Abstract:

The international engagement in science demands new requirements for developing academic programs for postgraduates, on the one hand, and generating and developing foreign communicative competence, on the other hand.

Academic programs should be aimed at forming foreign communicative competence in scientific sphere. However, the amount of in-class hours for teaching postgraduates is constantly reducing but at the same time students have to publish their research results in scientific journals in foreign languages. Therefore, it is necessary to find such forms of work, which can lead to desirable training outcomes. Thus, electronic educational platforms allow organizing qualitatively individual work of postgraduates in different aspects. The authors of the article identify authentic electronic educational platforms as the means for drilling foreign communicative competence. For the formation of competence in scientific sphere, the author's courses for various academic programs are required. These courses are provided in electronic educational platforms. To achieve the necessary training outcomes, the authors of the article approbate the authentic educational platform MyGrammar Lab and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of open educational platforms for providing of author's courses on the following criteria: availability of electronic environment; possibility of providing educational materials in various digital formats; automatization of assessment process; variety of data statistics of student’s learning activity in electronic educational platforms; variety of interactive modes between the participants of class activity in electronic educational platforms.

The analysis allows determining the platform, which is appropriate to desired goals of teaching foreign language of postgraduates.

The training is organized in three experimental groups:
1. Only in the platform MyGrammarLab that has not led to publication activity
2. Only with the use of author’s course “Academic English” that has led to high publication activity in Russian
3. Both with the use of MyGrammarLab platform and the author’s course “Academic English” that has led to high publication activity in English

The use of electronic educational platforms allows implementing the individual approach to foreign language teaching of postgraduates.

The article describes in detail the training outcomes in each of the experimental groups.

Keywords:

Academic English, teaching postgraduates, communicative competence, electronic educational platforms, MyGrammarLab.