Electronic Educational Resources In Foreign Language Teaching At The Higher Education Institution

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of the efficiency of integrating distance learning into the university educational process. The task was to substantiate the role of electronic educational resources on foreign language in increasing the academic success of higher education students through the formation of such qualities as motivation, responsibility, self-organization. The article emphasizes that electronic educational resources integrate into university educational process from the perspective of "Foreign language" discipline teaching didactics. The authors chose the analysis of psychological, pedagogical, methodological literature and Internet resources on the research topic as a theoretical method of research, and observation as an empirical method of research. The article promotes the extension of theoretical understanding about features of electronic educational resource on a foreign language for students of the higher education organizations, the specificity of its creation and application in the higher education educational process. The authors defined the concept of "electronic resource" and offered a classification of electronic educational resources on the basis of specific defining features, such as type, functional attribute, nature of presented information, form of presenting information, targeting functions, the novelty of publication, nature of basic information, distribution technology, nature of interaction with a user. They also considered the main components of an electronic educational resource and identified advantages of electronic educational resources compared to traditional means of learning. The article presents the authors' personal experience in creating and using the electronic educational resource for the discipline "Foreign Language" in the educational process of North Caucasian Federal University.

Keywords: Distance learning, electronic educational resource (EER), learning, information resources, learning process

Introduction

Since knowledge of a foreign language is an indicator of professional competence of specialists at the current stage of development of Russian society, they need to permanently improve the knowledge. All students of higher education institutions study the discipline "Foreign language" regardless of their training direction.

The recent FSES HE states that university graduates should have the ability to communicate orally and in written form in Russian and foreign languages to solve problems of interpersonal and intercultural interaction.

The unwillingness of school leavers to assimilate higher education programs at the required level affects their academic success and sets a task for university lecturers to intensify their cognitive activity.

Distance computer learning currently becomes a form of realizing the human right to education and information (Blinov et al., 2019; Bozkurt, 2015; Kutluka & Gulmezb, 2012). Distance learning includes not only new information technologies in higher education institutions, but also new teaching forms and methods, new approaches to the learning process. Naturally, this changes the volume and content of educational material, restructures curricula and integrates the topics, resulting in changes of the structure and content of subjects (courses) and, consequently, the composition and content of education.

The information technologies used in the university educational process influence the methods of teaching and allow teachers to create conditions for each student to master a foreign language practically, to choose such methods of teaching allowing any student to be active and creative. According to special studies and our own observations, electronic educational resources (EERs) fit perfectly into the structure of the educational process of a higher education institution and most accurately meet the requirements of didactics (Dmitrieva & Kazanovskaya, 2018; Samarina, 2017; Stepanova & Esmurzaeva, 2015; Shatskaya, 2017). Thus, it is logical to consider electronic educational resources as a means of increasing the students' academic success.

Problem Statement

According to the objective, the authors have formulated the following tasks:

define the term "electronic resource";

try to classify electronic educational resources;

consider the main components of the electronic educational resource.

Research Questions

The question is to extend the theoretical understanding of the features, creation and application of electronic educational resource on a foreign language for university students.

Purpose of the Study

Justify the role of electronic educational resource on foreign language in improving academic performance of students.

Research Methods

theoretical methods: analysis of psychological and pedagogical, methodical literature, Internet resources on the study topic;

empirical methods: observation.

Findings

The research and our own observations have revealed the following benefits of distance learning in increasing the academic success of students in learning a foreign language:

1. From, it is individualization of training, creation of adequate self-esteem among students, creation of psychologically comfortable atmosphere at the classes, students' use of various types of cognitive activity and all ways of information input.

2. From, it is the interactivity of learning through feedback, visually presenting the results of the student's activity and helping the teacher to control the thinking activity of all students at the same time, accurately assess the pedagogical situation and adjust the learning process (Stepanova & Esmurzaeva, 2015).

It is worth mentioning here an interactive language learning tool such as an interactive video (e.g. a film in English) that helps the student to respond to situations offered by the electronic resource and thus participate in events (Samarina, 2017).

In addition, the methodological advantages of distance learning include increased motivational potential of students (Ivashkovskaya & Modnov, 2014) and the intensity of the learning process; assimilation of much more material than traditional learning; identification of students' individual abilities as well as weaknesses in learning through testing.

Practice plays an important role in language learning: it is not enough to reproduce a phrase once, but to repeat it several times; at once, it is necessary to change its language design so as to clearly reveal the content. Electronic resources that include databases for the repeating of such constructions, that change only individual components or contexts can help in this too.

In terms of reducing classroom time, electronic educational resources permitting the creation of conditions for communicative activity, offering a variety of situational-oriented training exercises, are indispensable in the formation of strong lexical and grammatical skills of students.

