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Being aware of and accepting the fact that English is Language No. 1 in the present world, we can come to the conclusion that this reality can be used and relied upon in the process of teaching other foreign languages. Languages cannot be taught in an isolated way - experience with language learning and teaching results in the establishment of so called "interlanguage". The experience gained through the earlier process of learning the mother tongue and a foreign language (or foreign languages) can support and/or negatively influence the process of learning other foreign languages. It is the teachers' task to find ways how to use this reality for their learners' benefit. To reach this goal, teachers should be also aware of their learners' opinions, and of their already gained abilities and skills. These issues were included in a questionnaire distributed to university students and discussed in the text. This article also presents a survey of errors which appeared in the written entrance examinations in German and which were caused by the language interference. The examinations were taken by the applicants for studying German at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hradec Kralove. An additional survey presents similar kinds of errors made by pre-graduate university students (majoring in teaching German) during their seminars in German language held during academic years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immersion in a language environment is a method developed to teach people in a second language that assumes that the language being studied is used just for educational purposes. Immersion education is not only suitable for most students but may also be the only opportunity for some students to learn a foreign language. In some cases, when a student lags behind in development and cognitively, termination of an immersion program is beneficial to the student. Deciding which way one or another student should go is up to the teaching staff working in the immersion program and the appropriate administration by agreement with the parents. According to the general time students spend studying in an immersion program, there are complete immersion, partial immersion, two-way immersion or double immersion, in which half of the student population consists of people who know two or more languages. Students studying with immersion meet academic expectations and achieve better results in areas such as knowledge of a foreign language, knowledge of the native language, understanding characteristics of other cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mankind is currently experiencing one of the serious crises, whose symptoms can be characterized by various attributes, such as post-factual time, migration crisis, confidence in public policy and democracy, information explosion, etc. Part of the process is the emphasis on economic growth, profit growth, consumption growth, preference for technical education, education appropriate to the needs of the labor market and directly supporting the economic growth of the countryside and the consumption of its inhabitants as a driver of growth. On the other hand, the type of university education in humanities and social sciences at all are becoming more and more at the edge of the interest of society and its governments. Questions about their usefulness to society, how much they contribute to meeting the needs for further development, or the extent to which they can respond to current questions and the needs of time, are asked to contribute to their solution. I believe that the humanities should play a very important role also through a better understanding of human behavior, what is considered a necessary prerequisite for closer understanding of nations. This enables better collaboration between humanities, as it also forms part of the shared responsibility for successfully addressing the issues and challenges of human development as part of the plurality of world cultures today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the issue of implementation of innovative technologies in the field of language-and-humanities education offered to the technical degree students, as well as the new trends in education available to the young specialists of the 21st century. The new technologies and strategies of teaching a foreign language are offered and explained. The strategies tested in practice are demonstrated via five additional educational modules that are geared towards the educational (linguo-culturological) preparation of the technical degree specialists at Voronezh Technical University. These modules are: interpreter and translator in the field of professional communication, the foreign language center, the theatre language studio, language and rhetorics, an internalization of education, intercultural communication. The innovative methodological principles and mechanisms of teaching a foreign language at a technically oriented college are analyzed (portfolio, the project method, the case method, webquests, the method of teaching a foreign language through art, etc.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the process of teaching foreign language to disabled schoolchildren in grades 9-11 in virtual learning environment, considers its specificity and indicates recommendations for the use of remote resources for educating students and developing their foreign language learning competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast progress in science and technology causes the global changes in teaching and learning process and requirements to qualification of a modern engineer. To meet the modern era requirements, the high engineering education system sets an objective to prepare competitive specialists and to establish conditions for professional qualities elaboration and personal enhancement. International cooperation extension and globalization processes that require high-level communication skills determine the need for lifelong education. This is precisely why the need to develop foreign language skills for future engineers emerges as well as teaching and learning methods and quality. To reach these objectives educators search for new teaching methods and means. One of the most desirable means is information communications technologies and e-learning systems. The aim of this work is to describe the key factors of using blended learning in teaching foreign languages at Russian undergraduate technical education in response to the new vision of engineering education. The authors encourage educators and designers of language courses for engineers to pay attention to some challenges that are common for the majority of Russian technical universities: - the need to focus on the context of engineering and develop students' metacompetences, - drop in classroom load for language courses in modern engineering programmes, - shortage of qualified educators in non-English-speaking countries that can teach engineering subjects in English, - the lack of blended-learning teaching methods and a compulsory career development system in the sphere of e-technologies, - availability of facilities and the level of desired flexibility of a future course. The article describes the experience of National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU), where development of blended courses is greatly supported by the University administration. The authors describe different top-down initiatives that stimulate and encourage the development and launch of new teaching practices. The article also displays the meta-competences development and numerous benefits for educators and students rated for written and oral communication in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]