ON TEACHING SOME ISSUES OF LINEAR ALGEBRA TO ENGLISH-SPEAKING STUDENTS AT NATIONAL AVIATION UNIVERSITY

Introduction. Foreign students in National Aviation University may choose to study in English, Russian or Ukrainian. As English is one of the official languages of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), this trend of education is urgent and favors the further improvement of professional skills of the university graduates. Purpose. We investigate specific issues that arise while teaching to linear algebra in technical university. We consider problems of teaching some topics in English to Ukrainian and foreign students who are not native speakers. Methods. Investigation of efficiency of methods of giving teaching material and organization of educational process during lectures, practical training and individual students work is performed by traditional methods, i.e. by comparing the current and semester progress of different academic groups and analyzing of subjective student's estimates obtained through survey. Results. We study problems of methodical, didactic and organizational nature which arise while teaching some topics of linear algebra and corresponding topics of higher mathematics, such as «Matrices and determinants», «Vectors», «Systems of linear algebraic equations» and «Bilinear and quadratic forms» in English to foreign and Ukrainian students that are not native speakers. Some of these problems arise as a result of different approach to teaching mathematics in secondary schools in Ukraine and countries native for our students. These include insufficient skills of foreign students in the analytic techniques, their inadequate skills in application of quadratic forms. In addition, we give our recommendations for dealing with supporting materials for students of different majors in practical mathematics training where problems connected with matrices, determinants, vectors, systems of linear algebraic equations, quadratic forms are considered. Particularly, we recommend to give supporting materials in the form of tables and logic schemes and to apply computer mathematics software while dealing with matrices, determinants, vectors and systems of linear algebraic equations,. Beside this we give recommendations for application of web search engines in finding mathematical information. Originality. Teaching to linear algebra in technical universities traditionally is provided with a large number of textbooks, manuals and various teaching materials and methodology of teaching students of technical majors is studied by many authors. But problems of teaching foreign students to this discipline have their own specifics. We consider problems of teaching in English in National Aviation University to Ukrainian and foreign students in mixed academic groups. Conclusion. We give our recommendations for dealing with supporting materials for students of different specialties in practical mathematics training where problems connected with matrices, determinants, vectors, systems of linear algebraic equations, quadratic forms are considered. Particularly, we recommend to give supporting materials in the form of tables and logic schemes and to apply computer software.