The attitude of students of a technical university to foreign languages in the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods of study

Abstract

Introduction. The study of the problem of teaching students of technical universities a foreign language before and during the pandemic is relevant due to the fact that higher education is looking for ways to improve the process of education for young people, in particular, to consider the problem of teaching foreign languages in a non-linguistic university. The purpose of the study is to analyze the behavioral strategies of students of a regional university in the prepandemic and pandemic periods, focused on the formation of competencies and ensuring the achievement of the planned results of mastering the educational program when studying the discipline Foreign Language at a technical university. Materials and methods. The research material was the data of an anonymous sociological survey of 100 students of the Stupino branch of the Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University). Research methods: search, descriptive, comparative, method of analysis based on a sociological survey, method of graphical presentation of data, Pearson's chi-square statistical method, as well as the method of systematization and generalization. Results. A comparative analysis of the results of teaching a foreign language to students of technical universities before and during the pandemic showed that the pandemic and, against its background, the accelerated development of digitalization, as well as the introduction of online platforms to ensure continuous higher education for students of Russian universities, in general, contributed to an increase in motivation to learn a foreign language and had a significant impact on a number of studied indicators related to the level of language proficiency and the structure of the educational process. Statistical differences were assessed using Pearson's χ² goodness-of-fit test at a significance level of α=0.05, taking into account the number of degrees of freedom k. For individual indicators, a significant excess of the critical values of χ² was found, which indicates statistically significant differences between the studied indicators in the pandemic period of education from the indicators of the base period. Conclusion. Nowadays, learning a foreign language plays an important role in obtaining a prestigious job for graduates of technical universities, so the lockdown period was a serious test for both students and university teachers. However, innovative solutions using technology can help overcome gaps in foreign language education for engineering students