On the eve of new academic year at the Department of Romance Philology and Translation of the Faculty of Foreign Philology the scientific-methodical seminar on problems of knowledge assessment and the communication skills of students studying French as a foreign language was held in ZNU.
The main purpose of the seminar was the training quality improvement for the students studying French though the new approach to the knowledge assessment system.
The event was held by the docent Evgenia Stulina and the senior lecturer of this Department Julia Tretiak.
In 2010-2011 as a part of the agreement on scientific cooperation with the University du Maine the lecturers of our university Eugenia Stulina and Julia Tretiak were trained in France in order to study the experience distance education of students learning French as a foreign language. The event was supported by a special grant program of the French government.
For a long time now multilingualism exists at the community level in Europe. Therefore back in 2001 the Council of Europe adopted the guideline of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, – Сadre européen de référence. The system of higher education in European countries, like France, features such discipline as Evaluation. The Faculty of Foreign Philology prepares specialists in this branch of knowledge, because the European experience becomes a relevant in Ukrainian system of higher education now. Therefore, this topical issue was submitted by Evgenya Volodymyrivna and Julia Yuriyivna at the seminar. Lecturers shared their experiences with colleagues, which they have acquired during their internship and their own practices received during testing this knowledge with students in practical classes. Docent Yevgeniya Stulina told about the introduction of the new course's elements among the audience of the third-year students in French classes and the work on a literary text. In their reports, the lecturers told about the types of evaluation - predictive, screening and others. Also the methods of teaching French as a foreign language, the evaluation criteria for the different types of work in class were mentioned in the reports. They stressed the differences between the systems of European and American education: the first traditionally prefers writing knowledge control, the second - oral. In Ukraine the usage of both practices are almost equal.
In the absence of a separate discipline of knowledge evaluation in the system of higher education of Ukraine, Julia Yriyivna demonstrated the possibility of using fragments of this course in the methodology of teaching other disciplines. In her own teaching practice she successfully uses the scientific tools of knowledge assessment and teaches these practices future specialists.
Launched subject lecturers intend to continue during the next seminars. In future discussions not only the evaluation criteria of linguistic competence of the students themselves, but also the problems and methods of teacher's knowledge assessment in the system of higher education will be considered. The establishment of the clear methods and tools in order to assess their work is important issue, because these methods are used by the whole system of European education.
Olena Hlistun
