Педагогические науки/2.Проблемы подготовки специалистов

Ph.D., Professor O.G. Maksimova,

Сandidate of science L.A. Metelkova

Chuvash State Pedagogical University. IY Yakovlev

The Formation of Expectant Teachers’ Linguistic Mobility during Vocational Training

Russia’s WTO accession and the agreement conclusion within the Bologna process framework, strengthening and further developing the international relations, internationalization of all areas of the social life in our country - all that has become a reason for building up a new paradigm of linguistic education, put in practice within the system of modern educational institutions, including pedagogical institutions of higher education. Under the conditions of consolidating the international contacts and integration processes, and the development of tourism and establishment of multiple personal contacts among people, what is an important task for a State and pedagogy is bringing knowledge of native and foreign languages – the linguistic mobility – whose realization causes the necessity of further perfecting the contents and technology of teaching future specialists the languages and forming their linguistic competence according to the needs of modern society.

Person-oriented language policy of the global community members, concerning modern youth when mastering its native and foreign languages, supposes creating a favorable environment for raising their status relatively to society, the languages being a means of intercultural communication among people and cross-cultural interaction among countries within the framework of established interethnic relations, etc.

Constructing an open society in our country and creating ample opportunities for a dialogue with the representatives of other ethnoses and peoples under new social and economic conditions – all this has actualized the problem of forming a linguistic mobility as applied to expectant specialists, and has identified the task of forming students’ linguistic competence as the main one for all the educational institutions of Russia without exception. Enhancement of the role of foreign and native languages in the system of vocational training for future specialists has necessitated a shift of emphases in training of expectant teachers as well. Pedagogical institutions of higher education of the country have faced a challenge of adjusting the theory and methods of foreign and native languages teaching to the modern level of development reached by linguistics and the global community. At the same time, as scientists’ research results and the very practice show, graduates of pedagogical institutions of higher education have no sufficient level of linguistic mobility formation; what is also a matter of concern is non-uniformity of the formation of its vitally and professionally important components (cognitive, communicative and personal ones) responsible for the success of professional activity from an intercultural aspect. What proves this is the helplessness of numerous teachers in situations of an actual intercultural dialogue with representatives of other peoples, their inability to quickly adapt to the life activity conditions in an environment speaking another language, their lack of ability to establish proper relationship with representatives of another culture and a non-native language, and lack of skill to be fluent in oral and written speech, including in a foreign language, etc.

The essence of ‘the linguistic mobility’ concept in its general sense is that it characterizes a person, aware of speaking and writing, with the use of possibilities of native or foreign languages: it is a person’s ability to be free to ‘move’ and quickly adapt to cognitive and communicative linguistic (i.e. language) space, and it is also a result of a person’s comprehension of speech experience. Personal quality and level of its formation are characterized by the following parameters: a person’s acquirement of basic knowledge in language science, learning its role in personal and social life; mastering the whole complex of linguistic notions; taking a conception of the structure of a native or foreign language and of the components and ways of its restructurings, etc.; knowing the history of language science and of its outstanding representatives; possessing abilities and skills of using the language during communication with representatives of his or her own culture and those speaking another language; a person’s fluency in written and oral speech, etc. This concept has just recently come into the conceptual apparatus of the theory and methods of vocational training, and so far there is no unified approach to disclosure of its essence and contents.

Substantial contribution to the research into the problem of integrating the components of the linguistic competence to the process of vocational training for future specialists has been made by I.L. Bim, Y.M. Vereshchagin, P.Y. Galperin, E.F. Zeyer, I.A. Zimniaya, G.A. Kitaygorodtseva, Y.I. Passov, V.V. Safonova, G.D. Tomakhin, et al. At the same time, the conceptual bases for the formation of expectant teachers’ linguistic mobility during their vocational training, as well as the questions of determining the factors having a positive impact on the efficiency of its forming among students of a pedagogical institution of higher education, have not been given a due consideration in educational science and high school practice.

The current analysis of the activity conditions of higher educational institutions with respect to the formation of expectant teachers’ linguistic mobility shows that regulations obtaining in various documents, as applied to the necessary formation of expectant teachers’ linguistic mobility, remain mere pretentious requirements in most cases. The educational potential of native and foreign languages in training the teachers-to-be, according to the demands of modern society and global community, remains practically unclaimed.

Thus, we have a contradiction between an insufficient formation of linguistic mobility among graduates of a pedagogical institution of higher education and in elaborateness of theoretical and methodological bases for its forming among students of a higher educational establishment. This contradiction has enabled us to define the main research problem: what are the conceptual bases for the formation of expectant teachers’ linguistic mobility during their vocational training?

The scientific novelty of research is that its results will make it possible to present a competence-oriented concept of forming an expectant teacher’s linguistic mobility, the concept being based upon the basic propositions of systemic and culturological approaches. The theoretical level gives us a model-based process representation of the formation of expectant teachers’ linguistic mobility, including the objective, tasks, principles and regularities, the main directions, organizational forms, methods and means, as well as the implementation result of the process model. The practical level characterizes the educational conditions for effective functioning of the model we offer, it also considers the methods of forming an expectant teacher’s linguistic mobility and describes the technology of assessing the level of its formation among graduates of a pedagogical institution of higher education.