The official opening ceremony of the joint project of the Vologda State University, the “Business-Soft” group of companies and the Landesspracheninstitut (LSI) at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) was held in the auditorium No. 205 in the university building No. 6 of VSU.
Owing to the joint efforts of the project participants, the classroom is equipped with the up-to-date devices for learning foreign languages. This is an interactive board; twelve tablet PCs, a computer, and a webcam. The equipment allows students to communicate with teachers and native speakers from different parts of the world.
“Classrooms like this are very helpful for high-quality educational activities, and facilitate the process of foreign languages studies”, – underlined the importance of the Linguistic classroom Vyacheslav Priyatelev, the Rector of VSU.
Klaus Waschik, Director the Landesspracheninstitut (LSI) at the Ruhr University Bochum, came up with the idea of creating of the classroom. He arrived from Germany to take part in the Winter Academy of the International consortium for the study of the German language and culture.
“The idea of creating a Linguistic classroom arose from the need for a new technological basis for teaching foreign languages. The Rector of the Vologda State University and the head of the “Business-Soft” group of companies helped bring it to life. This is a great tandem, because Russia and Germany do not suffer from a lack of ideas, they lack people who bring these ideas to life “, said Dr. Waschik.
Alexey Logantsov, General Director of the “Business-Soft” group of companies, provided sponsorship for the purchase of the equipment for a new classroom: “When VSU offered me to participate in this project, I gladly agreed. When I was a student at the then Polytechnic Institute, we did not realize the importance of studying foreign languages, so English classes were not the top priority for us…, of course, we did not have such up-to-date classrooms. But times and technologies are changing, and we need to be changing with them.”
During the Grand opening, the technical capabilities of the equipment were also tested. Klaus Waschik contacted a colleague from the Landesspracheninstitut (LSI) at the Ruhr University, who was able to communicate with the Vologda students via Skype.