Abstract:

The modern world opens new vistas for the informal online teaching of the English language to social media users. At the same time Internet communication formats affect language teaching, performed by professional lecturers at universities as well. Online communication patterns influence instructors' discourse and students' communicative behavior in the EFL university classroom. The article focuses on EFL teachers' communication techniques, employing new social media platforms (Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp), and communication patterns used in online classes at universities. The research depicts the functional language of informal online teaching practice and analyses to what extent this language might be used in formal classroom learning. The relevance of this topic is determined by the task of studying the communicative-pragmatic characteristics of EFL teachers' discourse within the framework of new teaching formats, particularly, online learning. The study presupposes that the lingua-cognitive approach to language teaching is relevant for both education and cognitive linguistics and is based on its methodology. Since the research focuses on EFL teachers' professional discourse, it employs such discourse analysis methods as communicative-pragmatic, cultural, cognitive, experimental. Specifically, the research of EFL teachers' discourse working in the online environment is to be conducted as a pilot study with the goal to collect samples of professional communication patterns on the YouTube channel and in Instagram.

Keywords:

online teaching, EFL teacher, new social media, professional discourse