Abstract

Profession-oriented component in foreign language teaching at a university is considered essential for compliance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education within the competence approach. Information technology and the Internet resources involvement contribute much to the increased opportunities of professional development in foreign language training. The virtual reality technology development has a certain value for foreign language teaching process. Virtual excursion technologies are used as socio-cultural and country studies specifi c components of the process. Innovative virtual industrial tours are considered by the author as a means of profession-oriented exercises and task development for engineering students. The aim of the article is to justify virtual industrial tours introduction into foreign language teaching process for IT and technical education students. The author also gives a problem-based task of a virtual tour to the Google offi ce in London as an example. The conclusion is made that there are plenty of opportunities for introducing virtual industrial tours into foreign language teaching and developing professional foreign language communicative competence.