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DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN THE SYSTEM OF LIFELONG PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
N. I. Shcherbakova
The modern world sets forward new requirements for the vocational education of a graduate and his personal qualities. These are the most important ones: profound professional knowledge and skills, the ability to flexibly apply them, creativity, sociability, and commitment to continuous self-development. Today, foreign language skills are one of the main criteria for employment, at the same time being a competitive advantage, as the “cost” of a specialist, who speaks at least one foreign language, increases at least by 20%. Knowledge of a foreign language is rightly considered a social value; therefore the introduction the respective discipline into the program of vocational education is a social mandate.
In the curriculum of educational institutions of secondary professional education in the sphere of service industries, the subject “Foreign Language” occupies an important place in terms of class hours (from 160 to 190 hr.). Foreign language is an interdisciplinary subject, and as such is designed to promote the expansion of educational horizons and the socialization of students; it can be seen as a means of professional and social orientation of the future specialist. According to the European framework, one of the key competences is communication in foreign languages. Analysis of scientific and educational literature revealed three groups of foreign language communicative competencies: linguistic,
communicative and pragmatic competence.
The first, linguistic, group includes core competencies that determine the command of oral and written speech. If the language competence is manifested as the sum of the command of a language and the ability to recognize and use language elements, the speech component can be represented as a verbal behavior in accordance with the purpose of communication.
The second, communicative, group includes professional and intercultural communicative competences. Vocational and communicative competence is the ability to adequately use language and speech tools in relation to the problems of communication and is based on the ability to build verbal behavior taking into consideration professional communication situations. Intercultural competence presupposes possession of a certain body of knowledge about the culture of the foreign language one learns, which mediates cultural interaction in the profession, as well as the ability to overcome cross-cultural differences in foreign language communication.
Informational and technological competence is based on the ability to search for and extract necessary and important information from the professional point of view in a foreign language from various sources, assess it, and transfer its content in accordance with the preset goal, as well as the ability to efficiently use internet resources during the course of professional activities. Growth of self-development competence is limited by the small amount of time which is allocated for the study of foreign languages. That is why the ability to enrich knowledge in the process of
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independent research and creative activities is a crucial condition of the lifelong self-education of a specialist aiming at further improving his professional activities.
What are the characteristics of professional foreign language communicative competencies of students majoring in service industry?
The goal of any study of foreign languages in educational institutions of secondary professional education is achieving a level sufficient for practical use of a foreign language in any future professional activity. Professionally oriented training provides a professional focus on not only the content of educational materials, but also activity, which includes methods and operations that make up professional skills. The professional activities of a future specialist in the service industry, in particularly in applied aesthetics and hairstyling, have a number of peculiarities. Representatives of these professions are responsible for the wellbeing and health of the client, which is why they must be attentive, careful and reliable in the course of fulfilling their procedures. The great healer and philosopher of ancient times, commonly known as Avicenna, said that things that heal are a word, a herb and a knife. This sequence clearly expresses the essence of work of an esthetician, a cosmetologist. The word goes first. Genuine interest in the client and his problems, amiability, tact, ability to build relations, converse with the client at his own social level - these are personal characteristics a service industry specialist must have. The subject “Foreign language” occupies an important place in the development of these characteristics.
It is commonly known, that the basis of work organization and social relations in the service industry is the ability to communicate, which actually is the purpose of learning a foreign language as well- learning to communicate. Communicative education implies organization of the educational process as a model of the communication process. In the course of learning, students master speech etiquette, learn to solve various communicative problems, be speech partners, i.e. to acquire abilities to communicate, and to build contact with other people.
Foreign language as a discipline makes a considerable contribution to the culture of intellectual labor of students, due to development of such specific learning skills as the ability to use bilingual dictionaries, grammar books, and instruction booklets for the rational accomplishment of tasks. All these factors serve as a condition for development of the need for linguistic self-education. Foreign language as a discipline greatly influences the development of creative abilities of students. Communicative method in the study of a foreign language produces a positive effect on the development of all psychic functions of a person. Many researchers in the sphere of linguistics believe that during the study of a language, the development of thinking goes not only through comparison with the native language, but rather due to the solution of increasingly complex speech and cogitative problems containing problematic elements, associated with the semantic content of the learning process. Thereby, we observe the active development of cognitive and communicative functions of thinking. Study of a foreign language contributes to such important cogitative operations as comparison, analysis, and synthesis. In-class simulations of situations from real life, participation in speech games, and activities in given situations develop the imaginative and creative skills
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of students. Study of a foreign language has a wholesome effect on the communication culture and speech activities in the native language.
However, if we consider the foreign language as a disciple, under the present conditions we will come to the conclusion that its educational and pedagogical functions are not essential. The function of a foreign language as a means of forming a professional orientation, i.e. interest in the future profession, and the desire to acquire knowledge through as many communication channels as possible, is of paramount importance. On the basis of interdisciplinary links, a foreign language is used as a means of systematic replenishment of professional knowledge, as well as a means of forming the professional skills and abilities of future specialists.
Knowledge of a foreign language, along with the aforementioned applications, has an immediate, applied importance. As we all know, there exists a “language fashion” of borrowing linguistic material from a certain language. Today, the English language is “at its peak”. Following the “style” of the day, we borrow English words even if we have more adequate Russian equivalents. But there are other reasons for borrowings. Almost in every topical group, most of the borrowed Anglicisms are words that appeared in the Russian language as a result of meeting the need to describe a new thing or concept, in the absence of a respective (or more precise) name (or its failure in competition with a borrowing) in the Russian language. 15% of the latest Anglicisms are borrowed due to the absence of a respective name in the Russian language. In this regard we can mention such terms from the beauty industry as make-up (мейк-ап - макияж); concealer (консилер - карандаш-корректор); peeling-cream (пиллинг-крем - крем, убирающий верхний слой кожи); lifting-cream (лифтинг-крем - крем, подтягивающий кожу) and others.
A modern specialist in any sphere cannot do without a foreign language, which is especially true for the area of applied aesthetics. Why? Let me name some trivial professional notions operated today in this area and not translated into the Russian language: remover (римувер - средство для снятия макияжа); dermabrasion (дермабразия - шлифовка верхнего слоя кожи); liposuction (липосакция - отсасывание жира); rhytidectomy (ритидектомия - подтяжка кожи лица и шеи после иссечения ее излишков для устранения возрастного провисания кожи); rhinoplasty (ринопластика - коррекция носа) and others.
It is commonly known that the volume of informational resources in English is 11 times as big as the volume of informational resources in Russian. Hence, by using the English language we can expand our professional perspectives 11 times as efficiently.
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