Abstract:

Pedagogical support is one of the most significant aspects of teaching a foreign language at a modern university. Pedagogical support has become especially important in the conditions of the global epidemiological situation and the need for self-isolation. The introduction of algorithmization in drawing up dialogues by communication participants in foreign language classes contributes to the proper structuring of the dialogue and its flow in an interactive speech mode.

The main objectives of the article are:
• to analyze the role of the algorithm in the student's speech activities in an interactive mode using the problem solving as a means of pedagogical support to enhance the students’ dialogical speech;
• to describe the chosen algorithm in order to prove that pedagogical support in the form of providing students with a specific and understandable algorithm for learning activities contributes to increasing the degree of dialogic speech interactivity in the pair work mode;
• to consider the issues of students’ creative reproduction and partial reconstruction of the previously covered educational material when working with the algorithm;
• to find out whether the problem-solving algorithm is more acceptable for low-performing students, since this student cohort experiences the greatest difficulties in communication.

The article highlights the issue of the collaborative activity algorithmization in English language studies in a modern technical university. An attempt is made to refine the algorithmization and algorithm definitions. The MS Teams service is proposed as the most appropriate virtual platform for implementing digital collaborative technology, and particular attention is paid to the effectiveness of using it with the problem-solving algorithm involved. It is concluded that the use of the digital collaborative technology with the problem-solving algorithm is relevant, as it contributes to the development of the learners’ ability to solve general professionally-oriented tasks. It is proposed to use the developed problem-solving algorithm as scaffolding for intensifying foreign language interaction in the pairing mode. Assessment of the students’ dialogues in English carried out in an experiment involving 114 learners, revealed that the dialogues drawing on the algorithmic speech component have become not only more detailed but also more meaningful and constructive.

Keywords:

Algorithmization, collaborative activities, problem-solving, dialogues, foreign language classes, technical university.