Abstract:

Owing to the modern society’s globalization, mass communication and conversion to digital economics, the need for scientific and technical personnel with high foreign language proficiency is felt. Foreign language training in engineering universities is a priori complicated by the traditional problems of language education in the universities of non-philological type; but these problems are much more acute in the universities of engineering type. To solve them by means of contact hours, scheduled for the main professional subjects, or by means of extra curriculum lessons and, in so doing, to have the high level of science and engineering education without students’ overwork and overstrain is impossible. This impossibility of such an execution stipulates the necessity to intensify foreign language training in engineering universities. Theoretical investigations in linguodidactics of recent years have given us an opportunity to conclude that we are able to intensify foreign language training in engineering universities by means of information and communications technologies (ICT).

In this paper, we explore the possibility of foreign language training intensification in engineering universities by means of ICT and check the effectiveness of the received theoretical conclusions in test-teaching.

For the purpose mentioned above the present paper deals with the following research objectives:
1. To describe the specific character of foreign language training intensification in engineering universities within informatization;
2. To substantiate the possibility of foreign language training intensification in engineering universities by means of ICT;
3. To carry out the test-teaching on ICT usage in foreign language training in Ryazan Radio Engineering University according to the received theoretical conclusions and to reveal the necessary conditions of foreign language intensification in engineering universities by means of ICT.

The methodology for this research was determined by the overall purpose of the research. The theoretical as well as empirical methods to achieve the research objectives were used. We analysed and summarized the pedagogical literature, accumulated and systemised foreign and Russian experience in education informatization and linguodidactics, assessed the linguistic informational resources in the theoretical part of our study. We used the following empirical methods of investigations: observing, conversation, computerized testing, statistical methods as well as test-teaching of engineering students. The study was carried out in Federal State Budget Educational Institution of Higher Education «Ryazan State Radio Engineering university» (Russian Federation).

Keywords:

Foreign language training, engineering universities, intensification, ICT.