KEY FACTORS TO USE BLENDED LEARNING IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN RUSSIAN ENGINEERING UNIVERSITIES

Recent changes on the global labour market provoked significant changes in requirements to qualification of a modern engineer. Nowadays, the desired attributes of an engineering graduate include not only professional knowledge, but also high-level communication skills. Engineering education in countries where the native language is not English – such as Russia – is also influenced by the need to develop foreign language skills to enable competitiveness of their graduates in modern society. The importance of learning foreign languages and ability to apply them in technical communication has increased dramatically in the last decade.

Unfortunately, any urgent attempts to find new solutions that can be observed in Russian institutions of higher engineering education usually result in increase of academic workload and are often non-cost-effective in the conditions of intensification of engineering curricular. The goal of this study is to describe the key factors of using blended learning in teaching foreign languages at Russian engineering universities in response to the new vision of engineering education. The authors encourage educators and designers of language courses for engineers to think of the following challenges that are common for most Russian technical universities:
- the need to focus on the context of engineering and develop students’ meta-competences,
- drop in classroom load for language courses in modern engineering programmes,
- shortage of qualified educators in non-English-speaking countries,
- specific characteristics of course enrolment that define approaches to teaching and learning,
- engagement as the main driver of students’ learning that has a crucial importance in programmes where the native language is other than English,
- availability of facilities and the level of desired flexibility of a future course.

The article describes the experience of National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, where development of blended courses is greatly supported by the University administration under Development Programmme. Different top-down initiatives that create a stimulus and motivation for development and launch of new teaching practices are discussed. Development of meta-competences through several courses across the programme is illustrated for written and oral communication in English. Numerous benefits for educators and students are introduced.