International Sakharov Environmental Institute of Belarusian State University

In 2017, the Department of Foreign Languages (formed in 2006) as a result of the merger of the Department of English and the Department of German and French was renamed the Chair of Linguistic Disciplines and Intercultural Communications.

The chair provides teaching of foreign languages (English, Spanish, German, French) for full-time and correspondence form students at I and II stages of higher education in all specialties of the Institute. The 13 disciplines are taught at the chair.

Teaching at the chair based on the educational standards for specialties according to the curricula and programs. All lecturers of the chair have degrees confirming their high qualification in philological discipline teaching. Most of the employees have more than 3 years of university experience. Employees of the chair constantly improve their skills, cooperate with specialists of language chairs of other higher educational institutions of the Republic.

Training and methodological work of the chair is organized according to the annual work plan of the chair and individual work plans of lecturers. Priority areas to improve the educational process are:

• new curricula development according to the requirements of state general education standards as well as improvement of existing ones, changes and additions to them due to modern requirements;
• training methodical manuals development, electronic training methodical complexes and methodological recommendations for practical classes;
• innovative training technology introduction.

Based on the goals and objectives of the training, the social module uses the technologies “French workshops”, “Learning in collaboration”, “Training stations”, “Technology of 6 hats”, role-playing and situational games. The professional module uses the technology of subject-language integrated learning in close cooperation with lecturers of specialized chairs.

Lecturers of the chair test business game scenarios during the training. The technology of projects on professionally significant topics is actively developed. The chair practices the final attestation in the form of defending language projects on research interest topics  or student course papers.

The chair pays attention to the educational and ideological work. All employees of the chair attend cultural events together with students to increase motivation to learn foreign languages and for educational purposes: Vulica Brasil, Festival of Francophonie, film screenings in foreign languages, Cafe Espanyol, etc.

Lecturers of the chair are in constant professional search. Events held by the chair have already become traditional: the English language Olympiad, the contest of creative works in the Belarusian language “Treasures of the native language”. Lecturers of the chair supervise research projects to provide language assistance in preparing students to participate in the International Scientific Conference of Young Scientists, Postgraduates, undergraduates, students “Actual environmental problems of present time”, held in English, and in the International Conference “Sakharov Readings”.

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