Keyword: «key competences»

The article highlights effective ways of teaching fiction reading skills, incorporating them into language teaching environment and using them in building students’ key competences, sums up the author’s personal experience of teaching home reading course to Education majors in foreign languages and demonstrates the author’s set of tasks aimed at contemporary British stories discussion.

The article highlights discussing the topic "Booking and staying at a hotel". The model includes a country-study text, stating the peculiarities of staying at a hotel in the USA, and vocabulary training and text related activities demanding the information search and discussion booking and staying at a hotel in Russia and Great Britain. Vocabulary and facts from the text are mastered on the basis of the content of the suggested text and intercultural comparison. Provided model can be used with English language high school students and junior language and humanities university students.

The relevance of the study is determined by changes in global approaches to English language teaching, where there is a paradigm shift from teaching English as a foreign language to teaching English as a language of international communication. In light of the global transition to a new concept, it is necessary to reconsider key principles, particularly the need to form and develop intercultural competence through the medium of English, which can be achieved by selecting appropriate intercultural materials. One significant drawback of school educational and methodological complexes is the lack of supplementary video materials that could update the content of English language textbooks. The aim of the study was to justify the necessity of developing intercultural and regional video materials to complement existing educational and methodological complexes for English language teaching and to examine the effectiveness of their use in order to update the content of these complexes. During the study, a set of video materials consisting of 7 videos with methodological materials was worked out and tested with the participation of international students from Petrozavodsk State University. The trial involved 110 students from grades 9–11 and 8 English language teachers from district schools in the Republic of Karelia. The results of the study showed that the video materials are interesting and in demand among students and teachers. The findings indicated that 98% of students learned a lot about the cultures of other countries and noted their significant differences from their native culture. 100% of teachers stated that the tested video materials have the potential to foster a positive attitude towards their native culture, the culture of other countries, and the study of English. The theoretical significance of the research lies in justifying the necessity for developing and utilizing intercultural video materials in addition to school English language textbooks. The results of the study are practically relevant as they can be used for further development of a set of video materials for school textbooks.

The digital transformation of the education system has led to the need for students to acquire 21st-century skills through innovative pedagogical approaches, among which STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education occupies a special place. However, the comparative effectiveness of traditional and extracurricular STEM projects in developing key skills among schoolchildren is still not well justified. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of these two approaches in fostering core competences among secondary school students. This article aims to compare the impact of regular and extra-curricular STEM project-based learning on the development of essential skills among eighth-grade students. The experiment was conducted on a group of 65 students, divided into three groups: two experimental groups and one control group. The first experimental group learned STEM technologies in regular geography lessons, while the second group participated in extracurricular design and research activities. The control group was taught using traditional methods. The competence development was assessed using the method worked out by A.V. Pashkevich and based on the classification of key competences proposed by A.V. Khutorskoy. Statistical data processing was done using the Mann-Whitney U-test with a significance level of p < 0.05. The results showed that the STEM approach was significantly better than traditional teaching methods. In the first experimental group, the integrated competence index increased from 0.42 to 0.51. In the second group, it went from 0.44 to 0.67. This indicates a transition to an advanced level. The control group showed the lowest results. In the extracurricular experimental group, innovative practice-oriented STEM projects were implemented («PharmaHops», «Radiance», a multimodal transport hub design, and others), several of which received recognition at regional and federal competitions. It has been shown that the extracurricular implementation of STEM projects leads to a more pronounced development of key skills compared to regular classes due to the greater freedom in selecting content and methods, as well as the absence of strict time limits and opportunities for interdisciplinary interaction. The theoretical importance of this study lies in the development of a competence-based approach and the clarification of scientific ideas regarding the effectiveness of different forms of STEM education. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of evidence-based recommendations for optimizing the educational process. These recommendations focus on the prioritization of extracurricular STEM activities, the establishment of a suitable material and technical framework, and the professional development of teachers in the field of interdisciplinary instruction.