Virtual Linguistic Personas and Foreign Language Teaching in Higher Education

Abstract

Many Russian institutions of higher education support the introduction of information technologies, and they actively use them in the educational process. In teaching foreign languages (FLs) at university, the transition to the new instructional model implies the need to actively deploy innovative concepts and practices aimed at ensuring that students achieve the maximum level of English language proficiency as specified by international and Russian standards. The authors of the article investigate the problem of the linguistic persona [yazykovaya lichnost’] and the language system as well as the impact that linguistic personas have on the acquisition of the FL. The linguistic persona is an integrative concept with heterogeneous and interrelated components. The article describes a virtual linguistic persona that is viewed as a new type of linguistic persona. It is characterized by a set of specific features, including special values, a changed attitude toward time and space, a high degree of focus on virtual activity, and special communication goals. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the use of a foreign-language Internet environment for FL learning in both self-study and classroom contexts provides a powerful tool that allows students at universities that do not specialize in FL training to gain FL virtual communicative competence.