WIKI-SITE AS MEANS OF ORGANISING STUDENTS' INDEPENDENT WORK WHILE LEARNING THEORETICAL SUBJECTS IN ENGLISH: EDUCATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL ASPECTS

The article deals with defining and analysing one of the perspective ways to organise students' independent studies in the process of learning special disciplines in English, namely the wiki-based collaborative projects in terms of their high motivational and educational potential. The statement of problem is connected with the tendency of modern Russian higher education to considerably increase students' independent workload and at the same time limit classroom hours while studying theoretical disciplines. Wiki-site, which is a hypertextual online platform for collaboration, provides professors and students with an efficient innovative approach to students' independent studies. The objectives of the research encompassed the following questions: firstly, what is the instructional technology for wiki-based projects with the aim to achieve both educational goals of learning the academic material in English and motivational goals of the course consisting in forming sustainable interest to the subject; secondly, what is the exact sequence of professor's and students' actions while using wiki so that synthetic acquisition of the material might be supported by the development of language skills and general cultural competencies. Four steps in organising the work on collaborative wiki-based projects are considered in detail, the advantages and  challenges of this form of activity are also analysed. All aspects are illustrated by the definite example of a theoretical university course in English where students' independent work has been successfully conducted on the wiki-platform for five recent years. The suggested four-block algorithm allows to achieve high motivation of learners, which is confirmed by elevated emthusiasm and activity of all students throughout the whole project and their willingness to absorb the course material. The educational potential of wiki-based projects is proved by the high level of students' knowledge as a result of the course.