CC BY
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Section 7. Pedagogy
Glushko Natalia Alexandrovna, Senior Lecturer of Professionally Focused Foreign Languages Department,
Far East Federal University, Vladivostok, E-mail: n. [email protected]
Rogovaya Natalia Alexandrovna, Senior Lecturer of Professionally Focused Foreign Languages Department,
Far East Federal University, Vladivostok, E-mail: [email protected]
Foreign language as a means of developing general cultural competency in the higher school
Abstract: The paper deals with the students’ general cultural competences in the course of learning foreign language according to Federal State Educational Standard for “Oil and Gas Engineering”, “Innovation" and “International Relations" specialties. The authors examine level of general cultural competences at students of the above specialties at the Far East Federal University. The main ways of formation of students’ general cultural competency are described by means of the foreign language, which is studied by using a didactic complex of training and educational actions. The technique promoting formation of general cultural competences is proposed.
Keywords: general cultural competency, competence, pedagogical potential, didactic complex, general competency, professional competency.
Reformations in the Russian educational system, caused by adoption of new Federal State Educational Standards of second generation, were followed by changes not only in regulatory but also in practical aspect of education. Introduction into educational standard of competences, as an essential background with theoretical and practical skills of solving certain real-life tasks or problematic situations, assumes not just acquisition of separate segmental knowledge and skills by a student but learning them by interrelated complex. This is provided by competency building approach where competence is considered as preset social requirement (norm) for educational level of specialist, needed to his effective and productive activity in definite field. Competency is a specialist’s mastery of appropriate competence including his personal attitude to it and to objects of activity. Competency is an established personal quality (complex of qualities) of a specialist and his minimum experience in particular sphere.
According to A. V. Khutorskoy competency is a complex of personal qualities of a learner (axiological attitudes, knowledge, skills, abilities, qualities) determined by his activities experience in certain social and personal sphere [1].
To be successful in his professional activity any specialist should have a number of competences. In the educational standards for all training directions all over the world the first among these competences are general cultural ones.
According to T. V. Yezhova it is general competency that defines dynamic human activity, his ability to be familiar with different spheres of social and professional life, that harmonize his inner world with relations with the society. The value of this integrative quality of a person also increases due to a switchover from traditional to learner-centered model of education, when the society requires active, competent specialist able to make decisions on his own and ready to assume the responsibility for their implementation, able to set aims and develop the ways of their achievements.
Unformed general cultural competency suspends the personal advancement of learners and influences on the effectiveness of the whole educational process. That’s why the development of general cultural competency as an integrative quality of an individual, defining personal advancement of learners and helping the improvement of educational process in the university, attains special importance [2].
The analysis of scientific papers has shown that nowadays there is no general consensus on the origin of such phenomenon as “General cultural competency”, there is not general definition or widely accepted structure of general cultural competency [3]. After the analysis various general cultural competences were found in different training directions of Federal State Educational Standard.
For the analysis we took Federal State Educational Standards of “Oil and Gas engineering”, “Innovation”, “International Relations” training directions. By
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Секция 7. Педагогика
comparison of general cultural competences given in these standards we came to several conclusions. The largest quantity of general cultural competences (32) are in the standard of “International Relations" training direction. It can be related to the characteristics of this profession aiming at regulation of international affairs and relations, what supposes perfect knowledge of social life. Next is “Oil and Gas engineering” with 22 general cultural competences and “Innovation” with 18.
After comparison of general cultural competences content of different training directions we can see that many of these competences coincide but the representation of some of them, having the same meaning, is different. For example, Federal State Educational Standard of “Oil and Gas engineering” training direction says that bachelor should “show initiative, find organizational and managerial decisions, and be responsible for them” — it’s general cultural competence 6 (hereinafter referred to as GCC). Federal State Educational Standard of “International Relations” says that bachelor should “be able to find organizational and managerial decisions and be ready to assume responsibility for them” (GCC 4). Federal State Educational Standard of “Innovation” training direction says that bachelor of this specialty should “know principles and methods of organization and management of small groups, be able to find organizational and managerial decisions in non-standard situations and assume responsibility for them” (GCC 6).
But there are also such competences which can be found in the Standard of one training direction but are not distinguished in two others. For instance, there is “adaptation to new economical, social, political, cultural situations, to changes of social and professional activity content” (GCC 20) in “Oil and Gas engineering” Standard, “attention to the quality of work performance” (GCC 29) in “International Relations” Standard, “ability to deliver the core of the project, present the scheme (draft) of its solution” (GCC 18) in “Innovation” training direction Standard.
Consequently, after studying general cultural competences of several training directions it can be concluded that in spite of several differences general cultural competences in the whole include acquisition and experience in national and universal human culture, moral and spiritual foundations of human and humanity life and life of particular nations, culturological principles of family, social and public events and traditions, role of science and religion in human’s life, as well as competences in everyday and cultural-leisure sphere as, for example, abilities of effective ways of organizing spare
time. Here we can also speak about learner’s experience of world view exploration expanding to culturological and all-humanity understanding of the world.
