Abstract:

The rapid dynamics of information technologies in education fundamentally enriches and develops the methodology of teaching foreign languages. Digital linguodidactics is a new term that precisely describes the essence of the innovative, digital, interactive environment that engages learners of a foreign language. The integration of media resources in the education significantly expands the boundaries and possibilities of teaching a foreign language, transforming the traditional format into the digital one.

Since digital technologies are socially significant, playing an important role in the implementation of a particular human activity, the usage of digital linguodidactic methods seems to be appropriate when teaching foreign languages, in particular Russian as a foreign language.
Online newspaper reading activities have proved to be a useful classroom tool for philologists as it improves reading skills in general and enhances students’ professional competences. In the past different lexical and grammatical patterns were studied on the printed newspapers’ texts, then over time new formats were involved into work They were texts of TV news and radio programs. Nowadays training on this aspect is impossible without the use of online media texts, since they have several advantages over print sources: interactivity, the availability of both printed and video/audio materials, the possibility of quick search the information you need, approachability, etc. The multimedia classes in universities allow teachers to use materials from online resources during the lesson.

Teaching reading online news has two-step structure. First, the lexical set and grammar are worked out on the basis of specialized tutorials. It helps students acquire basic skills of reading newspaper with political content. The language of these texts is highly standardized, which causes great difficulties for foreign students to study this material. The second point is, working on the original texts, which are taken from the Internet resources.

The study was conducted on the example of Euronews site (http://ru.euronews.com/). This choice is not random, here is why.
Firstly, most news is presented in text and video formats. Moreover, the printed and sounding texts completely coincide. This allows the teacher to significantly increase the list of possible tasks. Videos are small in duration (1-2 minutes), voiced by both male and female voices, which is also a positive point in training. Secondly, the site is duplicated on many European and Asian languages. This allows students to study the material, if necessary, in their native language, and the teacher – to introduce students to the elements of relevant translation activities. Multilingual site structure provide foreign students with training to read not only Russian-language news sites, but also when working on the English, German, etc. newspapers, that makes such tasks universal. Thirdly, the presence of a search system facilitates the teacher’s work when selecting material for the study of various topics within the framework of the training course (for example, speech practice on the topics “Official Visits”, “Business Negotiations”, “Business Conferences”, “International Cooperation” etc.).

The given methods and techniques of digital learning have received sufficient testing results in the Russian language classes in groups of foreign students studying at the Pushkin State Russian language Institute.

Keywords:

Digital learning, linguodidactics, teaching foreign language, online media text.