On March 28-30, 2017, the IV International Scientific and Practical Conference "Actual Problems of Teaching Foreign Students at the Present Stage" was held in Sumy State University. This time, the conference was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Department of International Education and the Department of Language Training for Foreign Citizens.

The initiators of this event were the Department of International Education, the Department of Language Training for Foreign Citizens of the Faculty of Foreign Philology and Social Communications.

The conference "Actual Problems of Teaching Foreign Students at the Present Stage" was held for the fourth time. It showed the relevance of issues related to the teaching and functioning of the Ukrainian (Russian) language as a foreign language.

86 participants from 7 countries of the world: Belarus, Jordan, Palestine, Uzbekistan, India, Turkmenistan, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, as well as from different regions of Ukraine took part in the conference. Among them there were 2 doctors of sciences, 34 candidates of science.

The event was held in the format of plenary and sectional meetings. At the plenary session participants listened to the reports of scientists, who came from the Kiev Taras Shevchenko University. H.D. Shvets presented her report "Study tour for foreign students: register of typical communicative intentions and lexical and grammatical structures"; M.V. Shevchenko made a presentation "Integrated learning of the types of speech activity in the course of Ukrainian as a foreign language: the project of the lesson". O.N. Samusenko with her report "Study of the mythopoetic picture of the world in Ukrainian Language and Ukraine Studies classes on the material of cartoons" aroused interest among teachers and staff of the Department of International Education. The scientists of our department presented the next reports: A. A. Silka with "Principles of creating a distance course of Ukrainian as a foreign language for English-speaking students", O.N. Volkova with "The main directions of language training of postgraduate students at Sumy State University", L.V. Bidenko with "Actual Problems of teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language".

Also at the plenary meeting were presented the video reports of scientists from the Brest Pedagogical University named after A.S. Pushkin (Belarus). The topic of the report of the head of the Department of General and Russian Linguistics O.B. Perekhod was "The peculiarities of foreign citizens master's training in the aspect of Russian as a foireign". N.M. Gurina, candidate of philology, associate professor, presented the report "The study of economic vocabulary during the lessons of Russian as a foreign (on the basis of lexicographic sources)".

Within the framework of the conference, presentation of new teaching materials on Ukrainian (Russian) as a foreign language was also held: an exhibition of methodological findings of the department, manuals for the Ukrainian language for foreigners. The first developments in the preparation of a distance course of the Ukrainian language for English-speaking students were demonstrated.

The accompanying events of the conference included the presentation of a video clip "Presentation of the Foreign Language Training Department", "Welcome from Alumni" (from Jordan, Iraq, Palestine), "Congratulation from Belarus".