Experts exchanged ideas on the state and prospects of the German language at a conference in RUDN

The Vice-Rector of the RUDN for Multilingual Development, Professor Anastasia Anatolyevna Atabekova, and the President of the Interregional Association of Teachers and Teachers of the German Language, Associate Professor Irina Faritovna Ganieva, greeted the participants.

Andreas Steppan (Germany) spoke at the plenary session. He devoted the report “Teaching German” to questions about the history of foreign language education in the USSR and the Russian Federation, specifically drew the attention of the conference participants to the potential and advantage of bilingual education for personal development, touched upon the formation of communicative competencies.

There were 4 sections at the conference:

• Modern approaches to teaching foreign languages in the system of general, secondary special. Early learning of the German language: experience and prospects (moderator — Irina Alexandrovna Agranovskaya, RUDN, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences).
• Modern approaches to teaching foreign languages in the system of higher and additional education (moderator — Yulia Zygmundovna Mirkina, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad).
• The potential of the subject “foreign language” in achieving the planned results in accordance with the requirements of the updated Federal State Educational Standards (using the example of the German language) (moderator — Igor Alexandrovich Katasonov, Director of Secondary school No. 47, Lipetsk).
• Ways to increase motivation to learn German in the higher education system (moderator — Larisa Yuryevna Kulpina, Pacific State University).

“At the section that I moderated, the speakers set themselves the task of introducing the audience to modern approaches and practical techniques that can be effectively used in the future in the process of teaching German both in full-time and online classes at school and university. The advantages of the section’s work include, of course, its interdisciplinarity and bilingualism: the reports were both in Russian and in German. The authors considered the issues of teaching a foreign language not only from the point of view of learning theory and psychology, but also linguistics,” said Yulia Zygmundovna Mirkina, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Institute of Education, Associate Professor (Kaliningrad).

“Many thanks to the organizer for the wonderful, interesting, diverse program. The presentation by Mr. Andreas Steppan on the CLIL methodology was informative. I would like to note the high preparedness of the speakers. They talked about their ideas with such enthusiasm that they wanted to bring them to life. There are rarely conferences where every performance is so exciting!

I also thank Igor Alexandrovich Katasonov for his work as a moderator at the section. Everything was clearly organized. Good luck and prosperity to all the organizers and speakers. I hope to see you again,” said Marina Vladimirovna Borovikova, German language teacher of “Gymnasium No. 1”, Novosibirsk.

“For modern multilingual education, it is extremely important to ensure continuity of education at different stages, including school and university. Systematic cooperation of teachers of schools and universities, an example of which is the current conference, allows us to provide unified approaches, technologies, and teaching content, taking into account the specifics of learning foreign languages by schoolchildren and universities”, said Irina Igorevna Kruse, Associate Professor of the RUDN, Member of the Commission of the Academic Council of the RUDN on Foreign Languages, Member of the Presidium of Interregional Association of Teachers and Teaching Fellows of the German Language.

The All-Russian scientific and practical conference “The German language in the Russian Federation: current state and prospects” was organized as part of the permanent interdepartmental scientific and methodological seminar of the Commission of the Academic Council of the RUDN on Foreign Languages.

The co-organizers of the conference were:

• Interregional Association of Teachers and Teachers of the German Language (IAPM).
• Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN).