Application of the Educational Information and Communication Technologies for Teaching Foreign Languages to Students Majoring in Information Technologies

Abstract

The article presents the overview of cutting-edge educational information and communication technologies used by the lecturers of the Department of Cross-Cultural Professional Communication of the Faculty of Engineering and Economics of the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics for teaching foreign languages to the undergraduate students of the first stage of higher education receiving a bachelor’s degree in information technologies. The article also analyses the effectiveness of the Telegram-based information channels used by the lecturers of foreign languages as an alternative to sending materials to students via e-mail. The author outlines an interactive web-based resource slido.com for visualising the results of brainstorming sessions instead of using the traditional ways of presenting the results of this teamwork format. The article describes a non-standard way of introducing new vocabulary with the help of rebuses created on a web-based resource rebus.club which does not require any prior registration. The author also presents an additional way of assessment of the level of proficiency in oral examination topics and revision of their content within the final classes after completing the study of a module or section in the format of an interactive Jeopardy game created with the help of a template based on a web-based resource jeopardylabs.com. To conduct current and final lexical and grammar tests on the topics covered within the course of practical classes of a foreign language, as well as to allow students to evaluate their success in the classroom, a web-based resource onlinetestpad.com is offered to replace traditional methods of assessment of the undergraduate students of the first stage of higher education receiving a bachelor’s degree in information technologies.