On the 20th of March, 2012 the Interuniversity Olympiad in foreign languages among non-language higher educational establishments of Rostov-on-Don was carried out

On the 20th of March, 2012 the Interuniversity Olympiad in foreign languages among non-language higher educational establishments of Rostov-on-Don was carried out.

Organization of an academic competition has become a good tradition in our university: the Olympiad has already been conducted for ten years. Both students of our higher educational institution and invited guests – students and accompanying teachers from other universities of our city (Rostov State Construction University, Don State Technical University, South Federal University, Rostov Conservatoire named after Rachmaninov and others) take part in the Olympiad.

Annually our guests with interest accept an invitation to participate in this event. They notice that welcoming atmosphere created in our university, sincere interest in quality improvement of the academic activity help all the participants to show the best result. Besides, students illustrated their erudition in the field of culture and history of the countries of the languages under study, a good level of grammar knowledge, skills to understand native speakers’ speech in English and German aurally. In general, it is necessary to say that contents of the Olympiad were not nearly simple and greatly exceeded the requirements to students’ training according to the federal state educational standards of higher professional education. The academic competition is always prepared with great care: authentic materials are thoroughly selected, interesting tasks are chosen. The Olympiad of this year is distinguished by the fact that it comprises the questions in linguistic and cultural studies. We are very grateful to associate professor Agabekyan I.A., senior teachers Skvarkovskaya L.D. and Agafonova T.D. for their annual meticulous work at selection of materials for the Olympiad.

This time only the students of RSTU have become the winners in the English language: the first place was taken by Panchenko Maria, the second-year student, the Department of Automation, Telemechanics and Communication; the second place was shared by Yastrebtsov Vladislav, the first-year student, the Department of Railway Management and Operation, by Shulyak Anastasiya, the second-year student, the Humanities Department, and by Grekova Kseniya, the first-year student, the Humanities Department; the third place was taken by Limaenko Yuliya, the second-year student, the Humanities Department. In the German language the first place according to the number of marks was shared by Mikhail Viktoriya, the Humanities Department, RSTU, and Yaprintseva Anastasiya, the Humanities Department, RSTU; the second place is taken by Noskov Vladimir, the Department of Railroad Construction Machines, RSTU; the third place is shared by Izvarina Irina, the Department of Railway Management and Operation, RSTU, and Shkurat Anastasiya, Rostov State Construction University.

A big interest of RSTU students to learning foreign languages (in general about 200 people take part in the Olympiad) and a high level of the results show that young people realize the necessity in development of their own communicative competence to communicate with foreign specialists, to read scientific magazines about innovations in different spheres of a national economy and enlarge their culture. Lessons on the courses of profound studying of foreign languages being conducted at our university play a considerable part in training of the winners and the participants of the Olympiad.

It would be desirable to express the big gratitude to the Rector of the RSTU, academician Kolesnikov V.I. for constant attention to the problem of learning foreign languages at our university, and also for creation of a multifunctional computer classroom in E-229 in which teachers of the chair “Foreign Languages” now have an opportunity to give various interactive classes to students.

Such events as the Olympiad help to raise students’ motivation to studying foreign languages and strengthen friendly ties among higher educational institutions of our city. We look forward to everybody who wishes to take part in our Olympiad in March, 2013.

The Head of the Chair “Foreign Languages” T.E. Isaeva