Stages of developing foreign language profession-oriented communicative competence Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

УДК 37.022

ПОЭТАПНОЕ ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ ИНОЯЗЫЧНОЙ КОММУНИКАТИВНОЙ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНО-ОРИЕНТИРОВАННОЙ КОМПЕТЕНЦИИ

Е.А. Данилина, И.И. Казиева

Аннотация. В статье рассматриваются этапы формирования иноязычной коммуникативной профессионально ориентированной компетенции у обучающихся по неязыковым направлениям подготовки. Отмечается необходимость и обоснованность формирования данной компетенции как неотъемлемой характеристики специалиста на данном этапе развития общества. Особенность преподавания предмета «Иностранный язык» заключается в том, что нужно объединить в процессе преподавания базовые языковые знания с профессионально значимыми предметами, а значит, построить учебный процесс так, чтобы соответствовать не только требованиям будущих работодателей, но и интересам обучающихся с учетом их уровня подготовки. Решить эту задачу возможно, если строить процесс обучения основываясь на принципах компетентностно-модульного обучения. Авторы доказывают свою точку зрения, что, если организовать процесс обучения иностранному языку и разделить его на четыре этапа, связанных между собой и плавно перетекающих друг в друга, обучение будет более эффективным и уровень сформированности иноязычной коммуникативной профессионально ориентированной компетенции у обучающихся будет значительно выше.

Ключевые слова: иноязычная коммуникативная профессионально ориентированная компетенция, иноязычное образование, современные подходы к обучению иностранным языкам, этапы обучения и формирования компетенции, обучающий (учебный) модуль.

STAGES OF DEVELOPING FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFESSION-ORIENTED COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

E.A. Danilina, I.I. Kazieva

Abstract. The paper considers the stages of foreign languages training for professional activity within competence-modular educational approach. It focuses on forming and developing foreign language communicative professionally oriented competence which is necessary for the future specialists in any professional career. Particularity of the academic discipline «foreign language», the contents of vocational subjects and the need to develop personal qualities of students in the educational process is based on the competence-modular approach. The article covers the problem of teaching a foreign language to those whose future specialty is not connected to linguistics. The authors prove that foreign language training process must be properly organized and divided into four stages. If the process of forming and developing of the foreign language communicative professionally-oriented competence follows this rule effectiveness of training will increase. Implementation and integration of modern approaches in language teaching can help fulfill all the tasks in the limited time of studying at Universities.

Keywords: foreign language communicative professionally-oriented competence, foreign language education, modern approaches in language teaching, stages of educating process, training educational module.

1. Introduction

A language is considered foreign if it is learned largely in the classroom and is not spoken in the society where the teaching occurs. Study of another language allows the individual to communicate effectively and creatively and to participate in real-life situations through the language. Learning another language provides access into a perspective other than one's own, increases the ability to see connections across content areas, and promotes an interdisciplinary perspective while gaining intercultural understandings. Language is the vehicle required for effective human-to-human

interactions and yields a better understanding of one's own language and culture. Effectiveness of these interactions is crucially important in professional sphere.

At the present stage of society development, economical and political interactions lead to wide international contacts in all professional spheres. Under these circumstances specialists must be ready to communicate with representatives of different countries and cultures to meet requirements of the society. As a consequence we can speak about changes in requirements to professional skills including foreign languages proficiency. Nowadays it is not enough to read in a foreign language or to speak it. It is strongly demanded to be a participant of communication to solve professional task. Studying a language provides the learner with the opportunity to gain linguistic and social knowledge and communicative skills and to know when, how, and why to say what to whom. So it causes changes in foreign languages teaching.

Teachers face the problem of searching more effective approaches and methods to meet these requirements. Both teachers and students are interested in how to make language educating process more efficient especially in terms of limited time of studying at the higher schools.

Since we need any foreign language not only as a communication tool but as means of obtaining, collecting, processing and transferring information so we are forced to use foreign language within all types of speech activity. Thus we can speak about formed and developed foreign language competence. If we think of using foreign language in a professional sphere to deal with professional tasks, to make collaboration more effective we can speak about formed and developed foreign language communicative professionally-oriented competence. Having this competence developed means to be able to set a goal of communication, to plan the process, to choose the most appropriate ways to reach the set goals and to make a conclusion about the results of communication [7].

2. Material and methods

Foreign language learning and teaching have undergone a significant paradigm shift as a result of the research and experiences that have expanded the scientific and theoretical knowledge base on how students learn and acquire a foreign language.

