This article deals with the problem of the culture of professional self-realization of Russian students in the process of university education at the present stage. The role of information and communications technologies is revealed, in particular the interactive technology of self-regulation developed by the authors, as a necessary pedagogical condition for the successful professional self-realization of students. The paper describes the interactive technology of self-regulation formation used in teaching a foreign language in order to improve the educational process. The paper provides an analysis of the current state of the classroom educational environment in teaching a foreign language in order to determine the possibilities of improving the educational process. The main goal of the interactive technology of self-regulation formation is to optimize and intensify the activities of students in the classroom and extracurricular activities. The interactive technology of self-regulation formation in a nonlinguistic university was applied in the proposed work. Special attention was paid to the problem of structuring and the algorithmization of independent work. Ways for increasing interactivity are revealed, and an algorithm for teaching and speech actions in interactive mode was developed. It was established that the introduction of structured algorithmization using the interactive technology of self-regulation formation could be effectively used for teaching poorly prepared students. It has been established that the culture of professional self-actualization for modern students is directly dependent on the quality of online interaction with a university teacher. It was revealed that it is the student’s awareness of the objectives of learning interaction and ways for its implementation that allow him to competently perform his academic work, which in turn contributes to the actualization of personal professional qualities that are required by a university graduate for successful implementation in the future.

A significant number of studies are devoted to the psychological and social adaptation of students to the educational process at university. This research contributes to the solution of the problem of first-year students’ academic performance in the framework of studying a foreign language by working with monologue speaking tasks. The study offers an analysis of the improvement of academic performance in this particular type of language activity. The study took place at Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Russia, and involved 274 first-year students enrolled in undergraduate programs. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to collect and analyse data for the study. The research included the qualitative content analysis of monologue speaking tasks. Results of the study make it possible to conclude that the use of monologue speaking tasks paired with peer interaction and peer assessment can improve first-year students’ English-speaking skills.

Foreign language speaking skills need much practice in order to be improved, which is why it is essential to use different teaching techniques to instruct students effectively. The multiplicity and multitasking of the foreign language teaching process requires the introduction of technology that ensures consistently effective results of professional foreign language learning, i.e., case technology in the algorithmized educational process. The conducted research contributes to the issue of case technology implementation—the algorithm of professional task solutions, aimed at improving students’ English-speaking skills—in teaching professional legal English. The aim of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of case technology in the improvement of ESP speaking skills in the course of distance and face-to-face learning. Comparative analysis of the distance and face-to-face format of case technology implementation in teaching professional foreign communication to law students was carried out in the course of the two-semester study conducted at SPbPU (N 120) in the period from January 2020 to July 2021. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to collect and analyse data for the study. The results of the study showed that, for such assessment criteria as task completion, discourse competence and meaningfulness, the use of case technology in a face-to-face format was more effective than the one carried out on-line. As it can have some pedagogical implications on the improvement of English-speaking skills while teaching professional legal English at university, additional effort should be taken to ensure the effectiveness of case technology in the course of distance learning.

The topicality of the article is determined by the widespread use of blended learning approaches in higher education, especially in studying foreign languages. With the limited number of classroom hours proposed for teaching foreign languages at technical universities, it became very relevant to introduce various alternative out-of-class monitoring methods. The aim of the research is to investigate the effectiveness of introducing video sketches as the way to improve the process of foreign language studying at technical universities. The authors assume that recording video monologues could facilitate students’ speaking abilities, reduce the level of their anxiety compared to delivering monologues in class and could stimulate the effective use of classroom hours for teaching foreign languages. To prove this hypothesis the authors of the study conducted an experiment in Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University during the autumn term of 2019-2020 academic year with the total number of 232 participants randomly chosen from 1-course students of technical specialties with different levels of English language proficiency. The possibility to record a monologue instead of delivering it face-to-face was considered as the IV (independent variable) of the experiment. Such research method as an open-close questionnaire was used afterwards to identify the students’ satisfaction with the proposed alternative as well as the analysis of the exam results at the end of the course. These results as the part of the students’ academic performance represented the DV (dependent variable) of the experiment. The obtained data showed that students of the experimental group passed their exam significantly better than the students of the control group. Thus, the present survey proved that students of the experimental group would prefer to record video sketches instead of delivering monologues face to face and that making video monologues improved their fluency and helped overcome some psychological barriers. On the basis of the research and the results obtained during the experiment, the authors conclude that the application of video monologues in the process of teaching foreign languages is highly promising.

In modern higher education, there was a change in the educational paradigm, when the emphasis shifted to the formation of competencies. The goal of the competence approach is to improve the quality of education, which is impossible without the use of educational technologies that guarantee a steady effective result. The priority of teaching foreign languages to future lawyers is the foreign speaking skills formation in general and the monological ones in particular. The introduction of educational technology in the process of monological speaking skills formation, including a set of methods and techniques such as peer review, discussion, working with the text, etc., took place over the course of the pedagogical experiment. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis allowed us to determine the difference in the level of the monological speaking skills formation in experimental and control groups at all stages of the experiment conducted. The effectiveness of the developed technology is determined by the significance of the adaptation stage, the use of the peer review method, which implements the potential of students’ metacognitive skills, and the possibility to change the role while evaluating students’ answers.