Keyword: «problem solving tasks»

The article describes problem solving tasks that are intended to develop the high school students` foreign language communicative competence and simultaneously foster their critical thinking strategies. The authors define a few characteristics of such tasks which consist of a chain of activities and describe the conditions which make them more effective for the target learners. The authors also highlight the benefits of these problem solving tasks from the perspective of enhancing the students` foreign language competence.

The authors highlight the specific characteristics of problem solving tasks and project based tasks used in high school foreign language classrooms. Though teachers widely apply project work, there are a lot of drawbacks in its practical use. The authors rely on different classifications of problem solving project based tasks to provide their variety in the classroom and achieve integrated outcomes of high school foreign language education.