Online marathons in social networks are a novel evolving form of interaction between the university and the student, up-to-date and student-centered. Such approach can be introduced into the traditional curriculum as a facilitated, appealing and motivating component of the educational process. The opportunity to interact with an online consultant and receive feedback together with the comfortable learning environment can encourage students' motivation. The purpose of this research is to propose a new hybrid model of teaching a foreign language, which will meet the requirements of the modern society and, if necessary, can be easily transformed into distance learning format. The model was developed based on an online marathon, created and held in terms of the predefined factors of students' motivational sphere, as well as the analysis of the participants' feedback. © 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.