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35Реализация компетентностного подхода в рамках подготовки слушателей президентской программы по английскому языку
Воронцова Юлия Александровна,
кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры «Иностранные языки» Брянского государственного технического университета E-mail: voroncova.yuliya@mail.ru
В статье рассматривается роль компетентностного подхода, одного из актуальных и новых задач современного образования, при обучении английскому языку слушателей Президентской программы подготовки управленческих кадров. В статье представлены разные дефиниции компетентноостного подхода, ориентирующего образование на его результаты для формирования необходимых и достаточных общекультурных и профессиональных знаний и навыков, самоопределения, социализации, личностного совершенствования и самооценки. Статья подчёркивает, что подготовка специалистов по Президентской программе осуществляется по трем уровням: «А», «Б» и «Q», указывает требования, которым должен соответствовать претендент конкурсного отбора, чтобы стать слушателем Президентской Программы, освещает аутентичные коммуникативные материалы, используемые в обучении и контроли полученных знаний. Особенно подчеркивается роль индивидуального консультирования и самостоятельной работы. В статье отмечается роль иностранных стажировок, предоставляющих слушателям широкие возможности внедрить компетенции на практике.
Ключевые слова: компетентностный подход, управленческие кадры, конкурсный отбор, аутентичные материалы, самостоятельная работа, контроль.
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One of the urgent and new tasks of modern education is developing a competency-based approach at all levels and in all training programs. The concept of "competency" applied to the theory of language was first proposed by N. Khomsky in 1975 [2], and has since been developed in the works of many Russian scientists namely A.S. Belkin, E.F. Zeer, I.A. Zimn-yaya, O.E. Lebedev, A.V. Khutorskoy, T.M. Kovaleva, D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Bashev, Yu.V. Senko, A.M. Aronov, etc. We share I.A. Zimnyaya's viewpoint, who believes that competence is "intellectually and personally determined social and professional life activity of an individual" [1].
The competency-based approach is the priority orientation of education towards its results to form the necessary and sufficient general cultural and professional knowledge and skills, self-determination, socialization, personal improvement and self-esteem [7]. The feature of the competency-based approach is considering students' learning outcomes from different perspectives, trying to make them form more abilities, knowledge and skills at the end of the program.
As G.V. Leonidova rightly states in the modern world education is given a special significance to "as a condition for developing human and especially intellectual potential" [3]. An effective personnel policy is indispensable for economic development and one of the current policy instruments of the Russian government in this area is the Management Training Program for Organizing the National Economy of the Russian Federation. This Program is carried out in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of July 23, 1997 № 774 "About the preparation of the managerial personnel for the national economy of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation" [4]. The Program aims to train in educational institutions, leading organizations and abroad highly qualified, competent specialists capable of ensuring the development of enterprises in all sectors of the Russian economy. The tuition is in the form of retraining, advanced training and internships in the framework of mutual exchanges with foreign countries.
Training of specialists in the Presidential Program is carried out on three levels: "A", "B" and "Q". "Q" programs are short courses lasting 120 hours of advanced training, programs of type "A" and "B" are large, lasting 550 hours [5]. The educational program of type "B" is to ensure a basic level of managers' training. This program is designed for people who don't possess a great amount of knowledge in management, finance and economics. Such programs are predominantly limited to a theoretical training. Project-oriented programs of type "A" provide a higher level of training. Listeners re-
ceive more situational practical tasks, have more opportunities to consult with leading experts, carry out their own projects and work out the tasks using the new toolkit.
To become a trainee of this Program a person should meet the following requirements: be mostly up to 50; have a higher education degree; have a total 5-year work experience; have at least a 2-year experience in managerial positions; participate in implementing their organization development project. It should be stressed that having a winner's diploma of the All-Russian contest of managers "Leaders of Russia" gives priority to the applicants to be included in the regional quota without passing competitive tests.
Competitive selection takes place in 2 stages, namely qualification selection and competitive testing. Qualification selection is carried out on the basis of analyzing the documents submitted by the applicant to the competition committee. Competitive testing includes general and special competitions [6]. A general competition is obligatory for all the participants, regardless of the type of the educational program they are applying for and provides for assessing the applicant's motivation in the form of the motivational essay and assessing the applicant's level of professional competence during a professional interview. So the applicants who have successfully completed the general competition can apply for training in the educational program of type "B".
Specialists applying for training in educational programs of type "A", who have successfully completed the general competition, are admitted to the second stage of selection, i.e. to the special competition, which means a competitive test for the applicants recommended by the competitive commission.
Competitive testing is carried out in the form of an interview accompanied by presenting the organization development concept which is an individual project assignment, supported by the employer. During the interview and the presentation, the competitive commission assesses the following criteria: the applicants' professional and personal characteristics necessary for the project implementation; the quality of the project and its significance for the organization and the region; the project compliance with the national goals and objectives of implementing national projects.
