Coordinative and communicative potential of using personal digital devices for foreign-language projects at a language university
Authors: Motov S. V. 
Published: November 2024

Importance. Personal digital devices, which have spread significantly over the last decade, are now becoming an integral element of social life, including its educational aspect. At the same time, traditionally such devices are more often perceived as a factor that impedes learning. However, the expanding functionality of personal digital devices presents a number of opportunities for optimizing the educational process. The purpose of the research is to summarize the existing experience in employing personal digital devices in the context of a foreign language course and to propose a number of scenarios for the coordinating and compensating use of such devices in the implementation of educational project activities.

Research Methods. This study is based on an expert approach, which allows, based on the analysis of the body of scientific works and relying on theoretical research methods, such as systematization, synthesis, classification and generalization, to highlight problems that have not found a proper solution among the presented works. The research materials were the works of domestic and foreign specialists in the field of foreign language teaching methods and linguodidactics.

Results and Discussion. The study of current views on the issues of using personal digital devices in the context of a university foreign language course made it possible to identify productive directions for turning to such devices when implementing educational project activities. Highlighted are scenarios of coordinating and compensating use of personal digital devices within the framework of a foreign language course. The research identifies a number of features and formats of coordinating educational interaction using personal digital devices. The research highlights remedial and complementary formats for the compensatory use of personal digital devices when presenting educational presentations within the framework of a university foreign language course.

Conclusions. Despite the traditionally wary attitude towards personal digital devices in the context of foreign language classes, there are a number of productive scenarios for their use. Such scenarios apply to both in-class and extracurricular educational work, each of which is an integral element of the implementation of project activities within the framework of a foreign language course. When used rationally and scientifically within a foreign language course, personal digital devices can compensate for a number of technical limitations, and in addition, help facilitate multimodal and multimedia coordination interactions between students working on an educational project. This reveals the coordinating and compensating nature of the use of personal digital devices when implementing foreign language project activities in the context of a language university.

Conclusions. Despite the traditionally wary attitude towards personal digital devices in the context of foreign language classes, there are a number of productive scenarios for their use. Such scenarios apply to both in-class and extracurricular educational work, each of which is an integral element of the implementation of project activities within the framework of a foreign language course. When used rationally and scientifically within a foreign language course, personal digital devices can compensate for a number of technical limitations, and in addition, help facilitate multimodal and multimedia coordination interactions between students working on an educational project. This reveals the coordinating and compensating nature of the use of personal digital devices when implementing foreign language project activities in the context of a language university.