“Adaptive Linguistic Course” As Effect And Cause Of Educational Innovations

Defining an educational innovation

According to Tomlinson (2013, p.203), an innovation is something new which aims to be an improvement on what already exists. Rogers defines it as an idea, practice, object perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption (Hyland & Wong 2013, p.2). Sometimes there is no idea of “new” in definitions, e.g., “doing things differently in order to do them better” (Redmond, Lock, & Danaher 2015, p.3). The term “innovation” was borrowed by the English language in the Renaissance period, in the 1540s, along with hundreds of scientific words. Its Late Latin etymon is innovationem (nominative case is innovatio ), the noun of action from past participle stem of the verb innovare “to change; to renew; to introduce as new”. The verb itself is from Latin IN - “into” + novus “new”.

The contemporary scientific concept “innovation” means an innovation, novelty, change; an innovation as means and process assumes introducing something new. With reference to an educational process an innovation means its transformation (Krasnova, 2016, p.4), introducing something new into purposes, contents, methods and teaching methods and forms. An innovation may include incremental improvement of existing practice, transformation of curriculum, or a confronting re-evaluation of what learning goals can or should be (Moloney & Xu 2015, p.3). Innovation in language education can be usefully divided into change of two broad types, or orders, according to their depth of penetration and effect. Scholars often distinguish between a more superficial order of change, first order change, which seeks to improve efficiency and effectiveness of what is currently done without disturbing basic organizational features. By contrast, second order change seeks to alter the fundamental ways in which organizations exist, including new goals, structures, and roles (Bianco 2013, p.150).

It is important to note that it is possible to consider an innovation successful and timely if its introduction is approved by the society (Popova, 2015). According to Mann & Edge (2013, p.2), it is the realization of an idea in action that constitutes genuine innovation. Moloney & Xu (2015, p.4) summarize: “Innovation results in the creation of new knowledge and learning within a community”.

Beginning of Russian educational innovations

In September 2003, the Russian Federation officially joined the Bologna Declaration, following its innovative way to enter the European educational field. One of the Declaration’s substantive provisions is transition to the multilevel higher education system.

The multi-levelness has become an integral attribute of the contemporary stage of Russian education reforming.

The multilevel system corresponds to modern labor market requirements, which allows changing the character and volume of professional training in order to consider economic situation changes. The turn-out of various level experts can lower education expenses, while in the Soviet one-level higher education system it was interfered by the planned character of turn-out and the fixed training period. In a multilevel higher education system there is a possibility of training experts with specified professional skills for a short period.

The target orientation of the new educational paradigm is mastering a certain set of competences. Competencies can mean the complex know-how resulting from the integration, mobilization and adaptation of knowledge, attitudes and skills used efficiently to perform certain functions in similar situations (Jimenez-Partearroyo, Benito-Osorio & Peris-Ortiz 2015, p.4). In particular, in the basis of working out Russian educational standards on foreign languages there is a model of the foreign language communication competence including five competences of: speech, language, social culture, compensation, academic cognition (Sysoev, 2015, p.81). Thus, as result of higher school training it is estimated not the sum of acquired information, but the ability of the graduate (Bachelor, Master) to operate in various situations adequately, i.e. competently. The given idea is realized on the basis of constructing the flexible and branching structure of education, use of innovative teaching technologies and the concept of module continuous education.

The program of bachelors’ training assumes the complex development of disciplines of humanistic and general science cycles. The basic purpose of this level is the formation of the person’s general educational culture, professional values and practical skills necessary for further self-determination. While training for the Bachelor’s degree students are forming the basic professional knowledge, skills which can be deepened and differentiated at the Master’s degree training.

Training of students at the second (Master’s degree) level of higher education is focused on the individualized training, considering the chosen form of educational activities. The Master should possess abilities for independent research activities in the profile program of training. The conceptual basis of Master’s degree training is rested on the idea of continuity and succession of the levels of the educational process and professional programs.

The basic link of succession in the continuous professional educational system “Bachelor-Master” is considered to be bachelors’ objective readiness for problem-focused research activities in the selected subject domain. For successful continuation of training at the corresponding Master’s degree program the graduate of Bachelor’s degree program should be aimed at susceptibility to further knowledge, creative solution of the profile research and educational problems.

