FinTalks Project as a Tool for the Formation of Skills and Abilities Necessary for Modern Teachers and Students

Abstract

The realities of modern educational reality are such that the requirements for competitiveness for a university graduate are high: professionalism in the chosen field, digital literacy, as well as the ability to communicate, convince, speak publicly, not only in their native language, but also in a foreign language (most often English). The purpose of the article is to present a project aimed at developing public speaking skills on the one hand, and at general expansion of the educational paradigm on the other. The knowledge required by a modern student relates to a wide range of competencies in general, and the subject of a foreign language helps to work out many of them, including the ability to speak publicly. The requirements are increasing not only for the student, but also for the teacher, who, with modern students of the Internet era, can only be on the crest of modern professional life, be able to organize work in English classes in such a way as to solve all these tasks simultaneously, namely, to promote professional growth, digital literacy and the art of speaking. Methodology. Using a practical experiment with video stories of successful speakers and their analysis to identify the most successful working methods, the formation of public speaking skills was tested, which was presented at the FinTalks speaker competition. The research also used methods such as analysis of domestic and foreign literature, generalization of the pedagogical experience of teachers who worked in this area, discussions at meetings, feedback. Based on the results of the study, the methodology of working with the FinTalks project is presented, and recommendations for conducting classes in preparation for the speaker competition as well. This project and the preparation for the speakers’ competition solve practical, educational and developmental tasks. Among the practical achievements, there is an improvement in foreign language skills, working with information in the language; from an educational position, students form communication skills, work well in a group and in a team as a whole, learn to defend their position and come to a consensus; among the developmental tasks, one can single out obtaining various strategies for working with the language independently, creating positive motivation for the desire to read and view information in a foreign language, as well as present it.