Abstract:

The motivation for learning lies at the heart of the effectiveness of any educational process. The transition to distance learning, due to COVID 19, in 2020, periods of lockdown required teachers to implement new teaching methods as soon as possible. This has become especially important for teaching a foreign language, primarily English, as it is based on personal communication. The protracted conditions of the pandemic have highlighted another significant problem: declining motivation among high school students.

Despite the presence of a fairly large number of studies, both on the formation of effective motivation for learning, and on new methods of teaching foreign languages in a blended learning environment, this article considers ways to maintain the level of student motivation in connection with the new methods of teaching a foreign language being introduced. Moreover, an assessment of the effectiveness of certain methods is given both by teachers and by students.

The authors consider the methods of teaching English to the students of non-linguistic institution in the context of blended and hybrid learning. Under “hybrid learning” we mean the situation when a part of students is engaged in face-to-face learning and the other part is on-line. The authors compare these methods in three aspects of teaching English as a foreign language such as the “use of English”, the “oral practice” and the “translation of social and political media texts” also assessing them from the point of view of keeping up the motivation of students. This assessment is given both by students and university teachers.

The research participants were the students of Faculty of Humanities and Social sciences of RUDN University of 1 – 3 years of learning since 2020. The students learned English both as their first foreign and their second foreign language. The research methodology included questionnairing and discussion of pros and cons of remote, blended and hybrid learning. Their analysis shows that in June of 2020 most of the first year students were against remote learning. The half of sophomores was for it. But in 2021 all the respondents admit that face-to-face learning is better than remote one because it is more motivating. The English teachers of the faculty also become the participants of the research – they answered the questions about the methods they use in blended and hybrid learning on the above mentioned aspects and which of them they consider more/less motivating according to the students’ year of teaching.

The authors come to the conclusion that situation with learning motivation in English teaching classes is very ambiguous. The motivation of students in learning English is under pressure; it varies and depends on the year of students’ admission. Therefore, the community of English teachers should elaborate and develop effective methods of teaching for blended and hybrid learning taking into account learning motivation of the students

Keywords:

Foreign language, English language teaching, remote learning, blended learning, hybrid learning, learning motivation.