On March 25, 2019 the winners of the 2018 – 2019 Vladimir Potanin Fellowship Programme grants contest were announced. This year’s winner of the grant on developing a Master’s course is Head of the Department of Modern Languages of the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications Ksenia Volchenkova.
The application to this grant was filed as part of fulfilling project 2.1.1. Implementing the Best Practices of Language Training in Universities under Programme 5-100. The project was a starting point for developing a series of training courses for Master’s students, postgraduates and academics of our university.
The course, submitted as a project development, mirrors the main trend of the recent decade – internationalization of the system of higher education. The internationalization instrument here is the development and fulfilment of Master’s programmes to be taught in English in order to attract international students and scientists.
In the priority project on Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Educational System for 2017-2025 one of the key indicators is the increase in the number of international students in Russian universities (by more than three times from 2017 by 2025). ICLHE (Integrated Content and Language Learning in Higher Education) is a new type of professional activity. Subject teachers will have to take additional training as part of their advanced training.
Increasing the number of Master’s programmes taught in English is one of the crucial tasks of our university for the next 10 – 15 years, as in the context of the globalisation of the higher education space there is a competition over the market of applicants, so, only quality educational services will allow the Russian education to fill its own niche in this field. The analysis of the dynamics in the growth of the programmes taught in English in Russian universities reveals that this process goes rather slowly at the regional level. The main reasons for the slow growth of the programmes taught in English are: low level of the English mastery by the university academics, and the lack of qualified ICLHE specialists in the region, who could help the university academics, subject teachers, develop the required competences in elaborating and fulfilling of a course to be taught in English with consideration to the international students’ expectations and the world’s best practices.
The project’s author suggests to implement a course on Integrated Special Disciplines and English Language Learning in Higher Education to the Master’s programme in 45.04.01 Theory and Practice of the English Language.
The implementing of this course will result in the availability of specialists in Integrated Special Disciplines and English Language Learning, who will be able to train world-level academics fulfilling Master’s programmes in English.
The educational product is unique for the fact that it combines the best foreign practices (University of Southampton, United Kingdom; University of Córdoba, Spain; Arizona State University, USA), best practices of Russian universities (Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk; ITMO University of Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg) and the author’s vision based on the results of her own scientific developments in this field.