FLIPPED CLASSROOM APPROACH TO TEACHING ESP LISTENING

The research project investigates implementation of flipped-classroom model for teaching ESP listening comprehension to Russian students at university level. Despite relatively high level of general English listening comprehension, according to past research, Russian students demonstrate significant weaknesses when it comes to professional and academic listening contexts. A flipped classroom approach was adopted to address this issue. The key targets of flipped classroom curriculum design were increasing the exposure of students to authentic ESP/EAP listening contexts as well as enhancing their ability to decode professional terminology. A group of 35 students took part in this experiment during the first semester of 2019-2020. The students were requested to independently complete listening comprehension assignments based on YouTube videos. Weekly listening offerings correlated with the content of ESP classes and were followed up by on-site discussions. To assess the impact of flipped classroom curriculum a pre-posttest design was created. A paired-samples t-test indicated statistically significant enhancing in students' listening comprehension abilities. Based on the results of this study, flipped classroom is a valid instructional model for teaching ESP listening comprehension.