Clip Thinking and Its Influence the Teaching Methodology

Abstract

The research is devoted to the issues of the so-called clip thinking impact on teaching methods in modern higher education. The survey was conducted among teachers of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the People Friendship University of Russia, Moscow. Teachers, teaching both full-time and evening students (n = 24) were interviewed. Clip thinking is one of the results of widespread digitalization and is expressed in the inability to focus on the same subject for more than a minute or two. This feature is inextricably linked with the multi-tasking of a modern person who constantly checks for new messages on social networks, is distracted by online messenges, news and other information that appears in his / her smartphone or computer, while maintaining focus on the main issue (work, study) in the “background”. Clip thinking features are taken into account by television, cinema and animation: if in films and television programs created before the ubiquitous distribution of the Internet, the same scene could last 5–10 minutes, then in modern films switching between scenes is much more frequent, and when editing TV programs one the frame does not hold on the screen for longer than 10–20 seconds. Teaching in the conditions of clip thinking should and can, on the one hand, adapt to the audience’s characteristics, and on the other hand, try to develop the student and instill in him / her the ability to focus for a longer period of time. In the context of teaching a foreign language, which implies an emphasis on practical work, it is quite simple to maintain a balance: since a different type of speech activity is used in the work of a foreign language teacher, various types of texts and visual material can be offered for students to work, it’s enough to provide the teacher with relatively quick switching between these activities.