Вторые иностранные языки: потеря или возможность? Сохраняем позиции второго иностранного языка

Summary

The webinar focuses on preserving students’ interest in a second foreign language despite shrinking lesson time and the tendency to move these subjects into extracurricular activities. Presenter Ekaterina Sergeyevna Sergeyecheva argues that second languages remain valuable in a world of growing international communication, where multilingual and intercultural skills are increasingly important.

Drawing on her experience teaching Spanish in Bashkortostan, she shares ways to address common barriers and make language learning engaging, practical, and less intimidating. She emphasizes adapting lessons to students’ interests, using creative activities, and connecting learning across languages.

Challenges and Suggested Approaches

Low motivation

Explain the value of learning a language, but don’t rely only on general claims about travel, work, or international communication; these may not persuade younger students. Instead, connect lessons to children’s interests and everyday culture. For example, use cartoons featuring Spanish language or culture, such as Ferdinand or the Minions. Keep explanations age-appropriate rather than expecting young students to respond to adult-oriented arguments.

Psychological barriers and the belief “I can’t do this”

Help students discover familiar words and cultural references from the target language, then use them in a playful story or activity. The presenter shares examples of Spanish-related words and brand names whose meanings can surprise students and prompt discussion.

A relaxed, supportive classroom atmosphere helps students use familiar words as a bridge into simple reading and speaking.

Fear of unfamiliar tasks

Teach students how to approach a task rather than expecting them to understand every word. For reading-comprehension questions, students can:

1. Read and understand the instructions.
2. Identify useful information in the text, such as prices, names, or sequence words.
3. Compare the answer choices with the text.
4. Use context, recognizable word parts, and clues such as negation or ordering to eliminate unsuitable answers.

The aim is to show students that they can often solve a task without knowing every word.

The perceived difficulty of learning two foreign languages

Use digital tools to make practice more engaging. The presenter recommends LearningApps, where teachers can create or use exercises and share them with students by link or QR code.

One suggested format is a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”-style game. Students start with a qualifying round, compete to answer questions, and progress to a final. The game can include familiar lifelines such as 50/50 and audience help, as well as an “Ask Alice” option that requires students to formulate a question for a digital assistant. Cultural questions and visual clues can combine language practice with cultural knowledge.

Limited support or opportunity within the school

If the language cannot be expanded within the regular timetable, look for other settings, such as a school kindergarten, to introduce multilingual activities.

To organize a language-themed event:

1. Form a team of helpers.
2. Choose a theme and location.
3. Develop a script and list the required props and decorations.
4. Prepare music and other materials.
5. Hold the event, introducing language and cultural content along the way.

Second languages taught outside regular class time

Treat extracurricular learning as an opportunity for creativity rather than as a lesser substitute for a lesson. Quests and team activities can make this time engaging:

• Adapt a quest written in Russian into the target language.
• Divide students into teams.
• Place clues at selected locations.
• Have teams complete stages in search of a gift or “treasure.”

These activities support teamwork as well as language learning.

Interference between languages

Acknowledge that students may confuse languages, but use comparisons and humorous contrasts as memorable teaching tools. Show how a word can have different meanings in different languages, or how a small pronunciation change can alter its meaning. Pictures, role-play, and surprise elements can help students remember these contrasts. A teacher who knows both languages can make such comparisons especially useful.

Reusable Classroom Materials

The presenter describes several “linguistic toys” that can support multilingual learning:

• A multilingual Rubik’s cube: Practise colours and compare vocabulary across languages.
• “Linguistic shashlik”: Rearrange word cubes threaded on a skewer to form correct sentences, then compare language patterns.
• A sentence-building cube: Assemble sentence fragments in English, German, or Spanish. The cube can be used for team competitions and comparisons of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.

These materials can also be used as student projects or left available for informal play.

Overall Message

Second-language learning can be sustained through accessible, playful, and comparative activities—even when formal teaching time is limited. The presenter encourages teachers to keep up with changing times and closes with a statement attributed to John Dewey about the risk of teaching children only as their teachers were taught.

Speakers and Sources

• Ekaterina Sergeyevna Sergeyecheva — Presenter; foreign-language teacher and methodologist from Bashkortostan.
• John Dewey — Quoted by the presenter at the end. No other speaker is identified in the subtitles.
• Resources mentioned: The Teacher Club methodological workshop, LearningApps, and the presenter’s VKontakte group and Telegram channel.