Highly-qualified and well-trained specialist must be able to use foreign language in any situation connected to his career. So the main goal of high school is to train specialist of such level, to provide them with knowledge, habits, skills and competences which are extremely necessary for completing professional tasks, for effective international interaction. In accordance with this statement and requirements of the Federal State educational standards which in their turn are very close to employers' requirements to employees. We can say that foreign language training of students must not be limited by lexical and grammar linguistic means or cross-cultural knowledge but it must be aimed at giving them opportunity, at training their ability and developing their desire to use obtained competences respectively to situation to reach the goals of communication.

3. Theoretical background

Traditionally, learning a foreign language was thought to be a 'mimetic' activity, a process that involved students repeating or imitating new information.

An alternative theoretical position emerged centered on the role of the linguistic environment in combination with the child's innate capacities in acquiring language. This position (interaction-ist) viewed language development as the result of a complex interplay between innate language capacities of the learner and the learner's environment.

The most prevalent and most widely held theory, the Sociocultural Theory (SCT) proposed by Vygotsky (1978), views cognition as a social faculty. According to this theory, participation in culturally organized activities is essential for learning to occur [12].

Research has revealed that knowledge of language structures demonstrated on discrete-point tests does not ensure communicative ability when the measure of language knowledge is one of more spontaneous language use. Further studies have shown that there is little correlation between the rules learners are taught and their developing knowledge of the foreign language [10].

Language teaching has experienced numerous curricular innovations in response to the importance of providing students with opportunities to acquire and practice the foreign language in contextualized and meaningful language communicative tasks at all stages of the second or foreign language acquisition process [11].

4. Study and results

Considering the above we can say that educational process must meet requirements of society and offer new approaches and methods in teaching. One of these approaches is modular-competence gives a chance to integrate professional and foreign language training to form and develop integra-tive foreign language professionally oriented competence. To organize the language educational process on the base of this approach we must say that within this approach there are four stages consistently related: design (plan), process, cumulative and reflexive-analytical stages.

Design (plan) stage is aimed at creating the motivation to joint cooperative work, to create friendly atmosphere, to make students trust each other and a teacher. At this stage both a teacher and students are setting goals and planning their activity. First of all at this stage it is necessary to find out their level of foreign language proficiency and general culture competence. For this reason we recommend to arrange test work. (We recommend testing students on computers as it gives a chance to save results and to analyse and to compare them later.) According to the students' results we design (plan) our further work to integrate foreign language and general culture competences with situations taken from every-day life and professional activities to make them the base for forming and developing integrative foreign language professionally oriented communicative competence [1].

It goes without saying that mentioned above competence is supposed to combine linguistic, communicative, cross-cultural and professional competences which are necessary to fulfill professional tasks, to solve problems or to participate in communication connected to the field of career. That is why at this stage we focus on developing such skills as to work independently, to find different sources of information in foreign language; to process and work with this information using computer and Internet technologies, to reach goals according to the communicative task, to be ready and to have a desire and an ability to communicate in a foreign language in oral and written forms observing the rules of text creation [5].

After the Design stage the Process stage connected to a choice goes. According to the information about linguistic and communication competences of our students, which we got at the previous stage, we have to choose suitable and proper forms, strategies and methods of teaching. Moreover at this stage we have to create the bank of information which consists of information blocks considering interdisciplinary connections. It ensures mobility and variability of linguistic, general cultural and professional competences. Choosing and selecting linguistic and professional information for the mentioned before information bank we rely on didactical principals such as authenticity, informativity, content, availability, age and interests matching, ratio of main and minor data and details, quantity of new and unknown words and grammar structures, usefulness of this information for the future career and so on [2].

Exercises offered to students are aimed at getting knowledge, developing and improving skills, mastering speech samples useful for solving any professional problems. Exercises and tasks at the process stage make students use not only their linguistic and communication experience but their life experience, knowledge and skills taken from other spheres which allow them to find quick and effective solutions to communication tasks.

