On 28 November and 5 December, the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology of Voronezh State University held video conferences with leading researchers of VSU’s partner universities – Dr. Sue Garton, professor at Aston University (Birmingham, Great Britain), and Prof. Thomas Manfred Raith, Director of the Institute of English Studies of Freiburg University of Education (Germany). The conferences were moderated by Associate professors Elena Chaika and Marina Scherbakova and participated in by first-year master's degree students studying on the programme “Foreign Language Teaching with the Application of Online Technologies”.
Dr. Sue Garton wanted to discuss the scientific and methodology papers she had provided previously. The most actively discussed topics were the theoretical research and practical application of modern language teaching technologies.
The students made short presentations on each topic under discussion. Dr. Sue Garton commented on the presentations and gave advice on how to apply the acquired knowledge in teaching English.
The video conference with Thomas Raith held on 5 December, primarily discussed methodological problems of educational research. Dr. Raith is to visit the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology in February 2019, so the faculty's students are already getting ready for the meeting.
During the video conference the students told what they had already read out of the English-language sources recommended by the German professor. They also expressed their eagerness to work with the study materials provided by Dr. Raith, as they help to determine the essence and the methodology of educational research.
The aim of the master’s degree programme “Foreign Language Teaching with the Application of Online Technologies” is to develop intercultural professional communication competence and professional research competence. Similar to VSU teachers, leading specialists from foreign partner universities pay a lot of attention to developing professional research competence in master's degree students.
The discussion of the problems of teaching foreign languages in digital era was up to the point, very well structured and professionally conducted. The technical support of both video conferences was also very good: there were no interruptions of video or audio signal.
The students said they liked the format and would be glad to take part in similar video conferences with Dr. Garton and Prof. Raith in the future. “Live” communication with representatives of foreign professional cultures is an important part of the professional development of the future teachers of the English language.
