The IITU experts took part in two conferences for teachers

The IITU language experts, Associate Professor Dinara Aliyeva and Assistant Professor Oksana Bublikova, spoke at the August conferences for school teachers with a report on the topic "Formation of foreign language communicative competence of migrant children using the Akelius learning application as a way of successful adaptation in the educational environment of the Republic of Kazakhstan."

The conference in the capital was held on August 23, 2022 online on the ‘Binom School Turan’ application. The moderator was Akbota Yessematova, the Head of the school department of the Center for the Modernization of Education in the city of Nur-Sultan. The work of the section was broadcast live on the YouTube application. Recording link: https://youtu.be/2e_6ucuob40?t=5624. The conference in Almaty was held offline on August 26.

During the report, Dinara Assylkhanovna and Oksana Vasiliyevna shared their experience of working in a joint project between UNICEF, Akelius and IITU, which is based on the fact that training is carried out using the Akelius application and it allows increasing the level of literacy and developing digital skills of children in difficult life situations. The project covers 9 schools – three each in Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent.

“Families with children from different countries come to Kazakhstan. Our task is to help them socialize. We want to encourage educators to use the Akelius application in their classrooms. It will be a good helper for those teachers who have migrant children in the class, it will be an impetus for the child to start speaking Russian and integrate into our society,” explained Oksana Vasiliyevna.

The experts listed the advantages of the application. Firstly, any teacher can use it, it does not require special training: everything is user-friendly. Secondly, access to the materials is provided free of charge and without registration.

“According to the teachers involved in the project, the application is used several times in the classroom. The goals may be different. This is, first of all, the introduction of new vocabulary, that is, vocabulary replenishment, consolidation of the material, as well as a game form, since RFL for children represents a slightly different approach - communicative and activity-based,” said Oksana Vasiliyevna.

In their presentation, the experts, using the example of one of the lessons, showed how the application can be used during classes as an auxiliary tool. Initially, the teacher needs to see what kind of lessons exist, what lexical and grammatical topics are covered there, and think about how this can be used.

“Teachers have more experience in working according to the traditional method, we have experience in teaching Russian as a foreign language. The main principle is that the learning process is maximally focused on real life events, that is, situations are played out in the audience, real or fictional, which help the child solve imaginary or real problems: introduce himself, meet other people, tell about himself, make purchases, visit places of leisure, go in for sports, travel. Akelius lessons are built on this principle,” Dinara Assylkhanovna emphasized.

The experts noted that when teaching Russian as a foreign language, grammar becomes a ‘servant’ of vocabulary: its purpose is to serve communication and provide communicative tasks. Therefore, when teaching Russian as a foreign language on the Akelius application, the emphasis is on vocabulary so that the child has the need to speak.

“The main goal is the development of language abilities, memory, speech hearing, attention, probabilistic forecasting, some emotional, mental, creative qualities of the child, his imagination. The game component will help with this,” Oksana Vasiliyevna noted.

Having given advice and answered questions, the experts once again drew attention to the fact that communication itself is important in ‘Russian as a foreign language’, and not the accuracy of using grammatical rules. They recommended that their colleagues build a lesson in such a way that children communicate with each other. At the same time, you can’t get too carried away and turn everything into the game. The teacher must achieve the goal, and Akelius as an additional resource will help him in this.