Nowadays, the curriculum of higher education is mainly based on hard skills development, although soft skills are of critical importance for successful academic and professional performance. Consequently, the purpose of the article is to describe the possible methods of mastering the second-year students’ soft skills within the scope of a foreign language course, using interactive methods. The aim of the research was to elaborate on three types of interactive problem-based tasks and assessment criteria which allow us to monitor the progress of soft skills such as problem solving, teamwork, leadership, time management and technology skills, and analytical and creative thinking. Both tasks and criteria were uploaded onto an online educational platform. The case study method, which was considered to be the main monitoring tool, turned out to be effective in the pedagogical experiment where the students collaborated both online and offline. The experiment demonstrated a positive trend in students’ soft skills improvement alongside their foreign language communication skills. Moreover, statistical analyses showed the effectiveness of the system created to master soft skills. The proposed system for digital monitoring of soft skills development can be useful for teaching personnel who want to make the educational process more interactive and productive for advancing students’ soft skills.

The modern world requires engineering specialists with excellent hard skills as well as soft skills that contribute to better communication, creativity, and self-realisation of a person. The authors discovered that modern educational standards are starting to focus on soft skills development, proposing requirements for educational programs that contain competencies covering soft skills. To fulfil such needs, there is the productive method of foreign language teaching that implies interactive technologies and masters foreign language communicative competence and soft skills at once. Therefore, the study aimed at developing a technology of soft skills development in engineering foreign language education using the productive method and checking its effectiveness. The authors designed a questionnaire and investigated engineering students’ opinions on a need to develop soft skills, which revealed high relevance of the topic, and the possibility of their development while studying a foreign language, which proved the productive method’s prospects. Based on findings received and literature analysed, we implemented case studies, problem-based learning, and essay writing in the technology and designed assessment criteria. Testing of the technology was performed by a pedagogical experiment, where qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. To critically analyse the results, we used Cronbach’s alpha, which revealed good reliability of the questionnaire, and t-test showed high efficiency of the technology that improved students’ soft skills.

Digital transformation in the world poses new challenges for workers: employers now demand employees possessing excellent professional, management, and communication skills. But modern higher education is not ready for developing such soft skills due to several problems occurred: (1) a lack of a unified typology of soft skills; (2) differences in understanding of importance of developing soft skills between students, higher education professionals, and employers; (3) unavailability and the lack of focus of higher education institutions on the development of students' soft skills; (4) the lack of valid methodologies for developing soft skills. The author used a method of content analysis of scientific literature and found out that there is relevance and necessity of improving students' soft skills and for managing this process in digital environment pedagogical monitoring can be used as it provides opportunities for well-timed control and solving occurring problems. Consequently, the aim of the research was to design a model for monitoring students' soft skills development using online technologies. The designed model includes usage of different types of monitoring and various learning and controlling teaching technologies. The experiment was carried out within foreign language learning as it can provide useful means of soft skills development. The study involved 226 first-year students of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and was aimed at developing 3 categories of soft skills: communication, management, professional skills. Based on the content analysis, soft skills were developed using interactive teaching technologies; learning activities were uploaded into the Moodle, as well as testing was online. After utilizing the model proposed we figured out the statistical difference between results obtained during initial, intermediate, and final stages of the experiment, which proved the model's efficiency. Therefore, the model can be useful for soft skills development within foreign language learning in the system of higher education.

Academic mobility is becoming increasingly popular for students and provides great opportunities to communicate with other people, get useful knowledge and experience and practice using a foreign language. Education abroad includes listening to lectures as one of the most common way of presenting information. Thus, students need preparation to understand foreign lecturers and be successful in their studies. Having studied 30 online lectures from diverse MOOCs, the authors identified that their structure is similar to traditional lectures. Consequently, the research was done with the use of academic lectures from the MOOC «Thermodynamics» to teach the experimental group of students from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. For conducting the research the authors used a pedagogical experiment and descriptive statistical methods to analyse data received (T-statistics, chi-square and Fisher’s test). As a result, students from the experimental group showed better findings of listening comprehension skills with the average score of 65,5% compared to 44,4% of the control group. Moreover, the experimental group showed improvement in listening comprehension skills from the average score of 43% at the initial stage to 65,5% at the end of the experiment proving the effectiveness of learning activities the authors designed and used.

The research aims to substantiate the feasibility of using artificial intelligence technologies for the formation of universal competencies in non-linguistic university students in the process of learning a foreign language, based on the opinion of teachers. The article analyzes the current educational standards of higher education, as well as the draft of the new generation standards for engineering and technical fields of training, regarding the presence of universal competencies developed in foreign language classes. Theoretical research reveals the advantages and disadvantages of using artificial intelligence tools (AI tools) in the current educational environment, and the results of empirical research confirm and supplement previously identified features of the introduction of new technologies into educational activities. Scientific novelty lies in the definition of universal competencies that can be developed in the process of teaching foreign languages to university students using AI tools. As a result, a positive attitude of teachers towards the use of AI tools for the development of the universal competencies “systemic and critical thinking”, “information analysis and processing”, “development and implementation of projects”, “self-organization and self-development”, and “digital ecosystem” was revealed.

The aim of the research is to develop practical recommendations for designing modern educational and methodological complexes (EMCs) used in teaching the discipline “Foreign Language: Professionally-Oriented Course” in higher education. During the research, the most relevant scientific works of modern Russian and foreign specialists in the field of pedagogy, who study the problems of designing such EMCs, were selected and analyzed. Systematization of the data obtained made it possible to formulate current principles for the development of EMCs, which represents the scientific novelty of the article. The proposed classification includes the following principles: personal expediency of learning; micro-modeling of educational material; professional and communicative orientation of learning; multimodality of educational material; contextual functionality of educational material; effectiveness of the developed materials. The research findings show that taking into account the principles and substantive aspects described in this paper will allow university faculty to develop high-quality EMCs that meet modern challenges in higher education.