Methodology of Organizing and Conducting Distance Olympiads in Korean as a Second Foreign Language in the Process of Professional Training of Future Foreign Language Teachers

In this article, the author presents the methodology of organizing and conducting distance Olympiads in Korean as a second foreign language in the process of professional training of foreign language teachers.

The purpose of the study is to examine specifics of second foreign language distance Olympiads organization in the context of professional training, main objectives of the Korean language Olympiad (increasing motivation, interest in learning Korean, exposure to Korean culture, etc.), and to analyze the main requirements for distance Olympiad tasks of the first round (tests), and tasks of the second round, which are aimed to identify the level of communication abilities. Interview, testing and observation are used as the main methods of research.

Results. The methodology proposed by the author was tested in groups of 3–4 year students of Sarsen Amanzholov East Kazakhstan University (educational program 6B01703 foreign language: two foreign languages). The article presents analysis of the distance Olympiad’s results, examples of tasks for each round and the main criteria for evaluating the tasks. The requirements to the second foreign language Olympiad tasks implied: possibility of mass coverage of students with Olympiad tasks; compliance of the tasks with the curriculum; time limit; relying on the students’ experience, including their native language skills and abilities; increasing tasks complexity; variety of tasks forms and content, the tasks contents and novelty; problem nature tasks to stimulate students thinking, language guess; using authentic material for the Olympiad tasks; the use of local history and extralinguistic material. The general complexity of the tasks, and difficulties associated with the nature of the linguistic material were also taken into account.

Conclusion. According to the results of the experimental work, the author comes to the following conclusion: the leading principle of organizing distance Olympiads assumes that the university faculty will be focused on the timely identification of the future teachers’ interest to the Korean language, their involvement in preparation for the Olympiad, thus forming their interest in Korean culture and language. Olympiad assignments should be creative so that students learn to find their own ways of solving problems and develop self-education skills. Participation in the Olympiad increases students’ learning motivation, broadens their horizons, and develops their ability to express their opinions. The variety of requirements to the work of participants makes the assessment of each member of the jury quite subjective, but the collective nature of the evaluation procedure ensures correctness and objectivity of the final decision, allows participants to familiarize with the results of their work and consider appeals after each round of the Olympiad participants.

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