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ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ И ПРАКТИЧЕСКИЕ ВОПРОСЫ ОБУЧЕНИЯ ИНОСТРАННЫМ ЯЗЫКАМ Изотова Наталья Сергеевна
Старший преподаватель КАЯ, зам.декана, руководитель американской программы Байкальской Международной Бизнес-Школы Иркутского Государственного Университета, г. Иркутск, Россия
УДК 004.378 ББК 74.5:73
АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ДИСТАНЦИОННОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В БАЙКАЛЬСКОЙ МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ БИЗНЕС-ШКОЛЕ ИРКУТСКОГО ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА
В статье анализируется 15-летний опыт сотрудничества Иркутского государственного университета с зарубежными вузами-партнерами в области предоставления дистанционного обучения на уровне получения первой ступени высшего образования - бакалавра. Была предпринята попытка обобщить накопленный опыт и выявить проблемы в организации онлайн обучения российских студентов в университете Соединённых Штатов Америки и Австралии.
Ключевые слова: дистанционное высшее образование; онлайн обучение; платформа обучения; интернет-технологии; электронные учебники.
URGENT ISSUES OF THE DUAL-DEGREE COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS AT BAIKAL INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL OF
IRKUTSK STATE UNIVERSITY
The article brings analysis of the 15-year Irkutsk State University experience in dual-degree online undergraduate studies, which lead to the Bachelor Degree in Management Studies. The article scrutinizes the existing experience and current issues
and challenges Russian students face while online studies and during the process of class arrangement in American and Australian Universities.
Key words: distance higher education; online education; educational platform; Internet Technologies; electronic textbook materials.
Each student has his or her own preferred way of knowledge acquisition. Previous experience of professors clearly demonstrates the difficulties teachers used to face while searching for individual approaches to student teaching process. Nowadays, the development of informational technologies and Internet online tools brought the possibility to fully satisfy the needs and desires of students while the cognition processes. As R.S. Bekirova and S.P. Rykov affirm there is no problem in attaining the information in the era of Informational Technologies but in the ability to analyze, systematize, and apply the information into practice [Бекирова, Рыков, 2010, с. 79]. Modern technologies make the learning process more interesting and up-to-date. Advanced software programs along with the Internet applications provide an opportunity to create and exchange information in a fast and accurate manner.
ISU-UMUC Dual-Degree Programs have been in existence for more than twenty years. The first collaborative program was established in 1991 together with University Maryland University College (UMUC) which provided only onsite face-to-face teaching mode in Irkutsk up to 1998 financial crisis in Russia [Российско-американская программа, 2013]. American professors used to come to Irkutsk for an academic semester and deliver lectures and practice classes to undergraduate students of Baikal International Business School. After the 1998 crisis the partner university offered to switch to the online teaching mode which has been successfully implemented ever since. The two universities signed a memorandum of understanding which implied 90 credit hours to be accounted from the courses of Irkutsk State University and 30 credit hours - from University Maryland University to apply towards two degrees in Bachelor of Science in Management - one from UMUC, the second - from ISU. Since then American courses have been delivered through UMUC's distant-learning platform WebTycho. One more collaborative program with University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Australia was opened in 2003 [Российско-австралийская программа, 2013].
Currently, Baikal International Business-School has more than 15-year successful experience providing educational services with a combination of onsite and online studies. The success of BIBS' alumni vividly proves the fact, as they are building their careers globally - in Russia, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and China.
The transition to distance learning was accompanied by some challenges from the technical and human communication perspective. Both collaborative programs grow and develop. Some issues have been resolved and overcome, although there still exist some problems when it comes to technical issues or miscommunications between administration, faculty, and students.
For instance, both American and Australian programs face technical problems from time to time though the main problem here does not lie in the technical issue it-
self but the way it is handled. The Australian university-partner has a lot of departments which need to communicate the problem through before it is solved. The number of people responsible for problem solving process is very high. Therefore, the time lag is created for the solution to the problem. Sometimes it happens so that UMUC's site is unavailable due to planned 12-20 hour upgrade and the students who tend to procrastinate with project's completion fail to meet the deadline on an assignment which may lead to a zero on the project and/or a failing grade on the whole course. If a learner proves the procrastination reason to be the technical problem of the UMUC's site, he or she is given the chance to post the completed assignment for grading.
