CC BY
7
Djumaeva G.A. senior teacher
Karshi institute of engineering and economics
Uzbekistan
FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (ENGLISH) LANGUAGE IN THE MASTER 'S DEGREE PROGRAM OF
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES
Annotation. This article discusses the principles of teaching foreign languages to students of technical universities. The authors identify the main learning goals and tasks that need to be solved during the educational process, illustrating these provisions with key fragments of the working program developed by the staff of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Karshi Institute of Engineering and Economics (KarIEI). Shown, that these goals and objectives are aimed at developing certain linguistic competencies, that is at developing the skills necessary for master's degree students to become specialists, able to communicate both in their professional field of activity and in everyday life. The main difficulties that foreign language teachers face when teaching undergraduates are described, as well as ways to overcome them are proposed.
Key words: foreign language, written communication, methodology.
It is widely known that Uzbekistan's transition to a two-tier system of higher education, bachelors and master's degrees, is due to the need to adapt higher education to the changing demands of the labor market, the new quality of life, the integration of the country into a single global educational and information space. In accordance with State Educational Standards (GOS), foreign language proficiency is one of the mandatory general cultural competencies of undergraduates, regardless of the training profile. The main purpose of teaching foreign languages in the magistracy
The aim of the university is to form a special level of communicative competence necessary for intercultural and professional communication. In the master's degree of a technical university, the purpose of the English language course is the development and deepening of the professionally oriented language competence of undergraduates, since currently graduates of the master's degree of a technical profile need a foreign language, first of all in total, for a deeper development of the specialty and for practical use in professional activities and everyday business and personal communication.
Guided by the above provisions, the Department of Foreign Languages of the Karshi Institute of Engineering and Economics has developed a working program of the discipline "Foreign Language" for the preparation of masters of
technical faculties, which defines the goals and objectives of the discipline, namely:
- learning a foreign language for communication in professional and socio-public spheres of activity; knowledge of lexical, grammatical and stylistic norms of a foreign language and the ability to implement them for communication and for working with literature in the specialty;
- formation of the ability to translate original texts in writing and orally on purpose, using the skills of translation transformations, using the knowledge of general scientific and terminological vocabulary;
- mastering the skill of writing structured texts; the ability to use communicative technologies of speech construction.
The achievement of the set goals and the implementation of tasks are carried out in the process of conducting practical classes with undergraduates of the first and second years of study for three semesters (one academic hour per week). The total amount of study hours provided for by the Work Program is 108 academic hours, of which 56 hours are allocated for independent work of students.
The formation and development of linguistic competence among master's degree students involves the gradual formation and development of their skills in various types of speech activity, such as the ability to freely read original literature in a foreign language; to formalize information extracted from foreign sources in the form of a translation or summary; to make messages, reports or presentations in a foreign language in the specialty; to conduct a conversation, both on general topics and in the specialty. So, at the initial stage of training (the first semester), one of the main tasks is: systematization of productive and receptive lexical and grammatical skills acquired in the process of studying at the bachelor's level; expansion of the potential vocabulary, taking into account the peculiarities of the lexical content of the texts; development of grammatical skills of recognition and understanding of forms and constructions; further development and proficiency in various types of reading scientific literature, preparation for work with special literature; further development of the ability to perceive and understand the main content of the audio text, further development skills of producing the following oral and written speech genres: monologue, dialogic speech, business letter.
In the next two stages of training (the second and third semesters), the learning tasks become more complicated. The implementation of these tasks involves not only the formation, but also the development of linguistic competence by expanding the volume of language (lexical and grammatical) skills based onprofessional topics (in particular, further expansion of the scope of the dictionary of terms); development of the ability to lexical and grammatical variability; improvement of speech reading skills, including the development of skills necessary for translation and the ability to use additional sources of information (dictionaries, reference books, databases); development
of annotation and abstracting skills; development of skills and abilities to carry out certain types of translation activities.
Further development of production skills the following oral and written speech genres: prepared and unprepared monologue, dialogical speech, conversation, questionnaires, types of resumes and, as a result, the assimilation of professional knowledge in accordance with the profile of the direction presented in the language being studied. As can be seen from all of the above, the tasks of a foreign language course are numerous and many-shaped. Unfortunately, their successful implementation is often hindered by the problems faced by both foreign language teachers leading master's courses and trainees.
One of the difficulties faced by teachers is the selection of up-to-date information, and in the case of English, also the choice of materials written by native speakers in order to prevent students from learning possible language errors contained in texts written by non-native English speakers. In addition, it is important to take into account the linguistic complexity of the selected material in order to avoid possible demotivation of students. That is, when the choice of material should be guided by the principles of conceptuality, scientific and feasible.
Another problem that foreign language teachers regularly face is the heterogeneity of the level of foreign language proficiency of undergraduates, which is due to the heterogeneity of the language training of high school graduates and bachelors, as well as the lack of language practice during the two years between the bachelor's and master's courses. One of the ways to solve this problem may be the independent work of students who need to adjust their knowledge (and even eliminate gaps in knowledge), which they should have received during their studies in high school and in a foreign language course according to the bachelor's degree program. It seems impractical to spend the time of the classroom classes for a thorough study by the whole group of students of the lexical and grammatical material that they had to learn before entering the master's program. Students with good initial training do not need this. Moreover, repeated consideration of the same topics may cause such students to decrease motivation in learning a foreign language in the framework of the program for undergraduates. An alternative option may be an individual approach.
An important problem for many foreign language teachers is the poor attendance of master's degree students. Most of the students who regularly skip classes refer to the availability of a workplace and the inability to combine auditing classes at the university with employment at the workplace. If a student justifies the need to combine educational activities with production, and the teacher gives permission for this, then it is necessary to draw up an individual work plan for such a student, in which they should be clearly indicated:
a) the content of the educational material subject to independent study;
b) the tasks that the student is required to complete, and the timing of their completion;
c) the schedule of the consultations with the teacher, during which the student can ask the teacher questions about the studied material, and the teacher can give the student the appropriate answers, as well as check the completed tasks.
However, according to the authors, the main reason for the problems that arise when teaching foreign languages to magicians is due to the lack of academic time that is allocated at the university to study a foreign language as part of the entire curriculum for training undergraduates in technical areas. The solution to this problem could be a revision of existing standards in the distribution of the ratio of the amount of study time allocated to the study of a particular academic discipline.
References:
1. Modern education: content, technology, quality. Materials of the international scientific and methodological conference. 2006-2019
2. Monitoring of global trends in digitalization, the Center for Strategic Innovations of PJSC Rostel-com, 2018 [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: https://www.company.rt.ru/projects/digital_trends/2018.pdf (date of reference: 05/20/2020).
3. [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: https://www.isopm.ru / (accessed: 05/20/2020).