Electronic resources in foreign language teaching also ensure the effective involvement of all students in activities designed not only to passively master the material, but also to develop the skills and abilities to use it in a communication situation.

3. Fromit is the possibility of storing, using, and reproducing more information. The computer not only plays back recordings of individual words, phrases and whole texts, but also records the user's speech and then allows listening to it and comparing it with the native pronunciation or seeing a graph of the recordings on the monitor. Most of the programs also change the pace of speech "spoken" by the computer. Graphic potential of the computer to represent any kind of activity as pictures or animation is useful in learning new vocabulary, as images on the screen allow us to associate a phrase in a foreign language immediately with the action, rather than with an expression in the native language.

4. From, it includes communication with people from English-speaking countries, access to remote information sources and international libraries, obtaining information about new educational programs and the programs themselves through the Internet.

Unfortunately, the huge potential that EER training has is only partially used due to the problems of creating quality software that meets the didactic requirements for foreign language teaching.

We will consider the concept of an electronic educational resource and its types.

According to GOST R 7.0.83-2013, "an electronic publication is an electronic document (a group of electronic documents), which has undergone editing and publishing, intended for distribution in an unchangeable form, with output data".

In our work we follow the classification of EERs of Stepanova and Esmurzaeva (2015) based on the typology of electronic publications in GOST. The authors suggest dividing EERs by the following defining features:

• by type;
• by the functional attribute that determines the meaning and place of EERs in the learning process;
• by the nature of the information provided;
• by information submission form;
• by targeting functions;
• by the novelty of the publication;
• by the nature of basic information;
• by distribution technology;
• by the nature of interaction with the user.

At the same time, the authors recognize the type of electronic resource, subject (educational) area, specificity of resource users, recommended level of education and the form of the educational process as the main criteria for EER classification (Stepanova & Esmurzaeva, 2015).

By type, we can distinguish the following main groups of EERs:

• computer textbook (textbook, text of lectures, etc.);
• electronic reference book;
• computer task book;
• computer laboratory practice (models, simulators, etc.);
• computer testing system.

By the functional attribute that determines the meaning and place of EERs in the learning process, we can identify the following groups of EERs:

• software and methodological (curricula and training programs);
• educational and methodical (methodical guidelines for teaching a discipline, course study, course and diploma work);
• training materials (textbooks, manuals, lecture texts);
• additional materials (computer workshops, collections of tasks and exercises, handwriting, reading books);
• computer (testing) systems and test databases.

This classification repeats the typology of university educational publications.

By the nature of the information provided, we distinguish the following types of training publications: curriculum, training program, methodical guidelines, practice programs, tasks for practical classes, textbook, training manual, lecture notes, series of lectures, workshop, handwriting, etc.

According to the form of presentation, educational publications include the following groups:

• convection training publications to implement the information function of education;
• programmed learning publications (electronic publications in nature);
• problematic educational publications to develop logical thinking;
• universal educational publications to combine elements from other groups.

By targeting functions electronic means of educational purpose have the following groups of educational level:

• for general secondary education;
• for secondary special education;
• for higher education (with division by bachelor, specialist, master levels);
• for specialists (for additional education).

Discrepancies in targeting functions are due to differences in didactic tasks which need to be solved during the training of different levels of specialists.

By novelty, the publications are divided into two groups of electronic learning tools:

• independent electronic tool created initially in digital form;
• derivative electronic means that is digital representation of a printed publication or audio-visual production.

By nature of basic information, there are the following types of EERs:

• textual;
• visual;
• audio;
• multimedia.

By technology of distribution it is possible to identify:

• local EER;
• network EER;
• EER of combined distribution.

Finally, by the nature of the interaction between the user and the EER, we highlight:

• determined electronic publications, where format, content and ways of interaction are determined by the publisher and cannot be changed by the user;
• non-deterministic (interactive) electronic publications, where the format, content and ways of interaction are directly or indirectly set by the user depending on his interests and goals.

Electronic educational resources are a necessary component of the learning information environment: the educational resources contain the content component of the learning process. The newest educational technologies provide for the reduction of face-to-face meetings between a teacher and a student with an increase in the percentage of independent work. Therefore, electronic learning materials support parts of the learning process traditionally carried out in face-to-face communication between the teacher and the student. We will consider the basic components of an electronic educational resource as a component of educational process.

The purpose of learning material in all forms is to provide students with new knowledge, but paper and electronic materials have very different means of achieving this goal. Although reading from a computer screen is less comfortable than reading a book, the electronic resource provides the implementation of such didactic schemes and forms of material presentation that are completely inaccessible to traditional textbooks. Thus, success of an electronic learning resource largely depends on successful projection of methods and techniques of training on computer possibilities.

