Abstract:

Why to teach your course in English? How to teach your course in English? The authors of this paper have made an attempt to give answers to these important and relevant questions related to current challenges in constantly changing educational settings. To answer the first question is not a big deal. It is common knowledge that the English language performs the role of the global language of communication; this is why English assumes the responsibility to be tool #1 in multicultural and multilingual learning environments. To find the answer to the second question takes more time and effort. The purpose of this study is to substantiate the importance of working out a general strategy for teaching a university course in the English language. The leading research methods used by the authors are a theoretical analysis of scientific literature, a content analysis of pedagogical literature, and modeling. Drawing on literature of teaching EFL (English as a foreign language) / ESP (English for specific purposes), multicultural studies, as well as personal international teaching and learning experience, the authors examine the specificity of teaching courses in the foreign (English) language to university students and present the universal teaching model which may allow modeling any theoretical university course. The offered teaching model may include the development of training and test exercises aimed at facilitating specific academic vocabulary for the formation of students’ language proficiency in their majors.

The teaching model “Take five steps to successfully teach your course in English”, easy for being implemented into the educational process at university, consists of five steps:
Step 1. Compile a glossary of terms on the topic you plan to present. The glossary should not contain more than 10 terms on each topic.
Step 2. Explain/ translate if necessary into students’ L1 (Language 1) all the terms included into the glossary. You can use any dictionary with definitions and/ or a bilingual dictionary.
Step 3. Make a clear outline of the topic you intend to present. This step presupposes drafting a lecture plan with all the items and sub-items you are going to talk about.
Step 4. Prepare an accurate presentation.
Step 5. Equip your students with a handout, which is a printed powerpoint presentation. It is an easy step to take.

The model may include an intermediate stage between Step 2 and Step 3, at which academic vocabulary, namely terms and collocations, can be trained and tested.

The practical output of the research consists in the compilation of a bilingual glossary of academic terms in the English-Russian languages which can be utilized by university teachers and students. A set of training and test exercises is also presented. The paper discusses issues and practices of the studied model and offers general recommendations for university faculty.

Keywords:

Course drafting, facilitating academic vocabulary, modeling theoretical courses, specificity of teaching courses in English, training and test exercises.