Abstract:

Present day social interaction is facing new challenges under the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to prolonged period of lock-down and isolation students are demonstrating symptoms of growing frustration, intolerance and even aggression. Students of the faculties of Foreign Languages at the Moscow Aviation Institute (University) and at the Russian State Social University were involved in research of verbal means and tactics in speech communication. The present study is focused on the changes of verbal behavior in educational environment under the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current study is making use of the case-based reasoning system to analyze speech communication between students under the conditions of self-isolation. Thus, the students were challenged to describe a person’s behavior in communication on the basis of verbal means and speech tactics used in his/ her speech. The stimulus texts contained specially chosen conflict situations. The students were provoked to define the verbal tactics used in the texts in order to provide a regulative function of speech. The research has proved the major role of occasional metaphors and phraseology in creating the highest persuasion impact. The experiment work was carried out in the virtual educational environment under the COVID-19 pandemic. The students worked with texts during the classes in the form of live webinars. It aroused much interest and provoked discussion of complex nature of verbal communication and its role in educational process and socialization of people, in general.
The second part of the study included a questionnaire: 147 students were to answer 7 questions on accessibility, operability, flexibility, efficiency of a new virtual educational environment developed by the universities under the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research has also demonstrated the necessity of developing new forms of communication between students ‘in class’ and ‘out-of-class’, on-line and off-line. The lack of ‘person-to-person’ interaction under the lock-down conditions should be compensated by new forms of verbal communication in virtual educational environment. The teaching staff is to provide not only a sufficient level of education, but also a vital verbal interaction between students and the teaching staff.
The study included an experiment on working out educational instruments how to avoid verbal frustration and to develop effective verbal communication in the virtual educational environment.
Thus, the research seems to provide a reasonable solution to a number of problems occurring in interpersonal and international communication under the COVID-19 pandemic. The conclusions may help develop effective instruments of providing social interaction under current conditions of virtual or blended learning.

Keywords:

Virtual educational environment, speech communication, verbal tactics.