A WAY TO COMPENSATE PHD STUDENTS' INSUFFICIENT EFL PROFICIENCY: FLIPPED CLASSROOM APPROACH

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Background. The shift in standards in Russian education has led to certain changes on the tertiary level of higher education. Most notably the consequences have concerned the aspect of teaching a foreign language to postgraduate students. In particular Samara State University of Economics now does not have language entrance exams anymore and foreign language class time has been rather limited. Nonetheless the level of final exam requirements is yet quite high. The article is relevant due to the need to find a possible remedy to overcome a problem of a fairly low level of previous language training among a certain category of postgraduate students. Purpose. The research purpose was to determine the effectiveness of a flipped classroom strategy as a way to compensate insufficient level of English mastering among the students of postgraduate courses. Materials and methods. Flipped classroom acts as a well-proven approach that could solve the problem. The results of summative assessment are presented in this paper. The methodology adopted in this study is based on the needs analysis, mathematical statistics and content inspection of students' interviews. The range of students, whose needs to improve their language level were determined at the first stage of the experiment then took part took part in a flipped classroom project. At the final stage of the experiment the students were examined for their language performance. Results. The results of the experiment prove the effectiveness of the proposed format for teaching a foreign language for postgraduate students in a non-linguistic university as it increases the efficiency of mastering the skills for the successful exam pass. This study suggests that flipped classroom approach could be an effective remedy to overcome the challenges that teachers and students at postgraduate level are facing today.