One more complexity in distance learning with Australian university is the seasonal difference in the northern and southern hemispheres. Consequently, the academic terms may be dramatically different in the fall, spring, winter and summer semesters. This may hinder the creation of group projects with worldwide participants. For example, one semester has only students from Northern hemisphere, therefore, Irkutsk students can build up teams with students from Germany, Spain or China and not from Australia or New Zealand which may obstruct the exchange of cross-cultural communication and experience and expertise share.
The advantage of the program is a small time-zone difference between Irkutsk and Brisbane in Australia - only one hour. This helps create more instant studentprofessor communication through skype or online chat. Within UMUC-ISU program the professor-student communication is normally done through emails and posts in conferences. It rarely takes place simultaneously due to the big gap between Irkutsk and Adelphi, MD, time zones. Depending on the season of the year, the time difference is 12 or 13 hours. Moreover, some teachers reside and deliver classes from many different states in the USA with diverse time zones. This is the factor which needs to be taken into consideration by both professors and students when a conference call or a skype session is being set up.
One more issue that deserves particular attention is the lack of desire and expertise of both students and faculty to spend enough time online and learn and apply new IT tools and apps in the teaching-learning process. T.I Blinova and L.A. Lutsenko confirm the idea of expertise deficiency [Блинова, Луценко, 2010, с. 94]. This concept is also supported by Y.A.Shichkina and N.V. Kameneva suggesting that the teachers willing and proficient enough to apply ITs are not numerous [Шичкина, Каменева, 2010, с. 112]. Here is an example, out of ten courses taught via distant online platform only two or three educators integrate skype, chats and conference calls with students during the studies. Other faculty members follow a standard syllabus which presumably offers a certain minimum of activities to be obligatory applied with students such as assigned reading material, conference participation by posting written comments, paper and projects completion and final tests or projects. All in all, the live-time student-professor communication is minimal, which causes strong dissatisfaction among students who primarily tend to acquire knowledge through direct interaction with a teacher.
The language barrier and cross-cultural misunderstandings between a foreign teacher and students who are parted by thousands of kilometers represent another challenge while studying through distance online education. With regard to this fact, the students of ISU are considered to be eligible to apply to either international collaborative program with Australian or American university only after scoring 550 on a paper-based version of TOEFL, 79-80 on the Internet version of TOEFL, or 7.0 on IELTS. The English department faculty devised an integrated approach to teaching the English language at Baikal International Business-School which proved its efficiency with profound students' results on the internationally certified tests and is used in many educational programs of BIBS. Normally, English professors devise a particular course specifically for the needs of students, may it be a preparation for a certified test, the English language for beginners, English for specific purposes or Business English [Горелова, 2007, с. 279]. For this reason, the BIBS undergraduate students take intensive course of the English language while they are freshmen and sophomores. However, not every student meets a requirement of 550 on pbt TOEFL or 79-80 on ibt TOEFL even after immersion courses in English. Sometimes cross-cultural differences in applying teaching methods may bring discussions and arguments between an international professor and a student. Every foreign university has specifically designed codes of conduct. And every student regardless the country of permanent or temporary residence is obliged to follow the rules described in the document. For instance, the article on policies towards academic dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism clearly states the criteria when papers may fall under consideration and pledged as plagiarism or cheating and the consequential actions a professor may execute towards a paper and a student's academic standing [Академическая нечестность и плагиат, 2010]. Russian mentality students are keen on completing assignments as group ones even if it is an individual one. Therefore, there appear the situations when Russian students forget or confuse or mistakenly use quotation marks while writing papers or apply different stylistic methods for paper formalization. To solve these kinds of problems students are to take several extra English writing courses at the very beginning of the collaboration program. These courses are aimed to foster cross-cultural flexibility and awareness of speaking and writing standards in business and academic atmosphere.
One more aspect that is worth noticing is students' maturity. Russian students are not as independent and mature as American or European students who tend to solve their academic or organizational problems themselves. ISU students are more likely to ask for assistance from their advisors or the program director prior to their own attempt for problem solving. As a result, this approach to problem solving prolongs the process of devising and handling the situation.
The next difficulty in the process of distance learning represents the textbooks and course material supply. The main challenge here applies to Russian legislation and customs. Textbooks may be kept at Russian customs for 4-6 weeks even if they are sent via postal services such as FedEx or DHL and the materials still may fail to reach the students by the beginning oа the academic year. As a solution to the problem, ISU has attempted to purchase e-books for the students. However, the majority
of international publishing houses refuse to sell e-books to Russian Federation due to lack of legislation that would protect the rights of the authors from plagiarism and illegal copying. ISU and UMUC have reached the agreement on partial e-book supplies online or UMUC purchasing the electronic materials for ISU. Starting 2015 many universities in the United States including Maryland University are to provide the course reading materials within a course itself, therefore, the students will no longer have to purchase textbooks separately from the course.
