Abstract
The article focuses on the problems of teaching foreign languages (FL) to pre-service subject (other than foreign languages) teachers and highlights their possible solutions. A sustained discontent of both university teachers and students with the outcomes of FL classes gave impetus for a systematic, detailed study of the university FL education of the target group of learners. There was an acute need to develop well-grounded guidelines for the related course objectives, its content and adequate techniques intended for the target group of learners. The authors claim that the generally accepted English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) models of university FL education cannot be applied in this context for a number of reasons. A limited amount of classroom time, lack of updated teaching materials, mixed-ability classrooms, and unclear perspectives of the future application of the FL skills made the study urgent. Therefore, the teachers of the English Language Department of the Petrozavodsk State University (Russia) developed a project that is described in the article; 152 students and six teachers participated in its implementation. The objective of the project was to introduce reasonable changes into the approaches, the aims, the content, and the techniques for rational and effective FL teaching and learning in this context. The authors identified priorities of the university FL education in line with the context and the target learner characteristics. The article presents arguments in favor of the introduced changes, describes the phases of the project work, and gives details of all the constituents of the proposed curriculum. Based on the outcomes of the project, the authors conclude that it is necessary to undertake further research steps in this direction.
Highlights
University FL departments teach languages to pre-service subject teachers for whom foreign languages are not a major
Having analyzed the data that describe the target students, we identified a few critical features of the learners, which should be taken into consideration while organizing their university FL education
The initial level of FL competency of the target first-year students does not meet the requirements of the Russian school standards in FL education, nor does it live up to the university teachers’ expectations
Summary
University FL departments teach languages to pre-service subject teachers for whom foreign languages are not a major. The teaching and learning conditions of this group of learners are far from being ideal in the majority of Russian universities. An unjustifiably short course (first year of university studies), a limited number of classroom time, as well as mixed-ability student groups make the achievement of the objectives defined by the Federal State University Education Standards (FSUES) in this area problematic. As a result, both teachers and students are rarely satisfied with the outcomes.
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