Innovation in Language Learning

Integration of the Russian system of the higher engineering education into the global educational domain compelled Russian universities to enhance the importance of humanities in the engineering programs with a special focus on learning foreign languages, mostly English as a global language for communication. In the modern interpretation of its functions, the foreign language is considered not only an instrument of the cross-cultural communication, but also an essential tool for the international professional development and career growth of the specialists.

On the one hand, the statistics proves that the language situation in Russia is getting better year by year, and in order not to miss the emerging trend, it is necessary to maximize the attention to this issue right at the level of the higher education. On the other hand, we must admit that the system of language education at the university level still comes up against serious problems of historical, economic or political background, for which reason there are processes in the system that hinder or hamper solution of the tasks set before the university.

In the framework of the paper the authors endeavor to analyze these problems, systemizing them as crucially important to the improvement of the language situation in general and those which can be solved then with less efforts and investments. The experience obtained allows the authors to cite from their point of view “the best practices” of European universities like TUM (Germany) and UPC (Spain) with the aim to import some elements of them into the educational system of Russia.

Being based on the results, the authors are developing the recommendations that may contribute to improvement of the current situation with the language proficiency among students and graduators of technical universities in Russia.