STUDYING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SEMIOSPHERE OF “IMAGINARY ENGLAND” (NEUROMODELLING METHOD)

Abstract

In modern society, the semiosphere of higher education, created with the help of mass media, cinema and fiction, is of great importance. This semiosphere particularly includes visual and aesthetic representation of the “imaginary university”, closely related to the concept of “imaginary England”, constructed by numerous works that use fantasy and magical realism techniques. The aestheticization of higher education is associated with the subculture of the “dark academy”, which has spread among foreign and Russian youth in the 2020s. In this regard, students, coming to higher education, correlate the real practice of teaching a foreign language and other disciplines with a mental image of higher education, and the comparison is often disappointing. This study proposes an option for overcoming this disappointment by involving artificial intelligence in teaching practice. Artificial intelligence is proposed to play the role of a “virtual professor”, which allows simulating the situation of “fantasy” higher education and satisfying the aesthetic needs of students.