Of course preparing and working at this stage take much time to do lexical and grammar exercises, to master necessary skills. But on the other hand we cannot ignore or shorten this stage as properly done exercises help avoid mistakes and misunderstanding during interaction and communication in a foreign language. Moreover at this stage we have to teach our students to use all these linguistic tools and speech samples in all possible various situations, to show them that this or that word/combination can be suitable and appropriate or can lead to misunderstanding in different situations depending on the context. Many teachers face the problem of students' inability to express their opinion and thoughts or to prove their ideas though their vocabulary is large. Thus at the process stage one of the main goals is to teach students to choose the best of all possible variant, to provide them with an acquirement to find a reasonable decision. Any act of communication cannot be repeated. It always depends on speakers - their moods, goals, abilities, etc. So it is impossible to predict which of word combinations, language structures could be useful in a situation. But to teach students how to alter, to mix, to vary linguistic and extra linguistic tools of communication in accordance with the situation is one of the best way to teach them a foreign language. In conclusion we can say that the Process stage of foreign language teaching is directed to build up and to develop ability to communicate in a foreign language basing on linguistic and life experience. Herewith their choice will depend on their goals of communication, circumstances of communication and forms of communication.

If teachers and learners follow these rules, students obtain skills and competences necessary to form and develop integrative foreign language professionally oriented competence.

The next is the Cumulative stage which solves the tasks closely connected to strategies and methods of teaching and is directed to accumulation and consolidation of all gained knowledge, skills, habits and competences subject to individual training paths. At the previous Process stage students thoroughly studied and worked out necessary and useful words, phrases, speech patterns, grammar rules and other information essential within the theme so they are able to find ways to solve given problems and cases. To carry out these tasks there are opportunities for students to choose the best appropriate form of co-working imitating situations possible in real professional work.

As classroom tasks become more focused on real-world issues, texts, or events, and problem-solving based tasks, technology introduces a new dimension to the teaching and learning process that incorporates the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Mobile Applications, and others. Digital media allows students to manipulate learning materials and language at their own pace and according to individual needs. Students examine reports, authentic documents, and web pages to find information that can be synthesized and discussed later and can collaborate electronically with youth from around the world. In such a learning environment the role of the teacher changes from one of authority figure or expert who delivers knowledge to one who facilitates, guides, and supports student learning. The teacher assumes greater responsibilities in designing and supporting individual and personalized learning tasks [9].

It is worth saying that at this stage a teacher should watch the most and strictly limit his participation and interference in students' interaction which gives them chance to express themselves, to activate their cognitive and communicative activity. On the other hand participating in group work allows students to esteem language and communicative competence themselves and motivates them to work harder, to correct mistakes and to put much more attention to doing exercises and tasks at the Process stage.

Pair work, group work, cooperative/collaborative learning settings, authentic materials, culturally integrated lesson content, and interactive tasks focused on the cognitive and affective domains were integrated into foreign language classrooms.

This stage can be performed in any inter-active forms of work such as role (business)-plays, making and acting out dialogues, round tables, discussions, case-study, debates, briefing and so on. The results of work can be introduced in presentations, reports, dialogues and interviews.

Design (plan) stage

- create the motivation to joint cooperative work,

- create friendly atmosphere,

- make students trust each other and a teacher,

- test students to find out their level of foreign language proficiency and general culture competence.

Process stage-

J-

-choose suitable and proper forms, strategies and methods of teaching,

- create the bank of information which consists of information blocks considering interdisciplinary connections,

- ensure mobility and variability of linguistic, ^general cultural and professional competences.

^Cumulative stage

- accumulate and intergrate all gained knowledge, skills, liabbits and competences sub ject to individual training paths,

-choose the best appropriate form of co-working imitating situations possible in real professional work,

- let students express themselves, to activate their cognitive and communicative activity,

- represent projects to the groupmates who in their turn ask as many questions as possible on the topic of the report,

- answer the questions and argue and defend his sgwn point of view._

V7

Reflexive-analytical stage

- focuse on the results of students'interaction and co-working,

- value and esteem results, to see whether they have reached their goals and aims,

- esteem the contribution of each other into the activity and the result of work respectively._

J

\7

Figure 1. Order and description of the stages

Here we come to the Reflective-analytical stage that focuses on the results of students' interaction and co-working. At this stage both a teacher and students are supposed to value their results, to see whether they have reached their goals and aims. Groupmates can conclude if all the students have done their best to defend the point of view, to prepare and to represent the project properly. Students esteem the contribution of each other into the activity and the result of work respectively. At this stage a lot of factors such as personality, language and communicative skills, desire to work, to find supplementary literature and other sources of information and ability and readiness to communicate, to be helpful for a team are taken into consideration.

This scheme represents the above mentioned stages (Figure 1).

