Innovation in Language Learning

The aim of the study is to contribute to the improvement of general skills: confidence, self-motivation and speech characteristics thanks to participating in students’ conferences in foreign languages.

Ten years’ experience of organizing such conferences has been discussed showing ways to succeed in dealing with personal and interpersonal difficulties, in overwhelming negative emotions and low prospective self-evaluation. Retrospective monitoring and self-monitoring have been done proving changes in students’ interpersonal and communication skills. The theoretical basis that underlies this practice includes M.Avdonina research on self-assessment of students as subjects of foreign language speech activity. Participation in students’ conferences in foreign languages is a challenge demanding more internal work: to prepare the paper and to make an oral presentation of the obtained results a student must overcome psychological problems that s/he does not perceive when speaking the native language. This work is particularly relevant due to the rapidly changing requirements for young specialists in a situation where the number of graduates exceeds the number of available (released and established) jobs requiring high qualifications. The retro-monitoring shows that graduates having experienced the team training preparing presentations at the conference had develop good employability skills to keep the job, a better adaptability and are ready to manage their life, to change workplace and to study in order to learn a new profession.

Authors: 

Notina E.¹, Stepanov I.², Zhabo N.³, Avdonina M.⁴, Byakhova V.⁵

^1,3,4,5Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

²Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University

^1,4,5Russia, ²Ukraine, ³Belarus

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