been divided into remote and face-to-face classes, is shifting between the two poles:

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As follows from the research conducted, it is necessary to develop the functional strategies for the both typesof training and to reasonably link them to each other.

Remote Learning. The following competencies can be practised and expanded by students at home independently:

Writing (alone or in pairs / in the groups in shared documents or by telephone /messenger, etc.)

Written language mediation,

Reading (e.g., academic texts, short informational texts, extended texts, websites, filmreviews, short stories or excerpts to full-length works)

Listening (e.g., audio files, podcasts, songs, interviews, instructional videos, documentaries, short films, commercials, etc.)

Monologic speech (podcast recordings or commentaries),

Language learning (e.g., vocabulary or conjugation),

Grammar (application and practice, independent rule development depending on the age of training),

Orientation in media offerings (e.g., explore websites of museums, zoos, cultural sites, sporting events, etc. independently and obtain this information, use

learning applications purposefully, acquire sociocultural knowledge or intercultural experiences independently).

At the same time, remote learning has the following limitations:

A teacher as a linguistic immitating model, instructor, coach, or facilitator are reachable only indirectly,

Spatial, familial, and technical abilities of the learners are different,

The learners must be able to self-determine learning load, tasks, complete them meaningfully and understand them independently, work with focus, use help functionally (e.g., online dictionaries or grammars), and purposefully take breaks fromtheir work

Students should be able to motivate themselves to work, structure their own workday,and therefore achieve their goals.

Auditorium classes. The following competencies cannot be practiced at home (or only partially). Thus, the focus of the auditorium classes is on the following:

Dialogic speech (e.g., oral interaction between teacher and student, performing course tasks),

•Fluent speech (dialogic and monologic speech, fluent articulation in teaching

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situations),

•Oral language mediation,

•Reading aloud (pronunciation, stage reading),

•Listening comprehension in interaction,

•Communicative actions (e.g., paraphrasing, giving demands, recovery strategies,communication maintenance strategies)

•Language means (e.g., listening and vocabulary checking, polishing linguistic means, irregular verbs)

•Learning grammar rules.

Of great importance for the both types of training is the feedback on the success of learning [9]. It should also be noted that classroom instruction has a number of limitations.

According to the rules, partner and group works are not possible when pandemiccontacts are threatened.

Since individual work is already taking place on a large scale in remote training, it mustbe reduced when teaching is performed in a classroom settings.

Movements in the classroom can be limited.

Changing work materials or aids (e.g., realia, balloons, dialogue cards, and

reference cards) are possible in a very limited way.

Thus, in contrast to traditional training, a more consistent division of individual competency areas into the remote and classroom instruction is necessary when planning. Here, the starting point is the model when students are switched themselves between remote and classroom studies in more longer phases, for example everyday lessons. But with all the limitations of this situation, there are also advantages. For example, in classroom instruction, teaching takes place in small groups, so the teacher can better support individual students, while asynchronous work in remote teaching promotes the individual training. In addition, more challenging tasks are now possible in remote training than in regular homework. By changing the forms of teaching and the associated changes in focus, more attention can be given to individual competencies at appropriate stages. Many students work more motivated during the alternating stages because they negatively react to daily routine.

Table 1.

Combination of remote and classroom lessons

Remote classes: