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26УДК 378.02:37.016.
ЗАДАНИЯ НА ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ КОМПЕТЕНЦИИ
Ахетова А. А., Негметжанова А.О.
Кокшетауский университет им. Ш. Уалиханова (г. Кокшетау, Республика Казахстан)
Аннотация. Межкультурная компетенция помогает достичь взаимопонимания в процессе общения с учетом различий в культурах и стереотипах мышления. Межкультурное обучение направлено на развитие у студентов навыков межкультурной коммуникации с целью осознания своей принадлежности к определенному этносу и изучение традиций и обычаев представителей другой культуры. Для поддержания эффективной коммуникации необходимо знать особенности менталитета собеседника (партнера). Важно знать национально-культурные особенности поведения иностранца, чтобы избежать возможных конфликтов в межнациональном общении. Для того чтобы студенты воспринимали язык как средство межкультурного взаимодействия, необходимо не только знакомить их с межкультурными исследованиями, но и использовать способы включения их в активный диалог культур, чтобы они могли на практике изучить особенности функционирования языка в новой для них культуре.
Ключевые слова: межкультурная компетенция, межкультурное обучение, межкультурная коммуникация, межэтническая коммуникация, межкультурное взаимодействие, диалог культур
TASKS FOR THE FORMATION OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
Akhetova À. Á., Negmetzhanova А.О.
Sh. Ualikhanov Kokshetau University (Kokshetau, the Republic of Kazakhstan)
Annotation. Cross-cultural competence helps to achieve mutual understanding in the process of communication, taking into consideration differences in cultures and stereotypes of thinking. Cross-cultural education is aimed at developing students' skills of intercultural communication to awake their belonging to a certain ethnic group and explores the traditions and customs of another culture's representatives. In order to maintain effective communication it's necessary to know the peculiarities of the partner's mentality. It is important to know the national and cultural characteristics of a foreigner's behavior in order to avoid possible conflicts in interethnic communication. In order to let students perceive a language as a means of cross-cultural interaction, it is necessary not only to acquaint them with cross-cultural studies, but also to use ways to include them in an active dialogue of cultures, so that they can learn in practice the peculiarities of the language functioning in a culture new for them.
Key words: Cross-cultural (intercultural) competence, cross-cultural (intercultural) education, cross-cultural (intercultural) communication, interethnic communication, cross-cultural (intercultural) interaction, dialogue of cultures.
The language is the mirror of culture. It reflects national character and peculiarities of the mentality. The process of globalization leads to the expansion of interaction between different countries, nations and cultures. Today the world
gets smaller. In the conditions of international integration between countries the formation of intercultural competence of the students becomes the most current problem. Every day we encounter with representatives of other cultures. Moreover
the communication is carried out through cultural exchanges, direct contacts between institutions, social groups, through scientific cooperation, trade, tourism.
We have dialogue of cultures through educational institutions, which organize students' exchange, join projects, undertake an internship abroad, thus many people in the world participate in intercultural communication and dialogue of cultures.
Intercultural communication must reflect the following demands:
- to explore the cultures, to learn the types of relationship between cultures;
- to manage to initiate intercultural dialogue;
- to interpret cultural facts;
- to identify similarities and differences between representatives of different cultural groups;
- to be open and tolerant.
Cross-cultural competence helps to achieve
mutual understanding in the process of communication, taking into consideration differences in cultures and stereotypes of thinking.
Socio-economic changes in our society have affected higher education, including foreign languages teaching. Rapidly changing world put new goals and tasks in all spheres of life, including education. New goals appeared in teaching methods of foreign languages. A modern university should produce specialists who are able to use a foreign language in practice for integrating into the international society.
The students' ability to participate in a dialogue of cultures, show of respect and tolerance for cultural differences and willingness to overcome cultural barriers are of primary importance. Cross-cultural education is aimed at developing students' skills of intercultural communication to awake their belonging to a certain ethnic group and explores the traditions and customs of another culture's representatives. Learning a foreign language, students acquire the material that demonstrates the language functioning in its natural environment, speech and non-speech behavior of native speakers in different communication situations and reveals the peculiarities connected with folk customs, traditions, social structure of the society. First of all, it's done with the help of authentic materials (original texts, audio recording, videos), which contain linguistic and cultural information [1; 152].
