The issue of the future specialists’ competitiveness ability

Å.À. Antonyuk, Å.V. Smirnykh

Orenburg State University, Orenburg

 

The education system, adequately meeting the challenges of the XXI century civilization, maintaining and strengthening our competitive position as one of the leading states is vital for Russia. The modern world, including Russia, has already entered the era when most of the economic wealth is created outside of the material production. The importance and value of intellectual work, the role of information and information technology repeatedly increase, and knowledge economy is the essential sector of the economy.

Today it is obvious that education is directly related to competitiveness. In recent years the competitiveness concept of high school graduates has been actively developed in pedagogy. The idea of the competitiveness nature of personality was currently formed; it allows us to work on its formation in the educational and teaching process of the University. Talking about the quality competitiveness researchers imply not only a high level of activity or knowledge and skills achieved in vocational education, but also its willingness to endure and win a competitive edge in the competitive labour market [6.54].

The concept of "competitiveness" has become firmly established in the psycho-pedagogical science due to the foreign scientists A. Maslow, O'Dell, J. Grayson, K. Rogers and others. The humanistic psychology representatives consider a person as an active creator of his own life, with freedom of choice, planning and developing an individual style of living. Maslow suggests that the man through the self-actualization attempts to become the person, whom he can become[5.7]. K. Rodzhers considers human behavior as the motive of self-actualization. He notes that the man "tends to develop all his abilities, in order to preserve and to develop the personality"[4.15]. In other words, at the basis of the personality structure there is the “Ego - concept” which is formed by the interaction of the subject with the environment and is an integral mechanism of self-control behavior.

V. Andreev defines a competitive person as a person, characterized by the desire and ability to be of high quality and efficiency in his activity, as well as of the leadership under the conditions of competition, rivalry and tense struggle with the competitors [2.26]. Quality of personality is defined as "personal feature that characterizes the individual predisposition to behave appropriately in a wide range of life situations".

Today a foreign language provides the advantage in the competitive ability. The foreign language competence formation of future economic profile specialist assumes the possession of knowledge, practical skills that will allow him to use a foreign language as the mean of information activity, systematic replenishment of his professional knowledge, professional communication and professional culture as a whole, as well as the value attitude.

We believe that the foreign language competence formation of future economic profile specialist in the modern University is an autonomous educational system that has sustainability, organization and interaction of its structural and functional components. The effectiveness of the system depends on many factors; we highlight the future specialist being ready to join the intercultural communication course according to his professional activity.

Taking into consideration all the above, we can say that competence is person’s shown competence. Competence may include a set of competencies that are discovered in various spheres of activity. When learning a foreign language in non-profile higher education establishment the emphasis in put on the foreign language competence. The concept of “foreign language competence of future specialist” shows an expression of productively implemented in professional foreign language communication system of qualitative characteristics including:

·                   the broad cultural outlook and thesaurus, formed by the sum of professional language skills;

·                   high foreign language productivity on the base of developed in the process of instruction linguistic abilities;

·                   a high level of creative thinking, providing the processes of perception, structuring, the decoding of the professional foreign language information;

·                   the integral complex of knowledge in the language field, which provides self-determination, development and self-improvement of personality in professional foreign language communication;

·                   valuable relation to the language and the profession.

The foreign language competence formation of future specialist assumes the knowledge, practical skills that will allow him to use foreign language as a means of information activity, systematic replenishment of his professional knowledge, professional communication and professional culture as a whole.

The everyday reality of recent years reflects the increasing status of foreign languages ​​in society.  Among the most important points, which indicates the demand for foreign languages ​​in Russia today, are:

1) the globalization of integrated social processes;

2) interstate integration in education;

3) access to the experience and knowledge in the world, to the great wealth of information, to the qualitative education in the country and abroad (language proficiency, particularly the languages of international importance, has been an important figure of modern education).

In its essence the language education is a process of moving from the target to the result. This process is aimed at introducing to students the new means of communication, to the knowledge of foreign culture and understanding of their own ethno-cultural origins, their readiness for dialogue and tolerance with respect to other languages and cultures. The basis of language education as a process is the subject-object interaction of student with another language and culture in a consistent orientation during this process to native language and original culture. A student is nominated as the subject of the training activities and subject of intercultural communication, i.e. he becomes the central element of lingual formation as a system. This means that the student himself, the prospects of his personal and lingual development, becomes the starting point while constructing and analyzing the content of the instruction in the non-native language process.

Language and consequently the language education has been an important tool for successful human life, its competitiveness in multicultural and multilingual community of people.

Indeed, at the present stage of development the language education serves as an important medium, it forms consciousness of personality, its ability to be socially mobile "enter" freely into the open information space. Even under favorable conditions public and social importance of language education should be supported by his personality-oriented value. The latter is associated with individually motivated and stimulated relations of the individual to his own education in general and language education in particular, to its level and quality.

Professionally-oriented foreign language education for non-language faculties of universities is a process aimed to form the active and creative personality of the future specialist, being able to successfully apply the linguistic knowledge in his professional activity, and involving the acquisition of specialized knowledge and skills, providing his professional development in various fields of science and industry. This process involves not only foreign language learning as a mean of communication and transfer students socially and professionally relevant information to students, but also the formation of a multilingual person, that absorbed the values of native and foreign cultures and ready to intercultural communication.

Professionally-oriented foreign language education for non-language faculties of universities requires a new approach to the selection of content. It should be focused on the latest achievements in various spheres of human activity, to reflect scientific advances in areas directly affecting the professional interests of students, providing them with an opportunity for professional growth. Modern professionally-oriented approach to foreign language learning involves students’ abilities to communicate in foreign language in specific professional, business, and scientific areas and situations, taking into account the characteristics of the professional thinking. The idea of training on nonlinguistic faculties of universities is to develop the communication skills that would make it possible to achieve professional contacts on the foreign language in different spheres and the situations.

 

1.                 Andreev, V. I., Pedagogy: a training course for creative self-development., V. I. Andreev – 2nd  ed. - Kazan: Innovative Technology Center, 2000. – 608 p.

2.                 Andreev, V. I., Competiology: a course for the creative competitiveness self-development., V. I. Andreev - Kazan: Innovative Technology Center, 2004. -468 p.

3.                  Grayson, J., O'dell, K., American management on the eve of the 21st century., J. Grayson, K. O'dell - M., 1991.

4.                 Rogers, K., The look at psychotherapy. A human becoming, K. Rogers, - M., 1994.

5.                 Maslow, A., The far limits of the human psyche, A. Maslow - St. Petersburg: publ. house Eurasia, 1997. – 430 p.

6.                 Mitina, L. M., Psychological development of a competitive personality, L. M. Mitina.  - 2nd ed., M.: publ. house of the Moscow psychological and social institute; Voronezh: publ. house "MODÈK", 2003. - 400 p.

7.                 Passov, E. I., Basic communicative methods of teaching foreign language communication, E. I. Passov - Moscow: the Russian language, 1989. – 276 p.

8.                 Sakharova, N. S., The foreign language competence development of the University students. Monograph. - N. S. Sakharova. -Moscow, 2003. – 206 p.

9.                  Elkonin, D. B., The notion of competence from the perspective of the developmental education - D. B. Elkonin - Krasnoyarsk, 2002.