The information and technological component of an electronic educational resource is inextricably linked to its information and technological base. The application of information and multimedia technologies in the development of the resource makes possible the use of didactic schemes inaccessible for paper formats. Significant changes are currently underway in information technology education. This is primarily due to the emergence of extensible markup languages XML, the promotion of an object-oriented approach and the concept of separating representation and content of the document. Educational institutions are introducing standardization of approaches to the creation and use of electronic educational resources, and that is very important because standardization is the key to the integrity of the world educational information space.

To enter an electronic resource into an education system, in training process, it is necessary to develop it in accordance with normative acts of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, to consider copyrights of resource developers, to define the procedure of using the electronic manual by students.

Further we will describe our own experience in creating and using electronic educational resource on a foreign language.

Each resource in the educational process plays its own specific role: consistent presentation of material, assessment of students' knowledge, modeling practical exercises, etc.

As one of the acceptable ways to use electronic educational resources in English language classes at an educational institution, we consider the use of computer-based educational courses and programs in the learning process during the introduction and activation of the basic language forms and structures; in speech training, to ensure control over the formation of speech and language skills. Computer programs provide an opportunity to introduce educational material, model situations of communication, provide organization of game tasks, control and evaluation of knowledge, providing all kinds of visibility. Students receive exercises for local network classes (sound and text exercises), using the computer as a learning tool. The control of learning of knowledge on thematic sections of the discipline is made through test tasks in testing programs (Crab, Test Designer).

The electronic educational resource developed by the team of the Foreign Languages Department for humanitarian and natural science specialties in the NCFU Learning Management System based on LMS Moodle consists of a number of structural sections:

• article and noun;
• pronouns;
• type-time forms of the verb;
• adjective and adverb;
• numeral;
• preposition;
• conjunction.

Each course section has a similar step-by-step structure:

a) presentation of theoretical material in compressed form as a video lecture, followed by knowledge control;

b) performance of exercises and filling in the reflexive diary;

c) verification of acquired skills and abilities through a final test.

Work in the distance course runs throughout the time allocated to the discipline "Foreign Language (English)"; the teacher assigns sections of the course based on the subject of the main textbook.

Sections are not arranged according to the degree of increasing complexity, so there is no need to develop the resource consistently from beginning to end. The teacher may change the order of studying the material at his discretion. He can use topics selectively and flexibly based on the requirements of the program and the difficulties of students.

Practical tasks in an electronic resource are close to living speech and exclude the automatic conversion or unconscious answers. The electronic resource aims at activation and stimulation of common high-frequency vocabulary in personal-significant communicative tasks, whose functionality is provided by the content of specific speech patterns in examples of grammatically correct design of statements.

Deploying the content of the whole e-Learning resource and each grammatical theme follows the didactic principles of accessibility, comprehension and stability. Differentiated tasks allow students with different levels of language training to choose their own pace of learning. The repeated development of the studied phenomenon in various tasks and specially organized exercises aimed at fixing the passed material at the end of each section ensure stable mastery of the material. The final section of the manual offers top-level tasks, where students have to apply their knowledge to transmit a given content in a foreign language, systemize the studied phenomena.

The electronic educational resource on grammar of English is designed for students of all training directions of non-linguistic university (first and second years of study). The resource follows the concepts developed by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science for the Foreign Language (English) curriculum.

The practical resource aims at students possessing the basics of normative grammar and having a certain reserve of common vocabulary obtained during secondary school education, and provides in-depth knowledge and improvement of grammatical skills. The main purpose of the resource is to record the studied grammatical and lexical models of the English language and develop speech competence.

The proposed electronic educational resource serves as a supplement to the main educational and methodical complexes in the English language, involving 1st and 2nd year students.

To master the Foreign Language (English) courses, the student must complete the proposed practical exercises and upload the answers to the Learning Management System. The teacher will check and evaluate these assignments and record the results in the student's private office.

Control points take into account mastering the discipline in a remote form, as well as in full-time classes. The electronic journal in NKFU's learning management system records each student's remote participation in the discipline and transmits it to the teacher.

The student's personal profile in the Instructions section contains Instructions for the student to work with the Learning Management System, describing step-by-step work with access, navigation, an overview of the main elements, opportunities to work with electronic training courses and the Learning Management System. Each student should read this information.

Conclusion

The study found, first, that work performed with the use of electronic educational resources helps to vary classes, implement a comprehensive approach to learning and increase student motivation to learn a foreign language.

Secondly, independent work of students with the EERs, on the one hand, contributes to the effective mastering of knowledge and methods of activity in studying the discipline "Foreign language", on the other hand, meets the requirements in the field of self-improvement of foreign language skills in the perspective of lifelong learning.

Thus, electronic educational resources provide an opportunity to implement the principles of differentiated and individual approach to learning, and, accordingly, to help the development of personality during their own activities, research skills of students, increase the level of students' mastery of a foreign language and, consequently, the level of their academic success.

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