The Development of Listening Skills Based on Google Sites as Part of a Professionally-Oriented Teaching of Foreign Languages (English for Non-Linguistic Specialties)

The current research is aimed at developing listening skills of students majoring in International relations based on Google sites within the framework of professionally-oriented approach to foreign language teaching. It consisted of five stages: the creation of website «Be up-to-date with MD» based on the web service Google sites; the development of questionnaires; the development of system of tasks; conducting questionnaire and listening test on «Donald Trump's inauguration speech»; conducting questionnaire and listening test on «Brexit options: Hard, soft, grey and clean versions». The website «Be up-to-date with MD» provides more than 50 before and while listening tasks targeted to develop students’ listening skills (listening for gist, for specific information and detail). The tasks are based on political news, analytical reports, movies on politics taken from BBC news, CNN, Euro news, Russia Today, The Guardian and other resources. The created website has more than 50 tasks, and this number gradually increases. Students can develop their listening skills as well as improve their professional competence by accomplishing the given tasks, because the tasks are based on valuable and reasonable for these students information. In order to check the reliability and validity of the developed task we conducted research, namely tested 25 second year students, majoring in International relations, who study in the Branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University. We also conducted a questionnaires: the first one was aimed at shaping the image of the respondents, the second one was targeted to know what students think about the tasks and website itself. Finally, the obtained results proved the fact that the developed tasks are a matter of interest.