Authors

Content and language integrated learning of a foreign language for professional communication is a new approach for Russian higher education. Its distinctive feature lies in the dual purpose of teaching non-language-majoring students: a) a foreign language for professional communication and b) a basic specialty. Achieving the goal of the simultaneous formation of professional foreign-language communicative competence and a number of general professional and professional competencies will be largely determined by the subject-specific content of the integrated course and educational materials developed on the basis of this particular approach. In this paper, the authors points out the relevance of developing educational materials based on content and language integrated learning and contucts six stages of developing teaching materials on subject-specific modules of an integrated course: 1) determination of the content of subject-specific modules of the advanced course; 2) determination of subtopics of each subject-thematic module for study during the integrated course; 3) selection of professionally oriented texts for training; 4) highlighting active vocabulary in selected texts of professional orientation; 5) development of tasks for the development of types of speech activity; 6) development of tasks of professional orientation. The article details the content of each of the stages.

The current stage is characterized by the dynamic development of artificial intelligence technologies and their introduction into foreign language teaching. Chatbots are one of such dialogical interactive teaching programs capable of developing foreign-language oral and written speech skills of a learner by maintaining a dialogue with them and imitating human speech on the basis of natural language and machine learning technologies and the algorithms of human speech embedded in the programme. The present paper is based on the analysis and synthesis of methodological studies devoted to the development of methods of teaching pupils and students foreign-language oral and written speech interaction based on chatbots. The most frequently discussed aspects in the problems of modern research are identified, and the prospects for further research related to the use of chatbots in teaching a foreign language are defined. The most commonly discussed aspects in methodological papers include: a) identifying learners’ attitudes towards the use of chatbots; b) identifying the possibility of developing learners’ written and oral speech skills based on chatbots; c) determining the level of learners’ proficiency in a foreign language for educational interaction with a chatbot. As prospective research, we identify studies aimed at a) developing step-by-step methods of teaching foreign language speech interaction based on chatbots; d) defining the nomenclature of foreign language speech interaction skills with a chatbot.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into the educational system in general and foreign language teaching in particular makes it possible to significantly enhance students’ foreign language practice and create conditions for more effective formation of foreign language communicative competence components. At the same time, the gradual implementation of AI tools in the educational process, along with its obvious advantages, may cause teachers’ concerns related to the gradual exclusion of the teacher from the learning process and their complete replacement by AI. As a modern paradigm of education, the authors suggest the triad “learner — teacher — artificial intelligence”, within which the interaction of learners with AI is built into traditional teaching methods, enhancing the educational process with new additional opportunities for learners’ foreign language practice. For objective reasons, little time and attention is often allocated to teaching learners to write in a foreign language. AI, which has significant language didactic potential, is able to take over the teacher’s functions of evaluating students’ written work and providing them with feedback in the form of an AI-generated version of an essay and/or recommendations for the revision of written work. In this paper, the authors propose 11 stages of a method for teaching learners to write creative works in a foreign language in the triad “learner — teacher — artificial intelligence”. Special attention in the method is given to the following aspects, which are new for teaching practice: a) compliance of students with the norms of authorship ethics when receiving various types of feedback from AI; b) the need to discuss the results of students’ interaction with AI during classroom sessions. At the same time, the authors note that the teacher is not excluded from the process of teaching learners a foreign language and evaluating their written work. The traditional method of teaching students’ written speech is enriched with additional stages of interaction with artificial intelligence, creating more conditions for students to develop the necessary foreign language speech skills.