In conclusion, among the existing distance education challenges at Siberian-American School of Management at BIBS, ISU the urgent issues are not technical ones but the ones that imply communication psychology and maturity between technical departments of partner-universities and ISU, as well as between students and faculty when it comes to:
1)time and season discrepancy;
2)lack of desire and interest to apply new technologies in the educational process;
3)mentality differences which may lead to cross-cultural miscommunication;
4)language barrier;
5)relative immaturity and dependency of Russian students;
6)untimely course materials supply.
Библиографический список
1. Академическая нечестность и плагиат [Электронный ресурс]. - Сайт «UMUC». - 2010. - URL : http://www.umuc.edu/policies/academicpolicies/aa15025.cfm (дата обращения: 08.11.2013).
2. Бекирова, Р. С. Интерактивные технологии обучения в контексте компе-тентностного подхода в образовании [Текст] / Р. С. Бекирова, С. П. Рыков // Проблемы социально-экономического развития Сибири : научный журнал БрГУ / под ред. С. В. Белокобыльского. - Братск : БрГУ, 2010. -Вып.1. - С. 77-84.
3. Блинова, Т. И. Инновационные подходы к системе подготовки преподавателей вузов [Текст] / Т. И. Блинова, Л. А. Луценко // Проблемы социально-экономического развития Сибири : научный журнал БрГУ / под ред. С. В. Белокобыльского. - Братск : БрГУ, 2010. - Вып.2. - С. 93-99.
4. Горелова, Н. С. Об особенностях методики преподавания английского языка на САФ БИБММ [Текст] / Н. С. Горелова // Бизнес-образование и эффективное развитие экономики : тезисы докладов науч.-практ. конф.-(23апр.- 17 мая 2007 г., Иркутск) / Байкальский институт бизнеса и международного менеджмента. - Иркутск : ИГУ. - 2007. - С. 278-281.
5. Российско-американская программа БМБШ [Электронный ресурс]. -Сайт «Иркутский государственный университет». - 2013. - URL : http://www.buk.irk.ru/saf/in.php?page=usa_program#spec_5_44_1 (дата обращения: 08.11.2013).
6. Российско-австралийская программа БМБШ [Электронный ресурс]. -Сайт «Иркутский государственный университет». - 2013. - URL :
http://www.buk.irk.ru/saf/in.php?page=usq_program#spec_5_44_1 (дата обращения: 08.11.2013).
7. Шичкина, Ю. А. Психологические требования к использованию интерактивных методов при подготовке будущих педагогов [Текст] / Ю. А. Шичкина, Н. В. Каменева // Проблемы социально-экономического развития Сибири : научный журнал БрГУ / под ред. С. В. Белокобыльского. -Братск : БрГУ, 2010. - Вып.3. - С. 111-115.
Слезко Юлия Викторовна
Старший преподаватель кафедры образования в области романо-германских языков Школы педагогики, филиал Дальневосточного федерального университета, г. Уссурийск, Россия
УДК 378 ББК 74.4
ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНО МАРКИРОВАННЫЕ СТРАТЕГИИ ОВЛАДЕНИЯ ТУРИСТИЧЕСКИМ ДИСКУРСОМ СТУДЕНТАМИ
НЕЯЗЫКОВОГО ВУЗА
В статье обосновывается необходимость обучения стратегиям овладения туристическим дискурсом в неязыковом вузе, выявляются типы соответствующих стратегий (стратегии модификации профессионального дискурса, мета-когнитивные и риторические стратегии) и номенклатура составляющих их умений. Определяются функции и качества учебных стратегий, которые необходимо учитывать при овладении туристическим дискурсом.
Ключевые слова: учебные стратегии; метакогнитивные стратегии; риторические стратегии; туристический дискурс; креолизованный текст; умения.
PROFESSIONALLY MARKED STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING
OF TOURISM DISCOURSE The article concerns the necessity of teaching the undergraduates majoring in Tourism strategies for learning tourism discourse. The types of the strategies are identified (strategies for modification of professional discourse, metacognitive strategies, and rhetorical strategies) as well as the classification of the components of their skills. Functions and specific features of learning strategies that need to be taken into consideration when learning tourism discourse are viewed.
