Methods of Teaching Students of Non-Linguistic Specialties at a Higher Educational Institution

Guzova Aleksandra Viktorovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate professor, Department of Foreign and Russian Philology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education 107150, Russia, Moscow, Sretenka str., 29 guzovaav@mgppu.ru Other publications by this author

The modern paradigm of higher education, as one of the components of continuing education, according to its place in its overall structure, sets multi-level educational goals.

The global goal of mastering a foreign language for all students at all three levels of higher education (bachelor's, master's, postgraduate) is the formation of general cultural competence as an opportunity to participate in the modern dialogue of cultures. This, in turn, can be achieved through the formation of linguistic and communicative competence in all four components (speaking, listening, writing and reading). Moreover, to such an extent as to ensure communication and exchange of information both at the "traditional" level and in the modern virtual space ^[4].

The goal of the general level for students in higher education, regardless of the specifics of their future specialty, is the formation of "the ability and readiness to solve professional problems in the conditions of foreign language communication" ^{[10, p. 10]} – as formulated by N. F. Koryakovtseva.  And first of all, these are the goals in the field of information retrieval, information analysis and design research. In this sense, at the level of private goals, the general component of information and language competence is actualized: mastering both common and general business and general scientific vocabulary and corresponding grammatical constructions.

The private goal for students of each of the non-linguistic specialties is to master a professionally significant component of language training (represented by the appropriate level of professional vocabulary), on which the overall level of professional competence in general largely depends ^[3].

At the same time, in the modern competence paradigm, the tasks of developing education are also emphasized – that is, providing personal development and self-realization of students. In this sense, the ratio of organized and independent foreign language classes is very significant.

According to the hierarchy of these goals, V. P. Furmanova formulated the following directions for the formation of language competence:

- informative: proficiency in professional vocabulary and socio-cultural context in relation to the future specialty;

- cognitive: mastering professional concepts of native and foreign language culture;

- activity-based, in terms of the formation of skills and abilities of oral and written communication in a foreign language ^[14];

These provisions, formulated long before the adoption of the GEF, generally coincide with the trends of our days. Although, taking into account the importance of the cultural aspect, N.F. Koryakovtseva adds to them an emotional-affective aspect that determines the understanding and acceptance of a different business culture ^[9].

Such a three-pronged task sets certain conditions both for society as a whole, and for teachers, and for students themselves.

In connection with the comprehensive socio-economic changes, and especially with the globalization of society, the features of building individual educational routes, ensuring interdisciplinary integration, the optimal balance of theory and practice, achieving optimal social and labor mobility of university graduates are actualized ^[6];

For teachers, various opportunities for innovative construction of the educational process open up, both in terms of its form (the choice of certain methods and teaching methods), content (linguistic and grammatical content of each topic, the distribution of topics in accordance with the time limit for independent work and classroom classes), and monitoring of results (tests, control and coursework works, educational projects of students, etc.) ^[7].

For students, the conscious formation of personal linguistic and cognitive needs is of great importance, in terms of finding and using information, possession of appropriate vocabulary and the ability to operate it according to the rules of the language – including depending on the specifics of the specialty and the planned direction of professional career ^[2]. 

Another manifestation of the modern specifics of teaching foreign languages was the approach proposed by I.Ya. Baryshnikova, which represents the goals and content components of teaching a foreign language by the following system of descriptors:

- the pragmatic level, which includes spheres, situations, topics, social and personal roles, professional and communicative tasks;

- cognitive-discursive level, which determines the algorithm of operating with oral and written discourse, strategies of personal, business and professional communication in a foreign language;

- conceptual and functional level containing appropriate verbal and semantic means and skills of their use ^[1].

In this regard, for the topic under consideration, it seems necessary to summarize the didactic tasks in the following aspects:

1. Motivational aspect. The aspect is aimed at students' awareness of the need for certain knowledge, skills and abilities in the field of the language being studied. Its implementation most meets modern requirements in the course of a variety of organized classes (oral and written exercises, role-playing and business games, educational and research information search on foreign language resources, etc.).

2. Linguistic and grammatical aspect. The most important issue in its implementation remains (especially now, in the conditions of accelerated changes in language realities) the question of compliance of the material given by the teacher (for classroom and self-study) with the actual features of a "living" foreign language. At the same time, it becomes very important to work with educational literature, the choice of which for these purposes and recommendations to students is entirely determined by the qualifications and criticality of the teacher's pedagogical thinking. The independent work of students with authentic information resources is also very significant: textual, audiovisual, etc. (despite the fact that it is authenticity that can be fully determined by the focus on modeling the holistic context of intercultural communication). All this should be taken into account both the own research of teachers, undergraduates and postgraduates (for application and testing in the educational process), and the project activities of students on the relevant topic.

3. The stylistic aspect, which has both general and professional patterns. Thus, the general directions include the need to master the patterns of business and informal communication style in a foreign language. Depending on the direction of students' training, there is a mastery of scientific and technical, scientific and theoretical, popular science and other styles of the language being studied, taking into account the appropriate vocabulary, grammar and a variety of significant language situations. Various exercises in the classroom, individual and group work of students, as well as criteria for recommending various resources for independent work should be based on this.

4. The content aspect. It concerns the search for the necessary information and requires the appropriate formation of information competence, involving the development of various algorithms for reading and listening in a foreign language: continuous perception, selective perception, understanding of the main meaning, searching for the necessary facts in the text, etc. – this, in turn, requires the development of critical thinking and skills to work with foreign language information. But, accordingly, the introduction of testing methods aimed at identifying these features is also required (usually also on the basis of unadapted foreign language texts).

In connection with these aspects, another trend that has been preserved in education since the days of the former "knowledge" paradigm becomes obvious: the discreteness of building a psychological and pedagogical model of teaching. That is, educational and control and evaluation materials are in many ways (although far from completely) traditionally structured according to these named aspects. Meanwhile, a modern student should have a syncretic, consistent picture of ideas about the studied language as a whole (as a socio-cultural phenomenon), and about the possibilities and prospects of its use for professional purposes. The degree of completeness and consistency of this picture largely determines the personally significant motivation and value orientations of learning a foreign language at a university, but also in the future within the framework of continuous "lifelong learning". Accordingly, this requires the creation of a set of professional and communicative tasks typical of the subject area determined by the future profession. In this regard, the study of T. Y. Polyakova, conducted back in 2010, is very significant. It has developed, according to her own formulation, research, design, production, technological and organizational and managerial situations ^[13] - although their spectrum actually turns out to be even much wider than what she named and is aimed at ensuring all aspects of academic mobility of students as a whole.

Such an experience is also indicative of the fact that it allows you to move from the already outdated "system of educational and methodological complexes" to the construction of unified educational resources, including not only educational and bibliographic information, but also reference resources, illustrative and audiovisual materials, and much more, depending on the required subject. In this sense, the modular principle of information organization is very significant, in which the completion of the development of each information-thematic module should be accompanied by various technologies for assessing students' knowledge and competence: testing, performing educational and research work, etc. ^[12].

In the same connection, A.Y. Vishnyakova concretizes the modern levels of information objects that can be used in the educational process, including in order to achieve syncretic knowledge and formed ideas, in non-linguistic universities:

- resources of educational portals of the country and regional portals, as well as individual universities, provided for non-commercial use in the education system of the Russian Federation;

- commercial educational resources and electronic educational publications purchased by educational institutions, or obtained on other grounds (for example, contractual, within the framework of joint projects, etc.);

- other resources available in the electronic space;

- software tools developed by the teachers themselves and/or graduate students and students in the course of their scientific and practical work ^[5].

In other words, in the conditions of modern informatization of society, it becomes necessary not only and not so much to develop such methodological tools independently, but to productively use existing developments, as well as numerous and diverse material available on the Internet (including authentic).

In addition, T.P. Gordienko emphasizes, the functionality of using such multi-purpose digital educational resources is determined by their didactic properties, and at the moment they can be used for the following purposes:

- support of all the main stages of the educational process, including practical work, access to information, certification and diagnostics of students' achievements;

- providing students with a variety of opportunities for independent work (including research);

- the use of innovative forms and methods of teaching, including for correspondence and/or distance learning;

- changing the role of the teacher: from a "source of information" he becomes a coordinator and an active participant in the educational process;

- acquisition by students of the role of active subjects of the educational process, which provides for the active development and application of knowledge, as well as their own search activity;

- coordination of learning processes and various activities on the part of the teacher;

- organization of the distribution of responsibility for the educational result ^{[8, p. 18]}.

That is, in almost all the main directions of the educational process in various academic disciplines, including foreign languages in non-linguistic universities.

From all the above it should be noted:

1. The use of such multi-purpose (and simultaneously multitasking) digital educational resources makes it possible to switch the process of acquiring knowledge from broadcasting to their purposeful acquisition, which corresponds to the modern competence paradigm.

2. At the same time, trainees get the opportunity to:

- successfully apply the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in any professional situation, in solving tasks;

- determine for yourself the need for additional information and own algorithms for its search;

- to continue their continuing education and self-education throughout their professional career (in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education).

That is, the main methodological solution should be the development and creative application of complex digital educational resources, in accordance with the specifics of multi-level tasks of teaching a foreign language in a non-linguistic university.