In search of ways to implement online learning for students of a language university in the global force majeure era: an empirical study
Authors:   Moscow City University, Kolesnikov Andrei A. 
Published: December 2024

Global force-majeure events and circumstances of recent years make it necessary to revise approaches to the implementation of the educational process, including language education. The crisis factor of 2020-2022 and the unprecedented increase in the importance of distance learning are complemented by the factor of transition to a post-non-classical educational system characterized by openness, autonomization, and personalization. Taking these factors into account, the article attempts to rethink the possibilities of organizing the educational process in the field of teaching foreign languages and linguistic/linguodidactic disciplines in a language pedagogical university. The research methods used were analysis (both empirical and theoretical - namely, scientific and methodological publications of recent years describing the possibilities of organizing the learning process in the field of language education in the context of epidemiological and socio-political crises) and design of own methodological “products”. The research is based on three fundamental questions that have arisen in the new realities and represents a search for an answer to them: 1) what should be the optimal educational environment to realize the continuity of face-to-face and online learning in language education context? 2) what should be relied on and how to compensate for the problematic aspects of online learning in a language university? 3) what should be renewed in the teaching process in the online reality?
The existing most popular online learning platforms (Moodle/LMS, Google Classroom, MS Teams, etc.) were investigated from the point of view of their compliance with the needs of language education. The requirements for a domestic learning platform, which should provide effective management of the educational process, were defined. These requirements include the following: a) the availability of intuitive (for the teacher) tools for course development and administration, b) the availability of channels
for written and necessarily audiovisual communication between the teacher and students, c) the ability to place exercises and assignments of different types, assign individual, pair and group tasks, d) the ability to create a library of resources (data bank with teaching materials), e) the availability of a virtual interactive whiteboard, i.e. a space for collaborative work, presentation of materials and the results of the course. The leading requirement is to provide a unified educational media space for different formats/models of language and theoretical learning. This means that the platform should support language learning in three modes and allow switching between them at any time: face-to-face, remote and hybrid synchronized face-to-face and remote modes.
The analysis of advantages and disadvantages of the learning process in the conditions of online learning has allowed us to identify several directions for the transformation of the learning process in the new conditions, in particular: 1) reducing the share of formal-quantitative answers and shifting the emphasis to the types of work that require activation of universal thinking actions, critical and creative thinking within the framework of problem tasks, 2) increasing the degree of interactivity of written statements (thanks to the Web 2.0 opportunities), which implies the mandatory reading and commenting of written work by other students, differentiated teaching of written online speech, 3) introduction of technology for the “controlled autonomous learning”, including the context of informal learning, and 4) development of a new generation of training
courses, as well as modification of existing ones, taking into account the learning potential of Web 2.0 resources, which will make it possible to realize the possibilities of managing students’ independent work through these resources. The main attention
should be paid to the development of learning autonomy and differentiated opportunities for student self-actualization.
In order to implement some of the selected directions of the learning process transformation, we have developed and introduced into practice: a) technology of managing the student's daily learning activity (the author’s developments are presented: “Map of goal setting and planning of daily foreign language activity” and “Reflexive map of daily foreign language self-study”, the methodology of organising work with these maps is described), b) new aspects of the foreign language course (in particular, the organisation of independent reading in a foreign language using the interactive potential of social networks), as well as elective courses providing individualisation of learning through the possibilities of Web 2.0 resources (using the author’s elective course “TikTALK” as an example, which aims to study the linguodidactic potential of “new” audiovisual social networks and to give students – future teachers an idea of how authentic materials from the most popular social networks can be used in the learning process, taking into account age specifics and learning content), c) a new model of the course of teaching the language learning methodology.