Today it's not enough to know the foreign language well, to enrich vocabulary and to have good knowledge of foreign grammar. In order to be involved into the international society it's necessary to form an intercultural competence. This competence allows the students, firstly, to flexibly respond to all sorts of unexpected moments in the conversation, secondly to determine adequate course of speech behavior, thirdly it' s easy to choose the right specific means from numerous sources, finally, fourthly, to use these means in accordance with the suggested situation.
Traditions, customs and etiquette of different nations can't be understood or assessed adequately outside of their culture. In order to maintain effective communication it's necessary to know the peculiarities of the partner's mentality. To begin with greetings, in some cultures it is a form of handshake, in others just a stiff bow. Then it's very important to pronounce your partner's name in a correct way, to take a meal correctly, taking into account the peculiarities of your partner's culture. For example, in Asian culture you should eat the meal without leaving anything on the plate, but in the European culture it's not correct.
Then it's very important to give presents. In Asian culture they give it at the beginning of the talk. But in European culture it can be regarded as something suspicious, because Europeans give presents by the end of the talk. It's important to know the language. But in the communication with the partner, whose language you don't know, it's very important to learn some key words and use them in your speech. It'll be very pleasant for your partner to hear his\her native language from you and at the same time it is a gesture of your respect to his language and culture.
Today it's not enough just to know the language of your partner, but it's not less important to know the ethical and moral standards of conduct, inherent in another culture, to know regional and cultural material about the partner's country, to be able to conduct socio-cultural observation in order to know the manner of cooperation between people, ethnical traditions, taboo in clothes, food, religion, pay attention to similarities and differences between representatives of cultures.
Teaching foreign languages undoubtedly makes an important contribution to solving the problem of forming students' intercultural
competence. According to O. R. Bondarenko, intercultural competence is understood as "orientation of a non-native speaker's foreign language behavior to a foreign addressee, i.e. successful use of background knowledge about culturally determined communicative features of a foreign addressee, as well as a set of skills to take into account existing intercultural communicative differences in the process of communication with native speakers of a given foreign language" [2; 38].
It is important to know the national and cultural characteristics of a foreigner's behavior in order to avoid possible conflicts in interethnic communication. Thus, when studying a foreign language, the student must not only learn its lexical, grammatical and syntactic features, but also learn to respond adequately to the replies of native speakers, appropriately apply facial expressions and gestures, use speech etiquette formulas and know the cultural and historical features of the target-language country. When studying a foreign language in all its diversity, students encounter language and cultural phenomena and compare them with those in their native language. Intercultural communication is a clash of different views of life, in which communicants are not aware of differences in views, considering their outlooks as "normal" [3; 32]. In cross-cultural communication, the probability of misunderstanding increases significantly, since the communicants' belonging to different cultures often violates their expectations [4; 147].
The implementation of intercultural communication implies a person's willingness not only to accept a representative of another culture with all his or her national and mental characteristics, but also the ability to change oneself. S. G. Ter-Minasova believes that it is enough to offer students to fill in the form of an official document in the language they are studying (CV, visa application form or guest card in a hotel) to allow them to meet the "cultures conflict" [5; 4].
Formation of cross-cultural competence also involves mastering the following skills: to be able to see in a representative of another culture not only the thing that distinguish us, but also what unites us; to change estimation as a result of understanding another culture; to reject stereotypes; to use knowledge about another culture for a deeper knowledge of your own.
You can offer the following tasks for getting interested in intercultural communication: "The Cultural Map of Asia"
- Write cultural associations for every country you know on the map of Asia.
- Compare your map with your partner's.
- Which similarities and differences do you
have?
- Which cultural associations of your partner do you like best?
- Which one do you find the most unusual?
- Ask your partner if he thinks the same. Let him explain why he thinks so.
-Answer your partner's questions about your cultural associations.
"National characteristics"
1. Translate the list of national characteristics: 2) with a sense of humour;3) excitable; 4) honest; 5) risk-taking;7) serious; 8) diplomatic;9) talkative; 11) timeserver;12) weak of will;14) quiet, calm; 16) emotional;17) reliable; 18) trustworthy, loyal; 20) collectivist; 21) wise; 22) understanding everything literally; 23) open;24) shy;27) truthful; 28) fond of joke; 29) sociable;30) hardworking; 31) conservative; 32) individualist; 33) loud; 34) well-bred; 35) careful,caring; 36) extrovert; 37) skilful; 38) punctual; 39) resourceful; 40) reserved; 41) quick,smart; 42) polite; 43) saving time; 46) sophisticated; 47) strong-w illed.
2. Take turns explaining the meaning of the national characteristics in your own words in English.
3. Write the list of national characteristics for nationalities of Asia or Europe (Kazakhs, Japanese, British, Italians, Americans, Spanish,) choosing eight characteristics out of the list above. Compare your lists with your partner's. Comment on the lists you produced and justify your choice by giving facts and examples. Let your partner respond with one or two arguments supporting your point of view or opposing it.
To form a communicative competence outside of the language environment, it is not enough to saturate the lesson with conditional communicative or communicative exercises that allow solving communicative tasks. It is important to give students an opportunity to think, to solve any problems that give rise to thoughts, to discuss possible ways to solve these problems, to make students focus on the content of their statements, on the thought, and make the language act in its
direct function - the formation and formulation of these thoughts.
In order to let students perceive a language as a means of cross-cultural interaction, it is necessary not only to acquaint them with cross-cultural studies, but also to use ways to include them in an active dialogue of cultures, so that they can learn in practice the peculiarities of the language functioning in a culture new for them. Fortunately, modern innovative technologies (for example, role playing) allow us to solve such problems.
Here are some examples of innovative (role playing) technologies:
"History of my family"
The goal is to foster a respectful attitude of students to each other, familiarity with the national characteristics of the peoples to which the classmates' families belong. Students should present their family history and their second name. The students can also talk about family traditions and customs related to their nationality. The result of the game is discussion of different peoples' family traditions.
"Bang bang!"
The teacher prepares a list of questions in advance about the cultural characteristics of the country of the target language country. The group is divided into two teams. One player comes forward from each team. The teacher reads a question. The player who first answers the question correctly says to his opponent: "Bang bang!", the "conquered" participant crouches down. The winner continues to compete with a new opponent.
Thus, the introduction of role playing in English classes can be very effective. The use of
this technology has a positive impact on the formation of students' intercultural competence, allows them to focus on the main thing - mastering speech skills in a natural conversational situation.
Thus, the main idea of such approach to teaching a foreign language is in the idea of focusing on students' mental activity, which requires definite language proficiency. Only active methods can solve this didactic problem.
References
1. Solovova, Ye.N. Methods of teaching foreign languages / Ye.N. Solovova / M.: Prosveshcheniye, 2002. 239 p.
2. Ter-Minasova S.G. Language and cross-cultural competence. - Moscow, 2000. 146 p.
3. Sviridon, R. A. Formation of intercultural competence of a future specialist in the field of world economy by means of business English / R.A. Sviridon / Collection of research papers of the II International summer school for young researchers "Innovative educational technologies in teaching foreign languages". Tomsk, TSPU Publishing house, 2005. P. 72-84.
4. Grushevitskaya T.G., Popkov V.D., Sadokhin A. P. Fundamentals of intercultural competence. - Moscow, 2002. 297 p.
5. Bondarenko O. R. Cross-cultural aspects of communicative competence in a foreign language // Methods and organization of teaching a foreign language in language colleges. Research papers of MSLU. Issue 370. - Moscow, 1991. P. 38-48.
Ахетова Адия Айдархановна, магистр педагогических наук по специальности «Иностранный язык: два иностранных языка», преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков, Кокшетауский университет им. Ш.Уалиханова (Республика Казахстан, г. Кокшетау).
Негметжанова Алия Оразалиновна, преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков, Кокшетауский университет им. Ш.Уалиханова (Республика Казахстан, г. Кокшетау). e-mail: ahetova.adiya@mail.ru
Дата поступления статьи: 24.03.2021
© Ахетова А.А., Негметжанова А.О., 2021
