Teaching professional foreign language discourse using the potential of a social network (the example of a student academic conferences)

This article discusses the experience of transforming a traditional student conference in English for undergraduate students in the natural sciences in the context of distance learning at National Research Tomsk State University. The stages of work and statistical data based on the results of the student conference in English ‘Dive into Science' and ‘Launch yourself into Physics' are described in the form of video reports on the social network VKontakte. The 2020 pandemic has changed the reality of the higher education system: distance learning and the need for teacherstudent interaction through electronic means of communication and modern instant messengers and online platforms have come to the fore without compromising high education quality standards. In the spring of 2020, working in a remote learning environment, it was decided that it was not advisable to postpone the student conference at the Institute of Biology to the next academic year, and as a result, it became necessary to search for new forms and opportunities to implement the tasks associated with holding the Dive into Science conference. As the most suitable platform, we chose the social network VKontakte because, being the most popular social network, it had the necessary capabilities and potential, since it provided a full range of tools to achieve our goals. The “Dive into Science” community was created on the VKontakte social network, which became a common virtual space for all participants of the event. It should be emphasized that the students were actively involved in this work, for example, video reports reached 2600 views, and the most popular video reports scored more than 200 likes. It should be noted that all the participants of the conference were very involved in the discussion, which allowed them to find like-minded people and expand their cognitive field in the field of natural sciences. It should be emphasized that more than 90 students of the 1^st-3rd years of the Institute of Biology at TSU posted 52 video reports on various natural sciences, and teachers of the Institute of Biology and the Faculty of Foreign Languages of TSU, as well as senior students and undergraduates were involved as experts. Especially significant was the fact that Professor Sergey Yurchenko, University College London, Great Britain, was a visiting scientist and expert. This event went far beyond the scope of TSU's Institute of Biology because, thanks to the possibilities of social networks, the viewing geography was extended not only to neighboring countries, but also to such countries as Germany, Great Britain, Israel and the USA. It is extremely important that this conference was developed in subsequent events. So, for example, in April 2021, a student conference was held at the Faculty of Physics and Engineering of TSU, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. As a result, the “Launch yourself into Physics” community was created on the VKontakte social network.

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