this study is focused on analysing further education as an integrative pivot of lifelong learning. Modern universities are currently undergoing changes in terms of transformation into entrepreneurial units aimed at commercialization of educational services including further educational programs. The topicality of the research is stipulated by the global urge to stay competitive in the saturated educational services market due to the increasing number of institutions both state and private rendering educational services. The aim of the study is to reveal the needs for further education of representatives among young and academic audiences and devise a course syllabus within further educational programs relevant to the detected requirements of potential listeners. The authors put forward a hypothesis suggesting that there are courses whose unique selling points might be attractive to learners. The results obtained through the questionnaires demonstrated that students and academic staff envision an ideal course to meet all their educational needs in a different way which gives momentum to reconsider the format of rendering educational services and recompose further educational programs making them client-friendly in terms of duration, group size, location, range of courses available and flexibility regarding program contents. The results of the study are of significance due to the fact that further educational programs will be far more susceptible to the needs and requirements of the target audience possessing such features as adjustability, flexibility and modularity.

This article considers the prerequisites and perspectives of individual learning path (ILP) development in the framework of a student-centered educational paradigm; it defines the rationale of ILP and examines the introduction of project learning technology (PLT) into ILP modeling in higher educational institutions. We claim that identification of students' individual features and compliance with their requirements becomes feasible via the integration of project learning technology into the educational process with relevant pedagogical and computer support. The special emphasis is put on the idea that ILP framing is aimed at enhancing students' autonomy and responsibility for their education, fostering cooperation skills in a close dialogue with other participants in out-of-class projects and teachers. In this scenario an individualized approach is to be implemented in a harmonious solidarity with principles of cooperation and collaboration. To verify the above-mentioned ideas we conducted an experiment based on cognitive, diagnostic and empirical methods. Two groups of students participated in our research project at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in September -November 2015. They are second-year undergraduate students majoring in Economics and studying English as a second language. We designed individual study routes (ISR) for each student and handed them out. The ISR contained progress steps of the project, a set of assignments and deadlines for project submission. The students were provided with opportunity to play an active role devising and altering an ISR. Research findings show that ILP modeling boosts student's motivation to learn English as a second language, enables students' reflexive skills, identifies their individual features while simultaneously developing cooperation and collaboration skills.

Russian academic society has traditionally been considered linguistically and culturally homogeneous. However, during the last two decades there was observed a notable shift towards heterogeneous zooming in teaching field due to specific social, demographic and political changes. The topicality of the research is stipulated by linguistic and cultural fusion due to increasing number of people speaking two or more languages globally. The research goal is to prove that a teacher being natural bilingual and multilingual can be far more effective and impactful in the educational process than an artificial bilingual and multilingual one. To envision possible prospects and benefits of natural bilingual and multilingual teachers within modern educational domain a special study was conducted. The research involved two pools of the participants: the students (220 students in general) and the teaching staff (26 teachers) at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. After each experiment session all participants were encouraged to fill in Self-Reported Questionnaire (SRQ) and to pass Free association test (FAT). Both of the monitoring instruments are implemented to verify each other to reveal and assess students' attitude to the teachers' input into "enrichment" of the educational process and consecutive boost in students' linguistic and metalinguistic abilities. The authors put forward hypotheses suggesting there is a link between students' assertiveness to be more involved in foreign languages learning process with natural bilingual and multilingual teachers and such interaction within cultural linguistic framework may be appealing to all students. The results obtained through SRQ and FAT demonstrated the impressive rise of students' engagement into the educational process and significant boost in motivation after the second session of the experiment. The aforesaid witnesses that such vector shift in the learning process is seen in its overall introduction into the academic setting in order to upgrade modern educational environment and specifically in teaching foreign languages.

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