It is succession in multilevel educational system with which one of the key problems of modern higher education is connected - the problem of masters’ training quality.

Russian contemporary system of masters’ training

Some decrease in masters’ training quality is caused, except other reasons, by the fact that in the structure of the Russian contemporary higher education Master’s degree programs of two various types are realized:

• The six-year-long successive program which includes the four-year-long Bachelor’s degree program and the two-year-long Master’s degree program within the limits of one common training field. So, the Master’s degree program, as a rule, successfully solves the problem of deepening the professional subject block of the Bachelor’s degree program and developing masters’ research skills.

• The six-year-long non-successive program which includes the four-year-long Bachelor’s degree program and the two-year-long Master’s degree program of two different training fields. So, the Master’s degree program is separated from the Bachelor’s degree program of the corresponding training field as this Master’s degree program admits bachelors or masters of any training field or specialists who were trained in the traditional one-level educational system.

In the second case, according to Senashenko & Pykhtina (2017, p.16), there is an obvious infringement of succession between the educational programs. However, the contemporary Russian educational legislation allows this and to enter the Master’s degree program applicants must take an interdisciplinary examination in the Master’s training profile.

Senashenko & Pykhtina (2017) ask a fair question whether it is possible in that case to consider the Master’s degree program as professionalization of the Bachelor’s degree and give the negative answer. The authors specify that this accelerated (two-year-long) training for a new qualification depreciates the Master’s degree training as the second level of higher education.

Such sharp opinion is contrary to the principles of flexibility, mobility, availability of multilevel higher education, to the possibility of constructing an individual educational trajectory.

There is a problem of possibility to solve the specified contradiction.

On the one hand, it is impossible to refuse those people who are guided by changes in modern uneasy social circumstances and wish to correct their educational trajectories and to choose the Master’s degree training continuation in the field different from that of the Bachelor’s degree programs. On the other hand, it is impossible to admit any decrease in the qualitative level of the Master’s degree training.

Improving the quality of training Masters of Arts (Linguistics)

In this research some issues of improving the quality of training masters in the field 45.04.02 Linguistics who have no basic Bachelor’s degree training (in the field 45.03.02 Linguistics ) are considered.

Nowadays all over the world there is an increased interest in having the higher linguistic education as professional linguists are socially claimed; they can be teachers in schools and universities, translators, intercultural dialogue experts. This profession opens a lot of possibilities - work in joint ventures, diplomatic missions, expeditions to different corners of the globe (Fedyukovsky, 2015, p.85). Hence a considerable quantity of people, who have one higher non-linguistic education diploma or degree, wish to enter the Master’s degree programs in Linguistics.

But there is a logical question of readiness of the Master’s students-linguists who have no basic professional training to study in the educational environment which is new for them and which has been formed in the Bachelor’s linguistic degree training.

For professional linguists (both foreign language teachers and translators) nobody disagrees for the necessity of having linguistic theoretical knowledge. In 1921 a literary scholar George Sampson mentioned: “a teacher of speech untrained in phonetics is as useless as a doctor untrained in anatomy” (Knowles, 2014, p.150). According to Giovanelli & Clayton (2016), in the world of teaching and learning English as a second and foreign language at all levels the part played by linguistics is incontrovertible and largely uncontested and is witnessed over the past fifty years by the massive expansion, ubiquity and success of courses in applied linguistics in colleges and universities world-wide aimed at English teachers. Analyzing the contemporary issues of education and training of future translators and interpreters, Orlando (2016, p.137) writes that they need to be linguistically and theoretically well-equipped before starting practicing.

Purposes and tasks of ALC

The general purpose of ALC is formation of language competence, i.e. development of knowledge of the English language phenomena, different ways of expressing ideas both in Russian and English, and academic cognition competence, i.e. further development of the general and special skills, acquaintance with different accessible ways of students’ unsupervised study of languages and cultures, including the use of new information technologies (Sysoev 2015, p.81).

The specific purposes of ALC:

• Acquaintance of the students who do not have Bachelor’s degree of Linguistics with units of the basic levels of English language and its formation as national language;

• Formation of the harmonious system of students’ knowledge of laws and norms of contemporary language units, abilities to comprehend and explain language phenomena of contemporary English language, relying on the knowledge of English language history and theory, skills of historical and linguistic analysis.

