Abstract:

A good command of the English language as the language of international communication is considered to be one of the obligatory skills of a competent specialist that is why the problem of learning English as a second language is viewed as an important one at Higher School. It should be emphasized that today’s students in a multicultural class, especially freshers and sophomore ones, come across some crucial difficulties and need support in the process of linguistic and communicative competences formation.
The purpose of the research is the formation of effective conditions for a foreign language learning, using a student-centred approach to create individual student trajectories that would allow each student to have successful competence development, sociocultural and ethnocultural adaptation in a multicultural class.
Significant pedagogical conditions and methodological approaches as the basis for the implementation of pedagogical conditions in the educational process of teaching students a foreign language in a multicultural class have been proposed.
A multicultural class is a specific environment which needs to enhance planning and reflective functions of the learning process in organizing teamwork and individual learning activities of students, choosing principles of pedagogical interaction, predicting learning outcomes, and analyzing achievements and failures.
It is underlined that a careful selection of material, the optimization of the educational process, the inclusion of students in creative activities, the creation of cooperation between a student and a professor will contribute to the formation of long-term positive motivation for learning and better transfer knowledge to students in a multicultural class.
The study was conducted at the Southern Federal University, Russia, 106 students of different majors in the first and second years were involved. The levels of formation of linguistic and communicative competences of students have been examined, evaluated, and analyzed during the study.
The definition of the terms “multicultural class” and cross-cultural educational environment” has been clarified.

Keywords:

Higher Education, English as a second language, individual trajectories of students, cross-cultural educational environment, linguistic and communicative competences, sociocultural adaptation.