Abstract:

The research topic stems from the search for strategies to improve the training process of foreign language teachers (FLTs) during and after their university studies. Some essential features of constructive planning activities (CPAs) of FLTs as well as requirements for the teachers' professional knowledge, competences, and skills were considered and discussed. We assume that identifying the peculiarities of a foreign language as a goal, tool and means of learning in the performance of pedagogical function will allow us to more precisely formulate a set of professional requirements for FLTs and make all the necessary adjustments to the training programs for students of pedagogical universities and attendees of teacher refresher training courses.

In this regard, under "constructive planning activities" we understand a set of functionally interrelated actions of FLTs aimed at solving intermediate tasks of designing, modeling and building a plan sufficient for implementation of the ultimate goals and objectives of pedagogical process at university and beyond. Based on the results of the study, we concluded that CPAs of FLTs should be fixed in lesson plans and thematic programs and include three groups of interrelated actions. These include: selection and methodological organization of educational resources for each or a series of lessons in accordance with the ultimate goals and objectives of university education; teachers' actions queue definition in the class including presentation of the selected language material and integration of native speakers’ speech samples for better transmission of authentic language and motivation of students to communicate; students' actions queue definition when mastering language material, adopting or assimilating authentic samples and communicating them with teachers and peers in order to form and develop a foreign-language knowledge base, relevant skills, abilities, motives, etc.

These actions reflect the core features of CPAs, namely, modeling, adaptation, and communication. Similarly, professionally valuable skills of any FLT are based on the related abilities of modeling (as a step-by-step planning of the learning process and prediction of the expected results); adaptation (as an organized process of acquiring knowledge and motives for developing language competence) and communication (as a transfer of results through extensive use of learned material and practicing authentic samples).

In the process of our research, we primarily relied on the competence-based and system-structural approaches. The main sources for the study included: personal pedagogical experience as FLTs at Kazan Federal University (Russia); observations and analyses of the process of CPAs by fellow teachers and peer educators; monitoring and evaluation of students' performance during their teaching practice; study and assessment of reliability and completeness of the content of textbooks and methodological manuals for teachers; lesson plans and teachers' speeches at open public events, other important data on the problem from the relevant pedagogical and methodological literature both from Russia and abroad.

Keywords:

University, foreign language teachers (FLTs), student, constructive planning activities (CPAs).