The formation of these skills combining with the theory knowledge allows to train students for linguistic interpretation of the text, the course of Translation theory and Practice, research work, etc.

The primary tasks of teaching ALC:

• Representing the system character of the language phenomena, i.e. correlation and basic laws of development and functioning of the phonological system, lexical structure and grammatical system of the English language;

• Developing basic concepts of English language theory (Phonology, Morphology, Lexicology, Theoretical Grammar);

• Understanding the interaction of “external” and “internal” factors in the English language history;

• Representing etymological and stylistic stratifications of the English language;

• Developing functional-stylistic features of contemporary English language.

Principles of designing the structure and content of ALC

ALC is considered to be a basic interdisciplinary multilevel linguistic mini-course.

The interdisciplinary approach of the course allows to demonstrate various linguistic phenomena in their formation and development as a complex problem. It gives the chance to visually show inseparability of any language development from the people’s history and cultural traditions. It is necessary to make students clearly understand the communication between various linguistic phenomena, be able to compare them to similar phenomena in other languages. The level allocation in the course structure is traditional and represents a modelling example in linguistic education. The language modelling is used in the course for educational purposes to demonstrate students how the language “works”.

Wide use of various models, schemes, graphs, classifications, diagrams in the educational process is extremely useful as it is a method of visualisation of difficult teaching material (e.g., a semantic triangle, a semantic trapeze, a semantic square - for studying lexical semantics issues of the course). Accually, it is impossible to name the method of visualisation innovative, but nowadays “digital media provides new ways of representing and transferring meaningful information” (Benedek, Goodman, & Lajos 2015, p.18).

It is necessary to notice that visualization can and should become an important tool not only in teachers’ activities, but also in students’ unsupervised work as it gives the chance for students “to design the own system of understanding this or that phenomenon, joining the thought process with application of various types of cognitive actions” (Almazova, Baranova, & Halyapina 2017, p.128).

The level approach in the course teaching is organically combined with so-called 3D approach (Saez-Hidalgo & Filardo-Llamas, 2014). This approach includes the combination of two traditional intralinguistic approaches - synchronic (static) and diachronic (dynamic) - and an extralinguistic (lingvo-cultural) approach.

It is this wide (3D) approach in ALC which is innovative as it is extremely necessary to combine traditionally recognized approaches in the course.

Unfortunately, some students-linguists have a false ultra-pragmatic point of view on language studying as certain invariable set of means and rules. ALC is the course for such category of students who often possess quite good language practical skills but are not professional linguists yet.

George Bernard Shaw once said: “No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot” (Barsov 2006, p.121). Though the given statement can seem too sharp, it represents fair criticism of the narrow sight at linguistic education.

As the majority of linguists work as translators we will glance in “Translator’s Charter”. According to Section 1 “General Obligations of the Translator” of the Charter, “The translator shall possess a sound knowledge of the language from which he/she translates... He/she must likewise have a broad general knowledge...” (http://www.fit-ift.org/translators-charter/).

Everyone accepts that the translator is obliged to know features of the system of a foreign language as well as that of a native one. But the question is: what “a sound knowledge of the language” includes? Does it include only the language itself? Does it include only its practical knowledge? How broad must be “general knowledge”?

Last century, Mounin (Klyshko, 1987, pp.137,141), a French linguist, underlining the necessity of broad humanistic training of translators, wrote: “Translation of the foreign text demands observing two conditions. Both of them are essential, and both in themselves are insufficient: these are the knowledge of the language and the knowledge of the civilization with which language (i.e. the knowledge of life, culture and history of the people for whom the given language is an expression means) is connected. To translate well, it is not enough to study language; it is necessary to study the culture connected with this language. And such studying should be not superficial or casual, but regular and fundamental... It is not enough for the translator to be a good linguist, he/she should be an excellent ethnographer, and it means that he/she should not only know all about the language, but also all about the people speaking this language. And only then he/she is a master, a magician”.

