FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION: LESSONS OF MODERN HISTORY. PART 1

Abstract

The article opens a discussion of the problems of language education in Russia over the past half century on the material of the history of its development in one of the regions of the Russian Federation - the Udmurt Republic. The history is full of transformation processes in the "Student - Teacher - Textbook" system and faces two main factors of world development: globalization and information technology revolution. This part presents the analysis of the language education situation in Udmurtia at the beginning of the studied period, based on the research of the author and other experts in the field of teaching foreign languages and the testimonies of teachers. The period is determined by the search of ways in acquisition of foreign language communication skills, intensive teaching methods introduction, activation of potentials of the personality and the group in teaching foreign languages in particular (Prof. G.A. Kitaygorodskaya’s method). The main idea of the article is to understand innovative teachers’ activities in cooperation with scientific, pedagogical and managerial communities of the Udmurt State University, Ministry of Education of the Udmurt Republic, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Nizhny Novgorod Dobrolyubov State Linguistic University. The research is based on the specific events held by the Interuniversity Department of New Teaching Approaches in Foreign Languages, such as: creation of new educational materials, teacher’s trainings according to G.A. Kitaygorodskaya’s method, conferences, scientific seminars, foreign languages communicative skills trainings, communicative skills acquisition monitoring, etc. Practical significance consists in the development of domestic teaching materials, training of teachers to work in these conditions, in the effectiveness of the obtained results in teaching foreign languages. The results of the research, its role in practice, the lessons of foreign languages education of this period are also presented.