The article considers the problems of students training to solve learning tasks in technical universities, as well as training of high-school students, who are going to enter technical universities. The functions of tasks, causing the importance of their application in learning process, are specified. The system of methods is given which allows a successful development of analytical skills of students during solving physics and chemical problems. The features of analysis during solving physics and chemical problems are demonstrated. Results of experimental work, supporting the effectiveness of the stated methods, are given herein

Academic mobility is becoming increasingly popular for students and provides great opportunities to communicate with other people, get useful knowledge and experience and practice using a foreign language. Education abroad includes listening to lectures as one of the most common way of presenting information. Thus, students need preparation to understand foreign lecturers and be successful in their studies. Having studied 30 online lectures from diverse MOOCs, the authors identified that their structure is similar to traditional lectures. Consequently, the research was done with the use of academic lectures from the MOOC «Thermodynamics» to teach the experimental group of students from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. For conducting the research the authors used a pedagogical experiment and descriptive statistical methods to analyse data received (T-statistics, chi-square and Fisher’s test). As a result, students from the experimental group showed better findings of listening comprehension skills with the average score of 65,5% compared to 44,4% of the control group. Moreover, the experimental group showed improvement in listening comprehension skills from the average score of 43% at the initial stage to 65,5% at the end of the experiment proving the effectiveness of learning activities the authors designed and used.

The modern world requires engineering specialists with excellent hard skills as well as soft skills that contribute to better communication, creativity, and self-realisation of a person. The authors discovered that modern educational standards are starting to focus on soft skills development, proposing requirements for educational programs that contain competencies covering soft skills. To fulfil such needs, there is the productive method of foreign language teaching that implies interactive technologies and masters foreign language communicative competence and soft skills at once. Therefore, the study aimed at developing a technology of soft skills development in engineering foreign language education using the productive method and checking its effectiveness. The authors designed a questionnaire and investigated engineering students’ opinions on a need to develop soft skills, which revealed high relevance of the topic, and the possibility of their development while studying a foreign language, which proved the productive method’s prospects. Based on findings received and literature analysed, we implemented case studies, problem-based learning, and essay writing in the technology and designed assessment criteria. Testing of the technology was performed by a pedagogical experiment, where qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. To critically analyse the results, we used Cronbach’s alpha, which revealed good reliability of the questionnaire, and t-test showed high efficiency of the technology that improved students’ soft skills.

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