Linguodidactic potential of the electronic textbook as an innovative means of teaching a foreign language at the technical university

The paper considers the features of development and practical use of an electronic foreign language textbook at the technical university. This study is dictated by the need to resolve contradictions between the provisions declared by the higher education standards of the latest generation and the real level of students’ knowledge of a foreign language. The authors analyze and systematize the requirements for printed and electronic foreign language textbooks. Attention is paid to the advantages of electronic publications over printed ones. The key advantage of the electronic textbook is the presence of hypertext, which makes it possible to implement a nonlinear form of information organization. The paper formulates basic principles of an electronic textbook development, describes its structure and components and highlights the issues of filling the content with language material. The authors proposed the options for tasks aimed at stimulating students’ communicative and cognitive activity. It is shown that podcasts can be used as multimedia resources to intensify the development of students’ listening skills. It is emphasized that the availability of special programs for creating electronic textbooks allows the teacher to carry out its development without any special training in the field of programming. As a result of the analysis, the authors come to the conclusion about a high linguodidactic potential of the electronic textbook as a teaching tool.