Vol 14, No 1 (2017)

The article deals with new approaches to the implementation of the main objectives of foreign language teaching in non-language universities. Competence approach to learning in higher education creates conditions for mastering professional competences complex. The socio-cultural, communication, information, social and psychological competencies can be formed in the process of learning a foreign language in high school. Use of credible sources in the process of learning a foreign language is able to significantly improve the efficiency of the educational activities of teachers and create an atmosphere of real language communication. A significant role in this task plays the encyclopaedic approach, which refers to the expansion of the range of the studied material.

In article features of test tasks of the closed type are considered. The analysis of appeal of distractors of the test tasks applied to monitoring of progress of students on department of the higher mathematics and applied informatics of the Samara state technical university is carried out. The hypothesis of uniform distribution of distractors is checked.

Identified organizational and substantive aspects of the process enhance the professionalism of English language teacher. A list of the basic forms in which possible professional development. It is established that the basic form of increasing of professionalism is self-education. Shows the main steps of increase of professional level in their relationship with each other.

This paper addresses the issue of the appropriateness of using virtual reality in the educational process, especially when studying a foreign language and developing the communicative competence as its main component. The means of virtual reality are increasingly being introduced into various spheres of our life, including the educational environment in many foreign countries. The paper lists the main possibilities of virtual reality, especially those ones that are most applicable for the productive use during the educational process. The definition of the communicative competence with its main components is given in the paper. The author gives an example of an already developed educational program based on the elements of virtual reality, and its active and efficient use in the modern world of education for teaching a second language. At the end of the paper the author comes to the conclusion that the various means of information technologies based on virtual reality serve as an excellent way to develop the communicative competence for teaching a foreign language.

Individual work of students (ISW) is an integral part of the educational process. Formally, the volume of individual work is established by the curricula. On the examples of majors 38.03.01, 38.03.02, it is shown that the existing planning of the ISW is not rational. In the context of continuous reform of the educational process, it is extremely difficult to find the optimal ratio of the content of assignments for the formation of competences and the complexity of these tasks. In order to reduce the unreasonable expenditure of time for the implementation of the ISW, it is suggested to monitor the workload of students, to use educational and methodological materials to form effective technological skills and tasks performance, and to promote self-study planning skills from the first semester.