Innovation in Language Learning

To be college and career ready today, student learning must go beyond mastery of core subjects and include 21st century knowledge and skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem solving, cultural awareness, and technology literacy. New teacher candidates should not only be equipped with 21st century knowledge and skills  but be ready to integrate them into their classroom practice. This is not a matter of teaching either academic or 21st century knowledge and skills. It’s about fusing the two, so that our children meet the demands of a global economy, and can fully  participate in a vibrant and civil society. New teachers should be prepared to become change agents for embedding 21st century knowledge and skills in accordance with national educational standards. Do our educator preparation programms  meet  the needs of 21st century learners? The research has shown that combining structural changes with a real modernization of the content of learning remains the biggest challenge. Many universities  have simply split their long first degrees in half and renamed them bachelor and master, or made no changes at all except in name or  5-year' course cycles have been squeezed into the new 3-year' courses instead of shaping the first and second cycle in a more balanced way. There is no denying that “the bar must be raised for successful teacher preparation programs” because we ask much more of teachers today than before. For this we are to reconsider and redesign these programs.The papers summarises the results of such an attempt which was done in South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University by launching a new master’s program“ Foreign language and assessment of language knowledge and proficiency quality” (44.04.01 - Pedagogy). 

Keywords: educator preparation program, assessment of language proficiency quality, 21th century skills;