The "Network professional community" project as a way of English for specific purposes acquisition

the article presents the analysis of the author’s experience in organizing and conducting the innovative«Network Professional Community» project, implemented in a distant learning format during the first semester of the 2020-2021 academic year at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in teaching English for Specific Purposes to students of the «Bioengineering and Bioin-formatics» specialty.The technology of organizing the «Network Professional Community» project, rested upon the idea of cooperation between a teacher and students and aimed at maximizing the involvement of students in practical use of the English language in professional and interpersonal communication, is considered.It is shown that a unique product created by the project participants is an English-speaking educational professional community on the VKontakte social network, which is daily and interchangeably administered by one of the students included in the target audience of the project, while the other participants and the teacher play the role of subscribers.The main stages of the implementation of the «Network Professional Community» project are proposed and characterized: brainstorming, preparatory, organizational, search-productive, functional, reflection-evaluative, and corrective stages.The results of the practical implementation of the «Network Professional Community» project are presented on the example of a pilot group consisting of 13 first-year students. Difficult and problematic issues of the organization of the project are indicated, as well as recommendations are made for improving the implementation of the project in the format of distant learning.The conclusion is made about the sufficiently high educational potential of the project, which manifests itself in the close cooperation of the teacher and students; in the wide involvement of students in the process of interpersonal and professional communication; in the development of foreign language competence, biological knowledge, soft and technical skills of students; in the students’ cognitive competence formation; in creating a unique educational product.The prospects for possible adaptation of the «Network Professional Community» project to the blended learning format are outlined.