DIGITAL LITERACY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Abstract

Transformations in modern society seriously affect the landscape of modern labour market that requires reviewing and developing clusters of competencies attributed to young professionals. With further advancement of information technologies and changes in society lifestyles, higher education institutions encounter new challenges to modernize their educational process. Interdisciplinarity, integration and synergy of modern science are seen as the reality of modern education. Digitalization and digital literacy are penetrating each area of education and social life. To meet these challenges language education tends to review and transform syllabi and foreign language courses by introducing digital educational modules and active and interactive methods that will provide the synergy of core competencies and develop student digital literacy. The authors analyze theoretical foundation and approaches to foreign language teaching and present research results that are based on their experience of designing and implementing new educational module of student net communications in foreign language programmes in Udmurt State University and Izhevsk State Agricultural Academy. The research rests on the principles of competency-based and communicative approaches and is underpinned by active and interactive methods of foreign language teaching as well as experiential learning.