Scholarly record

EDUCATIONAL DIGEST AS A TECHNOLOGY OF PREFIGURATIVE CULTURE OF THE INFORMATION WORLD: FROM JOURNALISM TO ACADEMISM

N. Novikova, T. Cherkashina, G. Gubanova, L. Kovtun, N. Romanova

Abstract

The article raises the problems associated with the abundance of information in the modern prefigurative society, and also formulates the main methodological tasks facing the teacher today, namely: (1) to carefully select educational material, i.e., what must necessarily enter the students’ “knowledge base”; (2) to structure this database in terms of the significance of its contents; and (3) to find cost-effective ways of supplying information. Having substantiated the conclusion that the modern generation is radically different from the previous ones and, as a result, requires new forms of educational work, the authors offer a digest method, the use of which will allow students to get the maximum amount of necessary content in a minimum volume. Having delimited the methodological prospects for developing language skills and the need to deepen the linguistic and cultural information that forms the cultural component of the students’ communicative competence, the authors reveal the validity of digests in determining the students’ communicative competence levels. The statistical data obtained from a questionnaire survey of bilingual students before and after the digest, confirm the provisions stated in the article. At the end of the article, it is concluded that the practical importance of using digests is, firstly, a didactic prospect for filling gaps in background knowledge; secondly, it is a real opportunity to increase the productivity of teaching due to the redistribution of study time and student activity; and thirdly, a possibility of ensuring constant updating of educational material.

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