HYBRID COURSES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE FOR PHILOLOGY STUDENTS

Abstract

Face-to-Face learning is known to involve sessions occurring in traditional classroom settings during the required meeting times. The use of ICT in the given environment is optional and purely supplementary. Online education incorporates a range of asynchronous and synchronous activities to be done by students and teachers not being tied to a strict schedule or same location all the time. Hybrid learning should be treated not only as an opportunity to replace certain portion of traditional in-class activities, but also as a way to make the most out of face-to-face and online learning by its capability to meet the needs and purposes of a specific situation, as in the case with students from various countries, especially continents, studying the same course on- and off-line. It is a hybrid course, which to a big extent conforms to the dialectic unity of form and content in present circumstances, especially when it gets to learning foreign languages and cultures, by providing up-to-date educational content in various forms of interactive learning. The article presents the experience of organizing learning through a specially developed study course, which was run at educational institutions in Ukraine and the USA simultaneously within one academic year. The hybrid course is based on a number of approaches, namely: communicative approach (which focuses on learning language and culture through meaningful and real communication), reflective approach (that encourages students to analyze their experience, performance and change behaviour if necessary to improve the outcomes), integrated approach (providing a well-balanced program with extensive input as well as output and interaction practice, with a special focus on cultural issues). Besides main goals and tasks of the course, one of the ideas was to analyze the topical issues included in modules from points of view of both cultures (American and Ukrainian).

Keywords

• online learning
• hybrid education
• digital hybrid course
• ICT in foreign language and culture teaching