We tried to find out the presence of general cultural competences among students of the mentioned training directions in Far Eastern Federal University (150 respondents). Teachers of different subjects of humanitarian, social-economic and professional courses helped in the survey as experts. Students were also offered to make a self-assessment ofhaving developed general cultural com-petences._During acknowledge experiment was found out that, according to experts, most of the students had insufficient common cultural competence (low level were 33 % (50 people), average — 58 % (87 people) and high — 9 % (13 people) and the presence ofcommon cultural competencies are not always aware of the students. Self-control of students for having common cultural competencies for each indicator was for 15 % higher (23 people).
Moreover, during experiment the following common feature was identified, the prevalence and frequency of which indicate that many students do not seek personal self-improvement, self-discipline, do not feel the need for the formation of common cultural competence, and consumers are learning material supplied by teachers without departing from the scope of the program.
According to the analyses of acknowledge experiment we came to the following shortcomings: lack of a clear understanding of the structure and nature of common cultural competence, holistic system approach to the problem of its formation, the limited range ofpossibilities self-identity, undeveloped organizational forms and technologies of formation of the investigated phenomenon.
We came to the following conclusions: the formation of common cultural competencies of students performed spontaneously, this process must be systematically and purposefully improved, students need to have operative, positive scientific help.
The main way of developing common cultural competencies of students was the use of foreign language teaching capacities, which includes a range of educational and training activities. Didactic complex provided the following components: substantive (knowledge of national and cultural realities of the country and features of the target language) active (level of practical proficiency) communicative (ownership patterns of interaction with other people); intercultural (including in intercultural communication, acceptance of human values and differences between modern multicultural world), emotional (positive attitude to the phenomena in terms of socially and personally significant values).
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Section 7. Pedagogy
Didactic complex of developing common cultural competencies include:
— Traditional workshops that use educational speech, natural speech and problematic situations, visualization techniques and aesthetic impact on students (business and role-plays, discussions, roundtables, case studies, etc., meetings with native foreign language culture, real communication in a foreign language, contests for the best translation
— Focus on the students valuable social, humanistic motives of professional activity; — The ratio of teacher to student as an equal partner in interpersonal communication and pedagogy; — The creation of a favorable emotional atmosphere at the classes; — Creating situations of success as a tool for development and achievement motivation and positive attitude of students to the process of formation and self-education of cultural competence;
— The use ofdifferent types ofstudents’ independent work: compliance training, training, search, creative tasks, finding the formulation and development ofstudents of individual solutions to common cultural problems;
— The use of student-centered technology of forming the overall cultural competence of students (structural logic, game, training, dialog). They are implemented by various techniques: reception deliberate creation of differences in the amount of information to potential partners in foreign language communication, method ofusing the differences in points ofview, taking the recoding of information, ranking reception, reception co-partners in the communication solutions offered by situations, etc.;
— Study of the relationship between the cultures of different countries in the comparison of social, cultural and linguistic realities, norms of verbal and nonverbal behavior in native cultures and foreign language (introduction of authentic texts in the case study);
— Formation of a positive emotional attitude to the fact of having a “foreign" culture, postulating ideas about the developing and identification of “their” through “foreign” (engaging students in personal experience as part of the learning process).
So, students learn the art of communication, mastered speech etiquette, strategy and tactics of the dialogue and group communication, learning to solve a variety of professional tasks using a foreign language. At the end of the semester we monitored the developing of general cultural competencies for second-year students of specialties “Oil and Gas Business”, “Innovation” and “International Relations” in Far Eastern Federal University, the evaluation criteria have remained the same. Analysis of the results of the formative experiment showed the following results: the level of general cultural competence among students increased, 22 % of the student still stay at the low level (it is 33 people), the average rate increased by 11 % (17 people) and found 69 % of students (103 people) and a high level increased by 5 % (8 people) and 14 % of students (21 people). This figures suggested that this method is effective, and provide the developing of common cultural competencies. Students realize the importance of having common cultural competencies and began to aspire to personal self-improvement, which was manifested in the increased activity of students in the classroom, improving internal and external motivation, academic success and academic achievement.
The conducted research is not completed so it lets to plan the further prospects of work on developing learners’ general cultural competences, which are related to the explanation of the mechanism of influence of general cultural competency on the process of self-actualization of a person, are related to creating new technologies of developing learners’ general cultural competences.
Reference:
1. Khutorskoy A. V. Core competence as a component of personality-centered paradigm of education//A pupil at school being renewed. Collection of scientific works. - M.: IOSO ^AO, - 2002. - p. 135-157.
2. Yezhova T. V. The formation of general cultural competence of students in the educational process of higher school: Diss. abstract for the Candidate of Pedagogy degree. - Orenburg,- 2003. - 22 p.
3. Luchinina N. V. Modelling of the complex of exercises for teaching the second foreign language//International scientific and methodological symposium. Pyatigorsk: Publishing House of the Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, - 2004. - p. 245-248.
4. Begidova S. N., Poddubnaya T. N., Agoshkova O. V. Classification of general cultural competence of the bachelor in the direction of training of 040400.62 «Social work» as a basis of realization of competence-based approach in education//The Bulletin of the Adyghe State University. Series «Pedagogy and Psychology». Maikop: The AGU publishing house, - 20011. - Issue 2. - p. 31-42.
5. Brown H. Principles of Language learning and teaching; 4th ed. White Plains, NY: Addison Westley, - 2000.
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