E-learning as the way to improve foreign language teaching process at the military university in the context of education digital transformation

The focus on international cooperation has transformed the requirements for the military personnel professional training and education. It has also led to the National Guard Troops need for the military speaking foreign languages. Increasing contacts and interaction with foreign states on security and stability oblige the National Guard Troops military personnel not only to speak foreign languages at the appropriate level, but also to receive the necessary foreign language information independently, use it, and solve problems of their further foreign language development. Cadets' professionally-oriented foreign language training will be effective if it is implemented in electronic form. Competence-based, personality-oriented and lingua-informational approaches are the methodological orientation in the e-learning organization. The modern competence paradigm determines the practical orientation of foreign language training in a military university. The core of competence-based training is not only the formation of the future officer's ability to perceive foreign language information, but also the ability to apply the received information in their own product of foreign language activity in oral or written form, that is, the ability to use their knowledge in real-life situations. Such a basic principle of the competence-based approach as shifting the emphasis from explanatory-illustrative acquisition of the sum of knowledge, skills, and abilities to building an individual educational trajectory of students focuses the system of foreign language training of future officers on the development of their independence. As applied to teaching a foreign language at a military university, the personality-oriented approach is designed to create conditions for the full development of the psychological potential of future officer's personality. Thus, personality is affirmed the core of the personality-oriented approach. The personality-oriented approach focuses on the development of personality, creating conditions for self-education, self-development and self-actualization of personality, taking into account its individual psychological characteristics. The lingua-informational approach is an important resource for managing the organization of the educational process and is implemented in the logic of the principle of building an artificial educational environment, which is based on the application of a complex of interconnected pedagogical actions aimed at ensuring the maximum realization of the natural potential capabilities of cadets studying foreign languages in domestic military universities. The introduction of foreign language e-learning is a consequence of ongoing education digital transformation. In this context the lingua-informational approach is embodied in the construction of a local electronic foreign language educational environment, which is a tool for cadets' skills and abilities acquisition. These skills and abilities implementation is possible in an objectively existing rapidly developing foreign language information environment of professional reality. The local electronic foreign language educational environment of a military university is defined as a lingua-informational one. In the context of foreign language e-learning the lingua-informational environment of a military university should be understood as: a set of electronic information and educational resources, information and telecommunication technologies, appropriate technological means and means of pedagogical influence, which provide training of an officer who is able to use a foreign language practically in such areas of his lingua-informational activities as foreign language information search and processing, its written exchange, discussion of problems of scientific and professional nature. When teaching a foreign language at a military university the effective functioning of the lingua-informational environment is ensured by a number of conditions. The core of the lingua-informational environment as a means of foreign language e-learning implementing is the localized online course "English for the Military," posted on the Portal of the Perm Military Institute. The developed course is used in the educational process of the military institute according to the model of «discipline support». Under the model, the course acts as the basis for classroom work. It makes possible not to change the format of teaching and the structure of the discipline. The author's electronic course consists of four main modules that contain the full amount of knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to solve professional problems. Modular content organization ensures non-linearity of its learning. Each of the modules includes a theoretical part, a practical part, and a part for control performing. The material of the modules is focused on the cadets' awareness that foreign language is a means of acquiring knowledge in the military and special field. Thus, cadets are gradually involved in the problems of the professional sphere of their future activities, commanding their professional vocabulary. So, they have new motives that fill the process of training with personal meaning. In order to increase interest and motivation, each module includes the speech situations of foreign language academic, professional and scientific communication. The effectiveness of the implementation of electronic foreign language training is described in the context of foreign language independence formation. It is an indicator of the long-term readiness and ability of future officers to effectively interact with the information foreign language environment of professional reality. The diagnostic results, processed by mathematical statistics, fully confirmed the effectiveness of e-learning in the context of the foreign language independence formation.

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