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Studying the mechanisms of language and speech abilities showed that the most effective method of learning a foreign language is a method of total immersion as students enter the natural language environment and are in it constantly. But the learning process in the classroom, no matter how organized and communicative it is, cannot replace the real experience of teaching. As the most important factors for the effective foreign language learning are the language environment and the motivation, thus the development of new motivational language learning environments, including virtual reality (VR) and 3D environment, are the basic elements of the learning process. The development of VR technology allows expanding the boundaries of science and introducing innovations in all spheres of human activity. In the educational establishments of the USA and China, VR environments are already widely used, but in Russia VR is used only in a few schools and universities. The group of teachers of Samara State Technical University designed the new generation educational course of English based on the VR technology that creates a real situational interaction in which the student can receive certain information, to carry out scientific and educational elements, project activities. In such educational space, VR helps students to understand the phenomena and situations that cannot be understood and explained in the traditional techniques, to become part of the real world through the simulation. In general, VR is an ideal learning environment, and the possibility of its technologies for teaching has an extremely high potential for application.

There is a constant need for graduates who possess the skills that are highly sought by employers and can contribute to successful business development. Successful activity of a specialist is conditioned by two categories of skills: hard and soft skills. When talking about hard skills, we refer to direct technical knowledge. On the opposite, soft skills refer to communication, team work, creativity, problem solving and other personal skills. Experts agree that beside hard (technical) skills, soft (also called people-) skills are necessary. The research presents the basic groups of soft skills an engineer specialist needs for a successful professional activity: basic communication skills, selfmanagement skills, skills of effective thinking, management skills. This paper calls for the development of soft skills through the interdisciplinary form of the educational process in order to increase the employability of graduates. We considered intrapersonal, interpersonal and systemic levels of interdisciplinary students' engagement which are relevant to the soft skills groups. The appropriate organizational form for these skills development is an interdisciplinary project team, which facilitates the acquisition of the soft skills. In other words, it is necessary to imitate working environment in the educational process to equip students with the skills required.

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Abstract-The paper deals with the issue of modeling the structure of lexical meaning from the perspective of modern semantics. The analysis of the existing theories is carried out in order to stress the importance of using this method. The correlation of language units with the reality which is fixed in their lexical meaning is described. Modeling is the method that helps us explain that correlation and describe components of lexical meaning in detail. Characteristic features of linguistic models are shown, and on this basis their classification is presented. The main principle of the classification is the opposition of models due to different aspects. The specific of the term 'modeling' is cleared up, and concepts of an object level and a meta-level are differentiated. The difference between 'a language model' and 'a linguistic model' is explained. As a result, an example of modeling the lexical meaning of a word is given in order to emphasize the practical application of the modeling method.