PetrSUCelebrated 55-year Anniversary of Foreign Language Education in the Republic of Karelia
The Institute of Foreign Languages of PetrSU hosted a scientific and practical conference with international participation "Intercultural Environment: linguistic and didactic aspects" dedicated to two significant dates: the 80th anniversary of PetrSU and the 55th anniversary of foreign language education in the Republic of Karelia.
The meeting convened more than 150 participants from Russia, Germany and the USA, specialists in the field of linguistics, teaching foreign languages and intercultural communication and featured a discussion on current trends in the modern foreign and domestic educational environment related to these aspects. Due to complicated epidemiological situation, the participants agreed that the conference would be held via ZOOM.
At the plenary session, Vladimir Syunev, the Vice-Rector for Research of PetrSU, addressed the meeting with a welcoming speech and emphasized the importance of foreign language knowledge in the modern world. Associate professors of the Department of German and French Languages Ernest Tsypkin and Natalia Tokko, teachers with considerable professional experience, told the audience about significant events in the history and life of a foreign language, the Director of the Institute of Foreign Languages, Inna Kreneva, introduced the participants of the conference to the prospects and challenges in modern reality.
The report of Irina Abramova, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages for Humanities, and Anastasia Ananina, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Foreign Languages for Humanities, was of particular interest during the plenary session and was dedicated to the issues and challenges of internationalization of higher education, as well as a report prepared by Professor Andrei Reznikov of Black Hills State University (USA) on biblical idioms in Russian and English.
The invited guests of the plenary session from the Higher School of Economics (Moscow) touched upon topical issues in linguistics and didactics. Thus, Associate Professor Olga Vinogradova presented the working arrangements on using the language corpora in foreign language learning. Associate Professor Maria Lytaeva spoke about the international online project conducted jointly by the HSE and the Ruhr-University (Bochum, Germany) in order to establish students’ intercultural competence and showed the ample opportunities for online internationalization.
Following the plenary session, the work continued in four sections: "Intercultural Linguistics", "Intercultural Translation Studies", "Intercultural Didactics" and "Aspects of Teaching a Professional Foreign Language".
The section "Intercultural Linguistics" featured the reports on the most diverse English, German and French linguistic aspects. It is a pleasure that the online mode of the conference allowed to bring together in the section not only PetrSU representatives, but also representatives of Moscow Pedagogical University, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Higher School of Economics, Mordovia State University, Ural State University of Economics.
Despite the diversity of research aspects and the languages, all presentations aroused vivid interest and questions. The discussion did not ignore the coronavirus issue - from a linguistic position: the wave of neologisms, which swept across all languages likewise a wave of a pandemic, will be of long-lasting interest among linguists in all countries.
At the section "Intercultural Translation Studies", the speakers represented various philological departments of PetrSU and other Russian universities in St. Petersburg, Tula and Ivanovo. In particular, Natalya Ivanova, Doctor of Philology, Professor of Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology, paid attention to some difficulties in translating the lexemes "science", "scientific" and a number of their synonyms into English. The report of Vladimir Andreev, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor, Head of the English Philology Department of Tula State Pedagogical University named after Leo Tolstoy, was devoted to the time-consuming professional translator’s work. A comparative analysis of the draft and published versions of the Teffi's story And Time Was No More translation into English, made by the American translator Anne Marie Jackson, showed the "inner working" on choosing the best lexical or grammatical match.
The aim of the reports of Tatiana Davydova, Associate Professor of the Department of German Philology and Scandinavian Studies, Candidate of Philology, Olga Veselovskaia, Senior Teacher of the Department of the German and French Languages, and ValeriiPetrov, Senior Teacher of the same department (remote participation), was a translation of regional realities. The reports attracted a genuine interest of the students, mostly, of the Linguistics program (Translation and Interpreting Studies), whose curriculum contains a similar discipline. It is worth noting that the greatest number of participants of the section reached 66 just in time those speakers held the floor.
The report of Elena Vorotilina, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor of the Department of German and French Languages, and Olga Nikolaeva, Senior Teacher of the Department of Foreign Languages for Humanities, covered the issues of the literary texts translation from German into Russian. They introduced the audience to the works of the writers Adolf Muschg and Bernhard Schlink.
Reports of NadezhdaShablikova and Vadim Pavlov, Associate Professors of the Department of English Language, considered the particular issues of translation theory referring to the need to develop interpreters’ acting skills and the aspects of grammatical transformations in the media text translation.
RobiaAmanova and EsmiraKurbanova, students of the Institute of Foreign Languages, expressed positive impression of the work at the section "Intercultural Translation Studies", noting how much their horizons in the theory and practice of translation have expanded as a result of studying all the reports.
The session of the "Intercultural Didactics" (moderated by Professor Elena Borzova, Acting Head of the Department of English Language of PetrSU) was also insightful. The speakers represented different departments of two institutes of PetrSU (the Institute of Foreign Languages and the Institute of Philology) and two other Russian universities (Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University). The participants had the opportunity to ask all questions and discuss the content of the reports, which revealed various aspects of the methodology of teaching foreign languages.
The session of the section "Aspects of Teaching a Professional Foreign Language" featured a discussion on teaching a foreign language to students of non-linguistic programs.
On the second day of the conference, the scientific and practical forum "Professional development of a young specialist in the terms of teaching a foreign language and foreign culture" was held via ZOOM. The forum was organized by Irina Lebedeva, Chairman of the Council of Young Teachers at the Trade Union of Education of the Republic of Karelia, Deputy Director of the Secondary School No. 3, graduate of the Institute of Foreign Languages of PetrSU. Over 60 teachers from educational organizations of our republic, teachers and students of the Institute of Foreign Languages of PetrSU, teachers of the Petrozavodsk Motor Transport Technical School, employees of the Petrozavodsk Presidential Cadet School participated in the forum. Speakers of the forum, laureates and prize-winners of the All-Russian competition "Russian Teacher of the Year " and the republican competition "Teacher of the Year of Karelia" of recent years have shared effective educational technologies and methodological techniques that they use in work. Elena Borzova, Doctor of Pedagogy, Professor of the Department of English Language of the Institute of Foreign Languages of PetrSU, examined in detail the tendencies in modern foreign language education. The forum became a memorable educational meeting for teachers of a foreign language in our republic and received a positive response from the participants.
In the framework of the conference, students of universities had the opportunity to present the results of their linguistic and didactic research at a student scientific forum, as well as improve their skills of academic communication.
As a result of the conference, the proceedings will be prepared and planned to be included into the database of the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI).