The management training Program is the third step in the system of higher education and, at the same time, is the first step in a young entrepreneur's career and learning foreign languages is one of the integral parts of this Program. Foreign language skills are necessary for managers to solve many important economic problems, such as catching up with the backlog in the quality of products; learning the best world technologies; increasing the competitiveness of manufactured goods; implementing joint research and experimental work; mastering computer literacy and digital technologies.
The purpose of the English language course is to develop speech skills sufficient to implement communication functions at a level that gives a wonderful opportunity to fully carry out the range of work responsi-
bilities and contact professionally in the business environment of the internship country.
The English language learning program is built on the competency-based approach using authentic communication materials to stimulate real-life socializing situations. The most effective is a vertically integrated business course, built on combining the methods of communicative language teaching and training in the field of business interaction aimed at mastering negotiation skills, meetings, presentations, telephone conversations, business-letter writing, etc. and after going thorough the foreign language course the listeners will know the way around in the modern English-speaking world.
Only authentic literature printed in the publishing houses of "BBC English", "Oxford University Press" and "Cambridge University Press" is applied in the educational process. These students' books are accompanied by video and audiocourses which contribute to quick mastering of the material. Special study guides such as "Starting Business English" written by Ch. Johnson and J. Lonergan, "Business Objectives" written by V. Hollet, "Business Basics" written by D. Grant and R. McLarty, "New International Business English" written by L. Jones, "Look Ahead" written by T. O'Nill and Peter Snow, "Meeting Objectives" written by V. Hollett and B. Newbolt, "Case Study" written by G. Comfort, "Benchmark" written by N. Whitby and P. Sanders, "Telephoning" written by G. Comfort and D. Utley aimed at teaching business English in various aspects help listeners to cope with the difficulties of mastering a foreign language.
The English language course is designed for 180 classroom hours and 90 hours of self-tuition. The training program takes into account the applicants' starting language abilities and to this end, listeners are divided into 2 groups of preliminary and vantage levels according to their English knowledge. The trainees possessing an elementary level of knowledge, who have 40-62 points for the entrance test and show the possibility to operate with the simplest basic structures in familiar situations form the first group and the trainees possessing a threshold level of knowledge, who have 60-80 points for the entrance test and show limited, but quite effective mastery of the basic communication skills, operate with simple concepts form the second group.
Regardless of the entrance level, in the learning process the listeners master the skills in four aspects of English:
• oral speech - they conduct conversations, brainstorm, discuss business proposals, business situations, exchange opinions, information, draw up agendas, hold meetings, speak at meetings, take minutes, etc.;
• listening - they understand answers to questions, comprehend texts containing general information, manage to maintain simple notes while listening;
• reading and grammar - they do multiple-choice grammar exercises, complete the gaps, transform sentences, translate letters, announcements, general texts, extract key information from texts with
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the elements of business, economic, financial vocabulary;
• writing - they compose essays, give a comparative description of graphs, write the abstract to their final qualification work.
An important role in the intensive course of teaching English within the framework of the Program is given to individual counseling, the purpose of which is to help the listeners understand the current difficulties encountered during the learning process. The task of individual counseling is to have a personal approach to training each listener, which results in developing the following skills: writing annotations for diploma projects; making a presentation of their own company; filling out the necessary information about themselves and the company in the questionnaire; drawing up a structural diagram of the company; leveling knowledge.
In the process of individual counseling, listeners most often come up with the following questions: What clichés should be included in the abstract? How should the most significant fragments of a diploma be highlighted? How should a structural diagram of the enterprise be drawn up? How should the address, personal data be written in English? How is it possible to make the presentation more visual, etc?
The trainees' independent work is carried out in groups. Teamwork allows the listeners to automate the skills of using lexical material, to improve pronunciation, to develop the competence of listening and conducting a polylogue. Self-tuition includes:
• doing individual and group homework that means further consolidation of educational material, new vocabulary and speech samples;
• analyzing specific situations that means compiling monological and dialogical speech on any given topic, creating the atmosphere of real communication, using a foreign language in live situations;
• preparing and presenting different projects that means drawing up a profile of their enterprise, describing their work responsibilities and the place in the structural diagram of the enterprise;
• studying the presentation technique that means giving a speech to an audience using visual materials, audio and video tools, introducing themselves and their activity to other people, describing their enterprise, their role in the company's structure, correctly and accurately formulating their position, providing clear and concise answers to any questions;
• developing the skills of making a managerial decision that means discussing the work problems, the alternatives facing the company and the most profitable solutions to be proposed.
• using information technologies and the Internet access that means searching for original, authentic literature to improve the skills of understanding foreign speech.
The competence-based approach in training English applies teaching methods aimed at the full interaction of the tutor and the student when the tutor's speech doesn't take more than 50% of the study time.
A large role is given to methods and techniques aimed at developing communication skills by implementing practical, interactive tasks, "cases" or role-plays that require the exchange of information, opinions, etc. Such an approach allows listeners to learn from each other in the process of interaction, to form the atmosphere of support and partnership.
