TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGE NARRATIVE THROUGH SCIENCE NEWS REPORTING

Abstract

The purpose of studying a foreign language at a technical university is to provide students with the necessary skills and methods of communication in academic discourse, ensuring the adequacy of social and professional contacts. To achieve this goal, the teaching strategy of this discipline has shifted from traditional translations of texts in the specialty to the primacy of oral speech. Revision of pedagogical priorities has led to the need in updating information and educational resources and implementation of methods aimed at developing students` communicative skills by organizing different types of speech activity. The article discusses the method of creating foreign language narratives of a scientific and journalistic genre by using the latest research news. The author develops a step-by-step algorithm with the particular focus on identifying common and specific elements in the structure of news texts. The article presents a narrative analysis of the field-specific authentic news text that includes structuring the primary source of information into basic elements: those of an abstract, localization, complication, evaluation, and denouement. The preliminary division of the media text into elements allows students to create a framework structure and a basis for reporting back on the actual news stories. The linguodidactic potential held by professionally-oriented news narrative is established. The author believes that construction of narratives can contribute to the development of students` abilities to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and reflect on information. Learning a foreign language through news narratives allows engineering students to improve their creative and communicative skills. Teaching a foreign language using media sources, which highlight scientific and technological breakthroughs, forms educational and cognitive competence of engineering and technical profile students and stimulates their research activities.