Abstract:

1960s – 1970s (American and European countries) and `1980s (former countries of The Union of Soviet Social Republics) saw a boom of foreign languages (FL) rooms re-equipment and modernization. But this upgrade process failed because it fell short of educationalists’ and educators’ great expectations.

The main reasons for the lack of great effect on FL training enhancement are likely to be the following:
• Imperfection of the firmware used;
• Behaviouristic method of FL training;
• Application of the equipped FL rooms mainly in the listening practice;
• Absence of the language educators readiness to work correctly with the new equipment, etc.

The evolution of the technical facilities of information and communications technologies (ICT) and the enhancement of the methodical approaches to their application have initiated a new stage for FL training improvement by means of ICT-based language laboratories. Nowadays, most of the educational institutions have the FL rooms, equipped with the multimedia computers with an access to the local and global networks.

The ICT-based language laboratories function on the bases of the firmware or software complexes capable to provide informational interaction between all the participants of the educational process. These very complexes are named as multimedia language platforms, language software, digital language laboratories, etc.

The problem here to be stated is that modern FL teachers can hardly know all the functionalities of these products available on the educational market as well as their linguodidactic functions. Moreover, the capabilities of some well-known products may not be practical in all situations, for example, as in our case, in engineering universities. Studies on linguodidactic capabilities of ICT-based language laboratories and specific features of their realization as applied to engineering universities are still lacking. As the result, the application of these highly effective means of FL training in engineering universities is complicated.

The overall purpose of this paper is twofold. The first motivation is to give a comprehensive account of the ICT-based language laboratories as a phenomenon. The second one is to determine the methodical approaches to the usage of the ICT-based language laboratories in self-instructed students’ work and to estimate their practical value in an engineering university. The methodology for the research is based on the overall purpose.

We used theoretical as well as empirical methods to reach the following research objectives:
• To reveal the functionalities and linguodidactic functions of the firmware for ICT-based language laboratories from the well-known producers of educational products and service;
• To give a comprehensive account of the essence, components and linguodidactic capabilities of the ICT-based language laboratories and to develop the requirements to FL training design in a language laboratory as applied to an engineering university.
• To estimate the possibility to improve the quality of FL training in an engineering university by means of the developed methodical approaches to the usage of the ICT-based language laboratories in self-instructed students’ work

Keywords:

ICT, multimedia language platforms, language software, digital language laboratories, foreign language training, self-instructed work.