Abstract:

The process of internationalization of the modern education system leads to more students studying abroad, which is a powerful stimulus of improving the system of education. It is connected with the implementation of the Bologna Process and the necessity of providing the students’ academic mobility.

Language training of international students is especially relevant nowadays in the current situation where education is becoming increasingly integrated in a substantial number of countries, including Russia. Internationalization of universities has become one of the most impactful criteria of their competitiveness both in the international and local education markets, indicating their prestige. RUDN (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia), which is a multidisciplinary and classic international university, is among them with students from 148 countries.

Teaching international students of various areas of specialization is characterized by short course lengths, high lexical and grammatical intensity as well as a practical approach to the process of language learning.

Such challenging tasks in the areas of science, cultural and professional education motivate teachers to use CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) which is based on the idea of integration, i.e. unification of various parts of the whole, in this case – the Russian language and various areas of law studied by international university students. The language is used as a tool for studying the content which is, in its turn, used as a resource for language learning.

The authors of the article present the model of the integrated subject-based language learning adapted for the students of law, the principles of its organization, the complex approach to its implementation as a way to intensify learning during the interaction of educational objectives (planned or expected results of the learning process), learning needs (skills and views needed for the adequate individual and social professional development), educational principles (linguistic and methodic base directing the methods and procedures required to reach the targets) and educational strategies (specific ways of educational problem solving, taking into consideration various alternative solutions).

The article provides the analysis of the reasons why CLIL, which provides the opportunity for students to use their foreign language in the natural environment, serves both the purpose of teaching legal disciplines and the language per se.

The authors share the results of language learning classroom experiments with a view to check the efficiency of the developed system. These results demonstrate its model, description, structure and content. The CLIL method and its multifold goals provide international students with an opportunity to demonstrate high performance, improve their problem solving skills and learn the ways of adapting to the ever-changing requirements and the opportunities offered by the modern education.

Keywords:

Integrated subject-based language learning, CLIL, academic mobility, internationalization of education, education strategies.