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PROJECT BACKGROUND Our proposal has pointed out three central problems of current language education at Russian Technical Universities in relation to its immediate regional contexts. First, subject-specific language programmes are not differentiated enough and thus do not prepare students sufficiently for the surrounding international labour market. Second, there are no subject courses that are taught in English or German as an integral part of the curriculum. This hampers academic mobility and co-operations with EU partner universities. Third, the collaboration with international companies is hampered by insufficient language education and a lack of exposure to international working environments in the subject areas. We intend to address these needs by identifying four clearly defined outcomes. Each outcome is related to several activities that are built around a framework of preparation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This framework thus involves dialogue, further qualification, reflection, and elaborate feedback and testing mechanisms. The activities rely on commitments made by the project partners regarding realistic changes in their language policies and subsequent regular communication between the project partners. The following outcomes and activities have been agreed: Outcome 1 aims to create and evaluate a course programme of subject-specific language courses. This part of the project will be worked on from September 2008 to June 2009 and will work towards strengthening learners' communicative skills in the foreign language. In Omsk, the language courses will relate to "Information Management Systems". In Tyumen, the subjects concerned will be "Electrical power engineering"; "Automatization and management"; "Informatics and Computers"; and "Development and operation of oil and gas fields". The main working methodologies will be class observations and team teaching by Russian teachers at their EU colleagues' language centres and vice versa; extensive consultations between Russian teachers of foreign languages and their EU colleagues; the collaborative development of curricula and teaching materials; the differentiation of study groups; and extensive monitoring and evaluation phases where all participants can monitor the ongoing process as well as whether overall goals have been achieved. These evaluation tools will be assessed and analysed at a workshop in Omsk and lead to a written report containing recommendations for sustainability. In this way, these Russian TUs strengthen their opportunities for academic mobility and international co-operations. Subject-specific language courses will be extended from currently 2 to 6 hours per week, and from currently 2 years to 5 years. Courses will be re-organised to work stronger towards acquiring communicative skills in authentic work-related environments. Outcome 2 creates regular subject-specific courses which are conducted in English and one German as an integral component of the curriculum. We selected closely related seminars that would be of wide international interest that can be completed within a study period of two months, in order to attract international students. Omsk will offer courses "English for informatics" Irkutsk will offer courses in nanotechnology, mechatronic oil and drilling students Tyumen will offer courses in "Motortransport operation (under severe condition)"; "Drilling process control and operation"; "Information protection"; "Modelling of management systems". Every seminar will have a duration of 14 weeks, with an average of 30 students in each course. As this outcome requires more long-term planning, we plan its development from September 2008 to July 2009. The main methodologies consist of extensive visits by Russian subject lecturers at EU universities; the collaborative development, implementation, and evaluation of curricula by Russian lecturers together with local language teachers; close contact between Russian and EU partners via the project web site; and finally a workshop in Tyumen where the courses are thoroughly evaluated and documents for their integration into degrees are prepared. In February 2010, these documents are presented to rectors, deans, and commissions to confirm these subject courses as an integral part of the curriculum, offered each term to national and international students (activity 2.7). The long-term intention is certainly to create a core of English- or German language subject seminars that can be offered as an incentive to attract international students, while at the same time prepare Russian students for the international and foreign language regional labour markets. Outcome 3 aims to organise internships in collaboration with regional companies. These internships will be offered in companies that are collaborating with the three Russian TUs and whose corporate language is English. Students will compete for the available internships, and companies will select interns according to previously established criteria. Interns will work at these companies for an average of 14 days in order to receive insights into production cycles; participate in authentic oral communicative situations with colleagues in English; and take on small written tasks in English such as drafting business letters or the preparation of invoices/orders. The main working methodologies are public meetings between companies and regional universities; the discussion and agreement of selection criteria for potential internships; a pilot programme for interns, where they and teachers, EU colleagues, and companies will monitor and evaluate their progress, followed by a meeting in Tyumen where the results of these evaluations are analysed and recommendations are formulated for the sustainability of this programme. At each company there will be made available 10 internships which gives each company the opportunity to discover potential employees. In detail, methodologies and processes within the project are as follows: The project's working procedure is based on a permanent expert-group at each Russian Partner University which consists of five to seven people: the project's contact person; the head of the language centre (or the heads of different language departments); two to three young lecturers; one representative of the subject discipline, who will specify English and/or German seminars for regular or master degrees; and as consultants one to two professionals from international companies. Their duty is to fulfil the above-mentioned activities during the whole project. There are three workshops and three monitoring visits, one each at the three Russian universities: Irkutsk, Omsk, and Tyumen. There are continuous consultations among project partners using an Internet platform. There are a total of 6 exchange programmes: 21 individual East-West and 24 West-East visits and a total of 36 available internships at the companies involved (30 short stays and 6 one-month internships). Teachers will participate in various team-teaching activities at both Russian and EU universities, and there will be collaboration on various levels: EU and Russian language teachers; EU and Russian subject lecturers; Russian language teachers and subject lecturers; all project partners at monitoring visits and workshops. The principal target groups of this proposal, based on the project outline above, can be summarised as follows: - Three Russian technical universities in Irkutsk, Omsk, and Tyumen; in particular students and lecturers that participate in this project. - International companies that could benefit equally from a stronger orientation of the third level educational systems towards international contexts by having a regular influx of highly qualified students at their disposal. - Participating EU university language centres have the opportunity to gain more experience with east-west collaborations in language education, particularly following the introduction and wider dissemination of Council of Europe and related projects such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio. The principal beneficiaries of this project are the foreign language teachers; the subject-specific lecturers; and the students participating in these courses. It is clear from our current needs analysis and project plan that Russian technical universities will benefit greatly from this project. It will establish a close link between them and the surrounding labour market and create regional networks and work opportunities for students while at the same time prepare them for international contexts. International companies will be able to draw on the regional labour force rather than EU students or students from Moscow and St. Petersburg. They will be able to communicate and feed back their experiences to the technical universities. In this way, they will be able to participate in continuously elaborating and fine tuning a system of cooperation which strives to unite the demands of the labour market with a differentiated system of foreign language support for students at regional universities. |
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