Any kind of the training process is impossible without control. The same is about process of forming and development of communicative professionally oriented competence. Control and reflection must be conducted regularly at every stage. The aim and the type of control depend on the stage of training. As it was mentioned above at the first Design stage we offer students to do input test which allows us to estimate students' readiness to work independently, to show their ability to use foreign language in different every-day and professional situations.

Figure 1. Interconnection of stages

It is preferable to conduct testing on computers to have an opportunity to save and to compare results later. Moreover tests on computers give an opportunity to repeat testing as many times as it is required to get better results and to achieve goals. By the means of computer control we esteem knowledge and skills which students should obtain within one or some united educational modules. In the system of training which we offer the input control is conducted within the Design stage, the intermediate test is up to the Cumulative stage and the final control is taken at the Reflexive-analytical stage as soon as students complete one or some united educational modules [4]

In the scheme it can be shown as (Figure 2).

We'd like to draw attention that the results of the final test can be used as closing if a student is not going to continue studying language (as it is shown in the Figure 2). But if the studied module is not supposed to be the last one in the chain of modules the results of the final test can be seen as the input test of the next module. That means that the Reflexive-analytical stage of the previous module can be organized as the Design stage of the next module. And in their turns the results of the intermediate and/or the final tests can be taken as the start point for further studying. After getting these results students go on working, correcting mistakes and set new goals for a new module [4].

This scheme of teaching gives an opportunity to every student to set his own goals, to take self-reliant decisions, to choose the most appropriate strategy of activities. The students are taught foreign language and how to use it in different situations according to the aim of communication. So students obtain developed foreign language communicative competence on the level enough for solving every-day and professional tasks.

5. Conclusion

To esteem the level of the competence development the next points can be taken: available thesaurus, using grammar structures which are common for business style and business correspondence, understanding situations of business talks, following rules of business etiquette and skills in searching, getting, interpreting and transferring information.

To reach desired goals students construct and implement individual training paths and strategies. For instance, preparing individual projects allows students to work at the convenient

speed, to use available sources of information, to express his own points of view and at last to feel more self-confident as the project has been prepared on the topic in which the student is interested. If the student faces the problem of the lack of language skills it can be compensated by deep knowledge and understanding professional situations or the interest to the topic. And vice versa if the student is skillful in getting and interpreting information in a foreign language it can help him to solve some problems connected to professional activity [6].

Increasingly, language educators contend that foreign language learning should increase students' intercultural competence which would allow them to see relationships between different cultures, mediate across these cultures, and critically analyze cultures including their own. Language teachers have now recognized their role in eliciting culture learning in their classrooms and ways to access that learning [8].

We would highlight that training process must be directed, supervised and controlled. To make this process more efficient one must follow plans, rules, schemes and so on. But it does not mean that the process of teaching and learning should avoid creativity. Moreover creativeness and imagination can help teachers and students to get better results. The scheme of foreign language training process offered in this article ensures integration and combination of a strict plan of studying and teaching with creativity and imagination. Following these stages of developing foreign language communicative professionally oriented competence gives opportunities to master language skills, to obtain useful intercultural information and to practice communicative skills and habits in real-life and professional situations. At every stage of this scheme a student is free to set his own goals and to choose the best ways to reach them. At the same time he is responsible for results. This way of organizing educational process takes into consideration interests, abilities, goals of every student and thus motivate them to work harder since one student is always a part of a team so the results of cooperative work depend on individual work.

Furthermore the implementation of the principles of the competence-modular approach in the foreign language teaching gives the opportunity to:

- to replace obsolete modular units with new ones that contain new and promising information; thus variability and mobility of knowledge within professionally oriented foreign language competence are provided;

- to solve problems with the future training and advanced training of employees and specialists by minimizing the management of training of students;

- to learn logical, reasoned expression of thoughts and judgments in a foreign language thanks to the formed individual educational trajectories of students in the study of modules;

- to reduce the time of getting and absorbing information recorded in the training module, compared with traditional forms of providing training material several times;

- to reduce the training course by 10-30% without loss of the quality of teaching and depth of mastering of educational material due to the factor of «compression» and «deviation» of educational information which is unnecessary for this type of work or activity;

- to acquire skills of self-study with the regulation of not only the speed of work, but also the content of educational material;

- to be trained in several professions on the basis of mastering different professional blocks taking into account specific production activities.

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Е.А. Данилина

Кандидат педагогических наук, доцент

Российский экономический университет им. Г.В. Плеханова, г. Москва

E-mail: [email protected]

Д.И. Казиева

Старший преподаватель

Российский университет дружбы народов, г. Москва

E-mail: [email protected]