Teaching foreign language writing skills in the digital environment of the university

Abstract

Importance. In the competence-activity paradigm of language education, priority is given to the development and formation of foreign-language productive written-speech skills and language skills of students, contributing to the creation of written texts of academic, scientific and professionally-oriented genres. Many researchers and teachers point out a number of difficulties and problems they face when teaching writing: lack of motivation among students, lack of coordination of language and lexical skills, critical, analytical and creative thinking skills; unwillingness to read and analyze authentic texts, lack of skills in using open reference materials and online dictionaries, text editors, etc. The purpose of the study is to develop an effective methods for integrating digital technologies and open educational resources into traditional approaches of teaching students of language universities to write various genres. Research methods. It is possible to overcome the above problems by relying on traditional and digital methods of teaching writing and speech skills, subsequently integrating digital technologies and open educational and reference resources into the learning process, using group, interactive forms of learning, as well as mutual and self-assessment. Research results. The stages of formation of the digital educational environment, which is one of the conditions for successful digitalization of the process of teaching foreign languages, are analyzed. Several stages of integration of digital technologies and open educational resources in the process of learning are highlighted: the stages of replacement, reinforcement, modification, transformation. The traditional and innovative approaches to teaching writing and speech skills existing in domestic and foreign methods are considered, the classification of applications and digital platforms most frequently used by teachers of foreign languages depending on the stage of teaching writing is carried out, the didactic properties and functions of these applications and platforms contributing to the qualitative modification and transformation of the process of teaching writing at the university are analyzed. Conclusions. Didactic properties and functions used in the learning process of applications, platforms and open educational resources contribute to: optimization of the entire process of developing the skills of creating written texts of any genre and style from conception to implementation, the formation of lexical, grammatical, spelling skills through their development and consolidation with the help of testing and voting applications for development; effective organization of independent students’ work, providing online access to the created text at any time; to increase motivation through the use of multimodal materials, open educational and reference resources, corpus data and concordances of foreign languages; the development of information and communication competence and soft skills of the 21st century among students.