Aims:
• familiarize the students with key concepts and different approaches in language teaching;
• give profound knowledge in practical teaching methods and techniques employed worldwide;
• provide knowledge in teaching methodologies for learners of various age-groups;
• build the basis for further teacher development.

Learning outcomes:
On successful completion of this course of study students should be able to:

• describe, analyze and compare key concepts and different approaches in language teaching;
• display knowledge of government educational standards in foreign language teaching;
• identify and discuss the current problems in language education;
• develop course curricula and lesson plans;
• efficiently employ a variety of teaching methods and techniques, including computer and IT based methods;
• analyse learner feedback and respond with efficient measures.

CONTENT

Methods of teaching as a field of science. Objects of study. Defining characteristics of teaching foreign languages. Learning foreign languages in comparison with native language acquisition.

Methods of teaching and adjacent disciplines. Foundation of methods of teaching in linguistics, psychology and pedagogy. Interdisciplinary research in sociology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, social psychology, country and culture study.

Research methods in teaching languages. Theory, empirical studies, experiment, statistical analysis.

Aims and goals of teaching foreign languages. Standards in foreign language acquisition in secondary schools.

Communicative competence. Communicative competence as an integrated aim of teaching foreign languages. Components of communicative competence. Terms ‘competence’ and ‘competency’. Russian and international scholars on language competence. Van Eck, I. Bim, R. Milrud, N. Galskova et al.

Teaching content in foreign language education. Components and selection criteria.

Principles and means of foreign language teaching. General and specific principles. Teaching materials. Teaching equipment. Computers and IT in foreign language classroom.

Government educational standards in teaching foreign languages in primary and secondary schools. Assessment.

Teaching foreign language skills. Teaching phonetics and pronunciation. Phonetic exercises. Development of pronunciation skills. Teaching lexical skills. Active and passive learner vocabulary. Methods of introduction and learning new vocabulary. Teaching grammar. Selection of grammar minimum for teaching and learning. Grammar skills. Approaches to teaching grammar: implicit and explicit. Types of exercises.

Teaching communication skills. Teaching listening. Mechanisms of a listening process. Types and selection criteria for listening materials. Stages of training listening. Teaching reading. Mechanisms of a reading process. Types of reading: in-depth, scanning, reading for gist, reading for specific information. Stages of working with texts. Teaching speaking. Specifics of monologues and dialogues. Methods and systems of exercises for encouraging speaking. Speaking assessment. Teaching writing. Primary writing skills. Common learner mistakes in spelling and punctuation. Different forms of writing practice. Teaching advanced writing.