The formulation of tasks as a professional and communicative skill of future teachers
The article looks at the main challenges of formulating of tasks in modern language course materials. Within the current study 15 different EFL courses at different levels were analyzed. The courses were developed by the Russian, English and English-Russian authors’ teams. Within the article, modern approaches to understanding the formulation of tasks as a special type of discourse have been presented, including the main features of such texts and requirements to their formulation. The analysis of the task rubrics in three different groups of course materials revealed that formulation of tasks significantly varied in the courses of Russian, English and English-Russian authors’ teams. The differences between the tasks rubrics mainly lied in their length, word choice and the use of signal words. The article suggests various ways of implementing the introductive, orienting, informative, illustrative and restrictive functions of task rubrics. In particular, it was established that the amount of text, aimed at implementing the illustrative, informative and restrictive functions is often insufficient, and those functions are deficiently presented in the most of modern course materials. In addition, the study shows that in the process of implementing the introductory function, many authors resort to voluminous formulations which significantly complicate the processes of understanding and performance of educational activities.