A Bilingual Approach to Teaching Academic Writing to Undergraduates of a Psychological and Pedagogical Profile: Analysis of the Experience

   Relevance. Modern graduates of pedagogical universities should be able to communicate effectively in a professional environment, conduct their research regularly, and communicate in academic discourse, including English as the language of global world science. The ability to present the results of their research in academic articles and to publish in highly ranked journals is of fundamental importance to young scholars.

   Aim. To analyze the application of the bilingual approach in teaching academic writing to undergraduates in psychology and pedagogy (on the example of mastering the structure of an English-language article and the logic of material presentation).

   Research methods. This study used such general scientific and special methods as analysis, synthesis, comparison, analogy, systematic and comparative analysis, observation, interviews.

   The scientific novelty and/or theoretical and/or practical significance. The article presents the theoretical substantiation of pedagogical conditions for the implementation of the developed module aimed at the formation of necessary competences in academic English-language discourse. The article presents the views of Russian and foreign scientists about the content of the concepts under study, analyzes the role of bilingual teaching of a foreign language at present. The authors prove the importance of relying on the native language in the educational process as a tool to remove the difficulties in speech-thought activity of students, to ensure communication of a teacher and a student, their interpersonal mutual cooperation, achievement of mutual understanding and empathy. The practical part of the research can be used in the foreign language teaching of undergraduates or senior students in the humanities, aimed at forming the foundations of academic literacy.

   Research results. The core content of the research is the analysis of theoretical and methodological bilingual approaches to foreign language teaching, revealing weaknesses and strengths of bilingual and monolingual teaching of academic literacy, defining the principles of teaching academic writing to Russian-English bilingual students based on the bilingual approach to overcome the interacademic barrier, formulation and approbation of bilingual module of teaching English to undergraduate students of humanities, analysis of the obtained results. Recommendations on the effective integration of the module into the educational process are presented. Based on the obtained results, the expediency of using the module in the training of undergraduates in psychology and pedagogy is proved. Training in the experimental mode helps students overcome the interacademic barrier, contributes to a deeper understanding of the English-language publications structure, their content and logic. The acquired competences not only helped the students structure their articles in English correctly, but also contributed to improving the quality of articles and reports in Russian. The obtained data is confirmed by the results of expert evaluation, as well as self- and mutual evaluation of the participants of the experiment.

   Conclusions. The conclusion is made about the importance of following the principle of native language support when organizing teaching of English-language academic discourse and forming of competences of foreign-language academic literacy for young scientists. The article gives the rationale for organizing undergraduate education in English language at a university on the basis of the bilingual approach and presents the data which confirms the effectiveness of the module "Formation of Academic Literacy in English Academic Discourse: Structure of a Research Paper". The wide potential of this module in teaching students of natural sciences and technical specialties is noted.

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