Abstract:

For many years a lecturer has played a key role in teaching foreign languages at university, while students have acted as passive "consumers" of language skills. With the change of educational environment, it is a student who can be described as the main actor of the educational process. Nowadays it is undeniable that teaching of a foreign language should be a form of cooperation, where a student acts as an equal member of the educational process. The official documents of the Council of Europe say that the priority for a foreign language lecturer is to "teach a student how to learn". Pedagogical activity of a foreign language lecturer is carried out in various situations which can be defined as a complex of cognitive and educational actions of students, among which are communication, research, subject-transforming, supervision, and assessment. It is a feature of pedagogical activity of a foreign language lecturer that he/she not only arranges the process of acquiring a language by students, but also promotes foreign language communication according to different models of pedagogical communication (the interactive model, the transactional model and the systematic and dynamic model). In addition to the professional and pedagogical skills contained in the job description of a foreign language lecturer, he/she should also be able to use the latest information training technologies in modern teaching conditions. A foreign language lecturer should actively use a computer and consider it as a necessary tool to solve many problems that cannot be solved without it. A computer is necessary for a lecturer to prepare a variety of didactic materials promptly, including interactive ones, to arrange the learning process in the classroom and self-education of new student groups; to expand the set of forms, methods and teaching techniques, as well as to supervise and enrich existing ones. Moreover, a computer makes it possible to redistribute training time within the framework of the program in a rational way and to exclude from classes those types of work that can be much more effectively done with the help of information technologies; to arrange well-managed and creative independent activity of students, which significantly increases the motivation to study; to organize the educational and tangible communication among those involved in the educational process. The analysis of job descriptions of a foreign language lecturer, proposed by different scientists at various times, has made it possible to get some idea of professional and personal qualities of a modern foreign language lecturer. Taking into account the objectives of our research, to the previously identified lecturer’s personal traits, as well as significant competences such as good education, creativity, flexibility, a high degree of authenticity of speech and linguistic behaviour, variability, and communicative and linguistic culture we should add testological competence and a high level of information culture (willingness to use electronic resources and means in the educational process).

Keywords:

Educational process, pedagogic work, information and communication technologies (ICT), job descriptions of a foreign language lecturer.