The extralinguistic approach reflects the linguo-didactical requirement of studying languages in close unity with the country culture. There is a considerable quantity of researches on problems of linguo-culturology. The approximate generality of all linguo-cultural approaches is reflected in the following statement: “Language as primarily a social phenomenon, which is naturally and inextricably intertwined with culture..., is viewed as embedded in culture such that the meaning of any linguistic item can only be properly understood with reference to the cultural context enveloping it” (House, 2015, p.32).

The significance of cultural knowledge for linguists has led to occurrence of the concept of “linguo-cultural competence” in the theory and practice of linguistic education. According to Korneeva (2016, pp.157-158), competence as a whole is characterized as ability to use skills obtained during training in compliance with professional situational purposes and problems, and the linguo-cultural competence is the ability to reveal, analyze and interpret the language facts in correlation with culture. ALC allows to provide Master’s degree students this competence. In all themes of the course teachers should draw students’ attention to external factors of the language, e.g., in Phonology - features of pronunciation variability; in Lexicology - semantic development of words, synonymy, stylistic classification of lexical units; in Stylistics - functional styles.

Extralinguistic and diachronic approaches are closely interconnected. The most considerable interrelation is shown in the course of the English Language History (Fedyukovsky 2009). Really, foreign language studying by future linguists assumes not only mastering the students’ spelling, phonetic, lexical, grammatical and stylistic norms of the language. As the language is not static, but being a social phenomenon, represents a complex intermediate result of long and incessant historical development, studying the whole system of a modern foreign language is naturally based on the principle of historicism of all its levels and items.

According to Arakin (2011, p.9), “... only the historical approach to the modern language phenomena can provide their correct understanding and use. The understanding of laws of the language development, ability to explain them from positions of the language history and the people (the carrier of this language) history will promote development of the dialectic sight at the language, scientific judgement of contemporary English language norms”. English language history, being a wide humanistic training, focuses the future linguist on independent understanding and conscious mastering these norms. Any ‘exceptions’ from the point of view of contemporary language (e.g., irregularities between pronunciation and spelling of many words, non-standard word forms) can be explained historically, and so, in linguists’ consciousness, will transfer into laws. English language history, according to Arakin, is a key to understanding the modern language structure, one of the disciplines forming the basis of theoretical training of English language students (Arakin 2011, pp.9-10).

According to Saez-Hidalgo & Filardo-Llamas (2014, pp.141-142), the survey of the opinions of the students who have studied a course of the English Language History, shows some inspiring results, e.g., “I think the History of the English Language is fundamental for the understanding and production of English so I consider it should receive the appropriate relevance in the syllabus. Only by understanding how a language works and how it shaped itself through the years can we achieve a full mastery of the said language”.

The history of language demands great volume of unsupervised work, in particular, to compile students’ glossaries, which can add to the sum of human knowledge and communicate knowledge about the English language effectively, even compellingly, to both professional and popular audiences. In writing such a glossary, a student isn’t just writing about the history of English but is actually being a historian of English, and the experience, as well as the knowledge it produces, is likely to stay with the student for a long time (Hayes & Burkette 2017, p.174).

The diachronic approach should be present in all themes of the course, e.g., in Phonology it is impossible to acquaint students with the phenomenon of assimilation of sounds without the reference to the Umlaut or to consider English accent problems without the analysis of historical tendencies of its development. In Lexicology diachrony is inseparable from word-formation, polysemy development, and, of course, etymology. Linguists should represent accurate possibilities of expanding the word meaning through the etymology of words and how they change (Dechant, 2013, p.381). In Theoretical Grammar it is necessary to consider any grammatical phenomenon with historical mini-research, e.g., to discuss historical categories of grammatical gender, dual number, multi-negation, etc.

As the author of the paper has a long-term experience of teaching Bachelor’s degree courses, he realizes the impossibility to automatically transfer all the contents of three one-level (Phonology, Lexicology, Theoretical Grammar) and three multilevel (Introduction to Linguistics, Foreign Language History and Introduction to Special Philology, Stylistics) linguistic disciplines from the Bachelor’s degree curriculum to that of the Master’s degree.

It is offered to keep the basic concepts of one-level disciplines (e.g., units of language level, their structure and classification principles, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between units).

As to multilevel disciplines, the content of “Introduction to Linguistics” can be easily distributed among the multilevel disciplines, the content of “Foreign Language History and Introduction to Special Philology” can almost entirely be reflected in the corresponding multilevel discilines, though a special mini-course of external history of England is required as this important course is in the Bachelor’s degree curriculum.

