Fruitful partnership between AlmaU& ASU

Since 2020, AlmaU (Almaty Management University) has been a partner of Arizona State University to provide entrepreneurial and innovative world-class higher education in Kazakhstan.

The Arizona State University (ASU) is the largest public university in the United States, with a community of more than 120,000 students and 5,000 professors. ASU is named №1University in the United States for Innovation according to the U.S. News & World Report, and №1 in the United States and №9 in the world for global influence in research, responsible planning and resource management by the Times Higher Education.

Today, this partnership creates a good impetus for the modernization and improvement of the scientific and educational process in AlmaU. All schools and centers of the university are involved in the process of academic partnership, including the AlmaU language center.

Since the beginning of the new 2022-2023 academic year, within the framework of the partnership between AlmaU and ASU, the AlmaU Language Center has begun to actively use ASU's English language learning resources during online extracurricular independent student work. The purpose of online training on ASU content is to create an environment for active student participation in the educational process, to organize productive interaction between students and teachers outside of lecture time, by providing access to the updated educational content of Arizona State University. These resources were created by the scientific and pedagogical staff of the Arizona State University and tested by students at this university. The training materials offered by the ASU are adapted and distributed depending on the level of English language proficiency of the students.

 In the process of online extracurricular independent learning, the responsibility for mastering the material falls more on the student himself, but the teacher, as a designer of the virtual learning environment, creates opportunities and is a moderator of the educational process.

Online self-study training of students based on ASU materials is divided into two types - synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous - interactive training consists in the fact that classes are held in real time using the electronic tool MS Teams. On this electronic platform, the teacher and students meet to receive and give feedback, answer questions. In asynchronous online learning, the teacher selects materials, depending on the level of English proficiency of students, from the Arizona State University database and uploads them to the electronic portal, MS Teams, teaching materials for independent study; the student enters the portal at a convenient time, and completes tasks on an individual schedule, without being in the mode of synchronous online classes. Written assignments are completed and sent to the instructor or uploaded to the portal before the specified deadline.

 To assess the material, teachers choose small tasks as a questionnaire or questions from the materials of Arizona State University, as well as a discussion in a group (before or during a simultaneous video conference); a summary/ criticism in text or audio format, etc.

Finally, during the three months of training on ASU resources, students noted the novelty of the materials used, the relevance of the topics discussed and showed sincere involvement in the learning process.

Gulsima DAIRABEKOVA,

Senior language instructor at AlmaU