MICROLEARNING-BASED DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSAL COMPETENCES IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

The emergence and dissemination of up-to-date information technology, addiction of younger generations to gadgets and, finally, pandemia of Covid-19 has led to wide spread of microlearning as a new trend in tertiary education. The convenient format of microlearning makes it possible to acquire new information in limited portions that corresponds both to the speed and mode of communication in modern world.Although relatively new as an educational tool at Russian universities, microlearning is gaining popularity as a means of diversifying curriculum, promoting students’ motivation, achieving better learning outcomes and avoiding mental fatigue of students. The paper presents some examples of successful implementation of microlearning at leading Russian universities with focus on its usage in classes of foreign languages. The development of linguistic and universal competences of students is implemented on the basis of digital storytelling, web-quests, the use of social media, video content and other microlearning instruments. The paper describes the preliminary results of microlearning introduction to teaching the English language for prospective lawyers at Kazan branch of Russian University of Justice.