The special place is occupied by Stylistics. It aims to teach students about text organization and relevant language forms (Hewings & Hewings 2013, p.72). Stylistics is the final theme in ALC as it accumulates all the content of the course. The result of linguists’ training should be the ability to carry out the complex research of authentic texts, and it is Stylistics that allows to prepare Master’s degree students for techniques of such linguistic analysis which is an additional instrument of revealing communicative-informative and pragmatic intentions and values of the text author (Chernyavskaya 2016, p.76).

There is a course of “General Linguistics and Linguistic Doctrines’ History” in the Master’s degree curriculum where many problems of linguistics are considered, therefore any duplication of the scientific information is inexpedient in ALC, e.g., it is not necessary to consider in detail the comparative-historical method in the theme of English language history as comparative linguistics is in the course of Linguistic Doctrines’ History. Phonology (“Phonological Schools” theme) in ALC can also be minimized for the same reason.

The small number of academic hours does not allow teachers to contain all the basic contents, so there should be intensive unsupervised work of Master’s degree students (compiling the glossary of linguistic terms; unsupervised scientific reports on the basic themes of the discipline; solving linguistic tests; selecting different examples from Russian and foreign languages to illustrate theoretical issues; wide students’ reference to special literature, various dictionaries and Internet resources).

Use of information and communication technologies in teaching ALC

Nowadays in order to achieve the training productivity, university teachers are using various information and communication technologies (ICT) of training (Almazova, Khalyapina, & Popova, 2017; Popova, Almazova, Khalyapina, & Tret'jakova, 2017; Pogodin & Li, 2017) which include information channels and software of creation, gathering, storage, transfer, processing, use of information (Sysoev, 2015, pp.32-33). In contemporary social conditions a lot of full-time Master’s degree students have to combine their professional and educational activities. Therefore, the role of distance training is increasing. In contemporary world educational systems distance learning, sometimes called e-learning, is a positive influence for change and global implementation in all disciplines (Mahajan, 2015, p.166). In teaching ALC, especially for part-time students, technologies of mixed training in the information-educational environment (IEE), including technologies of Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment), are actively used. As it is defined in pedagogics as a set of conditions providing uniform approaches to realize information work and information interaction while using distributed information resources in the sphere of education, science and culture (Sysoev, 2015, p.33), IEE is the basis to improve teaching of any course.

The structure of IEE of ALC (http://dl-hum.spbstu.ru/enrol/index.php? id=615) includes databases, glossaries, resources, tasks, forums, tests. Resources are various educational information which has the course contents. Resources support any content in an electronic form and can be loaded by teachers and, further, stored in the server. Tasks allow teachers to formulate questions to students and to receive their answers in a file form which will be kept in the server. The system gives possibility to teachers to grade the received answers. It is possible to establish the deadline, grading criteria and the answer format. The server automatically registers time of receiving answers. Forums are a service to organise discussions of problem themes of the course. Tests allow to create packages of control questions both for unsupervised work of students and for organization of current and intermediate control.

Students are also recommended to use numerous Internet resources on linguistics, e.g., Linguistic portal of English language ( http://www.langinfo.ru ); General resources on linguistics and philology (http://garshin.ru/linguistics/linguistic-portals.html); Etymological dictionary of English language ( https://www.etymonline.com ), etc.

So, students can construct their own flexible and independent way of training, an individual educational trajectory, i.e. a personal way of students’ achieving their educational aims, according to their abilities, motives, interests and requirements (Sysoev, 2015, p.39). The aim of students studying ALC is not only mastering a certain volume of knowledge but making decision: which linguistic knowledge is necessary for this mastering, how the knowledge will correspond to professional requirements and how innovative technologies of training can be adopted for personal vital conditions. ICT allow students to be independent and supervise their training by themselves. However, technologies do not guarantee effective unsupervised work. According to Sergeant (2013, pp.240-241), due to the additional complexity of the computer medium compared with normal classroom activities, a high standard of teacher expertise is essential. The teacher’s role remains defining, as only with the corresponding methodical management and intensive training, students can gradually organize their effective work to master the fundamentals of their linguistic profession which are given to them by ALC.