First year master’s students from the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology completing the programme “Foreign Language Teaching with the Application of Online Technologies” headed by Elena Chaika, Associate Professor at the Department of English Philology, and Marina Stcherbakova, Associate Professor at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, held online meetings with professors from German and British universities.
The time which the participants spent with Professor Sue Garton from Aston University (Birmingham, Great Britain) flew by very quickly and the discussion was extremely informative and animated. Professor Garton told the audience about the beginning of her career in the area of linguistic education. When she was in Italy, she was invited to teach English and at first it was not easy for her. If you want to teach a foreign language, you need to be knowledgeable in modern methodologies, to learn non-stop, and to improve your professional skills. Yet, you should avoid imitating even the best professionals.
“We have learnt a lot of interesting things and got useful advice about how to improve our educational and practical activities. We are very thankful for the eagerness to share the experience and knowledge with each of us”, said a student, Vera Dukareva.
Dr. Thomas Raith, Professor at Freiburg University of Education (Germany), shared with the participants of the online meeting the secret of three “Cs”: students who want to become teachers of a foreign language will only succeed in their career if they cherish their Curiosity, Commitment, and Collaboration with other students, their teachers, and their pupils. The participants of the event were highly impressed by Professor Raith’s enthusiasm, open-mindedness, and readiness to share his experience.
“The speaker has triggered our motivation to develop and energised us with passion towards our common cause. The meeting left us with notebooks full of ideas which we can use in our research projects and in practice,” said Valeria Ishkova.
Master’s students from the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology also took part in the plenary meeting and the discussion of Professor Garton’s and Professor Raith’s reports presented on the research platform “Linguistic education of the future” organised as part of the International Linguistic Forum which was held at VSU between 24 and 27 November.
“Of course, we would like to learn more and adopt more experience and, if possible, in real life. We are looking forward to new meetings!” said Evgenia Mesyatsina, a master’s student.
