On 24th November, a video conference in English with our European Tempus DeTel partners from Aston University (Birmingham, Great Britain) was held in a computer class of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology.
Our European partners were represented by the head coordinator of the TEMPUS project on "Modernising European Language Teaching through the Introduction of Online Technologies in the Process of Teacher Training", Head of the Department of Master's Degree Programmes in Linguistics of Aston University (Birmingham, Great Britain), laureate National Teaching Fellowship Award Dr. Susan Garton, member of the International Association of foreign language teachers, IT communication technologies expert, Tempus DeTEL consultant on developing the module "Information technologies in teaching foreign languages". Dr. Nur Kurtoglu-Hooton, and Course Director for the Certificate in Advanced Studies in ELT at the University of Aston, member of BAAL, IATEFL and CLERA, Tempus DeTEL consultant on developing the module "Foreign languages teaching methodology" Dr. Muna Morris-Adams.
VSU was represented by Professor Natalia Fenenko, Head of the master's programme "Teaching Foreign Languages with the Help of Online Technologies", Associate Professor at the Department of English Philology Elena Chaika, Associate Professor of the Department of French Philology Svetlana Bulgakova and master's students of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology. During the meeting students asked their European colleagues about teaching foreign languages with the help of online technologies, about using ICT when teaching a foreign language in Great Britain, and about possibilities of further cooperation between VSU and Aston University when the Tempus project is over.
According to Dr. Garton, our cooperation can be continued under the European programme Erasmus+ and at the moment a grant application is being prepared. Our European partners also shared their impressions on the project results in Russian, Ukrainian and Uzbek partner universities where they have had joint classes on project modules with their colleagues from work teams. They praised the results, as well as students' knowledge and motivation. Dr. Kurtoglu-Hooton expressed her hope for further cooperation with master's students and future foreign language teachers from Voronezh. The European experts are planning to visit VSU in spring 2016.