Examining the acquired knowledge is carried out weekly and monthly by way of doing multiple-choice tests on different aspects of the language in reading, listening and grammar. So the intermediate control is fulfilled several times during the process of training. To do tests, samples of tasks from "Business English Certificate" and "Linguaskill Business" are applied. Since teaching is conducted in two rates, the tests are selected according to the preliminary and vantage levels based on collections of tests published by "Cambridge University Press" namely Cambridge Bec Vantage, Practical Tests for the Practical Business English Certificate (level 1, level 2).
After training, graduates of the Presidential Program undertake internships in foreign countries such as Germany, Japan, Spain, Israel, France, Italy, the USA and others [6]. Having a chance to exchange working experience in the framework of the internship provides the trainees with wide opportunities to apply the acquired knowledge into practice not only in the professional spheres of marketing, financial management in the face of risk and uncertainty, personnel management in a turbulent world, finance, economic cooperation, municipal administration, but, first and foremost, in English. Knowing a foreign language helps to study foreign authentic sources, to directly get acquainted with what is being done and planned in the fields of science, technology and production in the world.
An important feature of the Presidential Program is constant and mandatory interaction with the listeners after the graduation and internship to monitor the results. The organizers and the graduates hold round tables and conferences at the universities, in the city and federal sites, including those organized by the Ministry of Economic Development and donor countries that participate in financing the internships abroad.
So, the need for qualified human resources managers in large numbers and with new professional qualities is vital as they are the ones who are able to lead the gigantic work to restore the industry and to make a real connection between the Russian and the world economy. Today it is completely obvious that the commercial success of any production and enterprise is directly dependent on managers' level of professional competence who should be fluent in a foreign language, master the methods of work motivation; know the innovative secrets of management; develop high technology production.
Such specialists are trained in the framework of Management Training Program for Organizing the National Economy of the Russian Federation. They develop cooperation with foreign organizations and promote extending positive management experience in the Russian Federation and abroad.
Литература
1. Зимняя И.А. Ключевые компетентности как результативно-целевая основа компетентност-ного подхода в образовании. Москва: РГБ, 2008. 63 с.
2. Капишин А. Е. «Генеративная лингвистика» Н. Хомского // Иностранный язык в школе. 2002. № 2. С. 81-86
3. Леонидова Г.В. Теория и практика формирования научно-образовательного пространства: монография. Вологда: ИСЭРТ РАН, 2010. 272 с.
4. Министерство экономического развития Российской Федерации [электронный ресурс] -Режим доступа: http://old.economy.gov.ru/en/ home/activity/sections /managementTraining/ (дата обращения 5.07.2020)
5. Об особенностях Президентской программы [электронный ресурс] - Режим доступа: https:// spb.hse.ru/dopbusiness/news/166968477.html (дата обращения 8.07.2020).
6. Программа подготовки управленческих кадров [электронный ресурс] - Режим доступа: https:// www.pprog.ru/ (дата обращения 4.07.2020).
7. Троянская С.Л. Основы компетентностного подхода в высшем образовании. Ижевск: Издательский центр «Удмуртский университет», 2016. 176 с.
IMPLEMENTING THE COMPETENCY-BASED APPROACH WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE PRESIDENTIAL PROGRAM TRAINEES
Vorontsova U.A.
Bryansk State Technical University
The article considers the role of the competency-based approach, one of the urgent and new tasks of modern education, in all training programs in teaching English to the trainees of the Presidential program of the managerial personnel preparation. The article presents different definitions of the competency-based approach that orientates education to its results for forming necessary and sufficient general cultural and professional knowledge and skills, self-determination, socialization, personal improvement and self-esteem. The article emphasizes that training the specialists of the Presidential program is carried out at three levels: "A", "B" and "Q", describes the requirements that an applicant must meet in the competitive selection to become a participant of the Presidential Program, highlights authentic communication materials used in training and controlling the acquired knowledge. The role of individual counseling and independent work is especially emphasized. The article notes the role of foreign internships, providing trainees with ample opportunities to put the competences into practice.
Keywords: competency-based approach, managerial personnel, competitive selection, authentic materials, independent work, control.
References
1. Zimnyaya I.A. Key competencies as an effective target basis of a competence-based approach in education. Moscow: RSL, 2008. 63 p.
2. Kapishin A.E. Generative Linguistics of N. Chomsky // Foreign Language at School. 2002. № . 2. Pp. 81-86
3. Leonidova G.V. Theory and practice of the formation of scientific and educational space: monograph. Vologda: ISEDT RAS, 2010. 272 p.
4. Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation [electronic resource] - Access mode: http://old.economy.gov. ru/en/home/ activity/sections/managementTraining/ (date of access 5.07.2020).
5. About the features of the Presidential Program [electronic resource] - Access mode: https://spb.hse.ru/dopbusiness/ news/166968477.html (date of access 8.07.2020).
6. Management Training Program Access Mode [electronic resource] - Access mode: https://www.pprog.ru/ (date of access 4.07.2020).
7. Troyanskaya S.L. The basics of the competency-based approach in higher education. Izhevsk: Publishing Center "Udmurt University", 2016. 176 p.
