The foreign language virtual lecture as an instrument of professional-competency formation in foreign-language teacher training institutions

Abstract

Modern information and communication technologies provide many opportunities for the use of authentic foreign-language materials in the educational process in foreign-language teacher training institutions. Of particular interest in this regard are virtual lectures on topics directly related to this professional field. Nevertheless, the problem of using foreign-language virtual lectures in university classes has not been sufficiently covered in the scientific literature, as a result of which this tool is not widely used. This study aims to reveal the potential of using professionally oriented foreign-language virtual lectures to enhance the professional competencies of future foreign-language teachers during their university training. The main focus lies on the listening competency as an inherent part of the foreign-language teachers communicative capacities. The potential of using virtual lectures for formation of other competencies is also discussed in the context of an integrative approach. This issue is of particular relevance since the integrative approach becomes more and more popular in the higher education system. The research is based on the authors examination of the relevant scientific literature and on her analysis of a number of English-language virtual lectures dealing with pedagogy and foreign-language teaching methods. These steps allowed to highlight the main features of virtual lectures as teaching material and to describe various types of classroom tasks designed to accompany them. Moreover, the author presents a brief overview of digital sources where foreign-language virtual lectures are available. She also enumerates the professional competencies that c an be enhanced integratively by the use of foreign-language virtual lectures and the learning tasks associated with them. The results of the study demonstrate that professionally oriented foreign-language virtual lectures have great potential as a tool for the integrated formation of listening and other professional competencies of foreign-language teachers. However, for the educational process to be effective, the teacher also needs to engage in some additional work of a methodological nature. Thus, creating a solid theoretical and methodological ground for the use of virtual lectures in the classroom becomes an urgent problem, which may open up a path towards further research in this area.