Педагогические науки/2. Проблемы подготовки специалистов

Сandidate of Culturology Olena Orlova,

Mykolaiv Branch of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Ukraine

Cross-Cultural Aspect of Future Tourism Industry Professionals Training

On the grounds of the joining Ukraine the Bologna process the improvement of the quality of professional training corresponding the international and european standards is gaining its actuality. The need for strong cross-cultural competence in today’s environment is stronger than ever before. Globalization and the changing demographics in many of the world’s leading countries has lead to a significant increase in professional communication in the foreign languages. This process can’t be effectively performed without being aware of behaviour rules, norms, methods of cross-cultural communication. Thus, tourism and hospitality professionals training for cross-cultural communication minding the cross-cultural competence formation in the process of foreign languages studies is an essential demand of today and a cornerstone of their successful career in the international workforce marketplace.

According to I. Zimnya the universalization of transformations in the sphere of education, providing the students’ and lecturers’ mobility, international recognition of degrees, introduction of educational credits shall be terminologically unified. The same thing concerns the notion of competence and complex educational approach which are determined by changing of edicational paradigm i. e. totality of convictions, values, facilities etc. [2, с. 9].

Professional competence admits that a specialist can possess the totality of all known cultural samples in the given sphere of human activities. If the person is culturally competent, he is considered to be professionally competent as well. [3].

A. Fliyer spesifies the notion of “cultural competence” as quite high degree of person’s social adaptation and inculturation, that shall give possibility to realize, use and interpret the whole complex of life and specialized knowledge, which create the standards of person’s generally sociality and erudite skills in certain environment, range of rules, samples, customs, bans.

The person’s cultural competence, first of all, determines the degree of knowledge the nation’s social experience in general and interhuman relations norms produced by this experience [4, с. 240–242].

The notion of cross-cultural communication having become essential in the framework of the modern foreign languages studies conception has been investigated by numerous foreign and home researchers (M. Akopova, N. Almazova, S. Ter-Minasova, Е. Vereshchagin, V. Kostomarov, V. Safonova, L. Barna, M. Byram, E. Hall, G. Hofstede, G. Neuner and others).

Nowadays, English being the language of international communication is used as overcultural and metacultural language all over the world. This means that communication is performed in non-native language for the participants of speech interaction, i.e. language-mediator, and is becoming cross-cultural communication itself. Thus, cross-cultural relations are occurring within the contact between the representatives belonging to more than two cultural groups. It is necessary to introduce the elements of culture of different world communities into foreign language for specific purposes curriculum to make this communication effective, tolerant, avoiding the conflicts, not breaking cultural traditions and rules.

Therefore, the study of languages of international communication shall be performed in the context of the dialogue of cultures and civilizations which, finally, can result in the formation of cross-cultural competence. To have cross-cultural competence means to be able to perform cross-cultural communication in the professional activities. To form cross-cultural competence is to make conditions for the students to adopt to the specificity of cross-cultural relations between the native culture and culture under study speech act structural differences, the system of values, specific features of verbal and non-verbal behaviour in accordance with the cultural norms. With the mind of cross-cultural aspect, lingua country studies and lingua culture studies are becoming essential competences for tourism and hospitality professionals training [5].

The professional competence of tourism and hospitality future specialists shall include professional knowledge, skills, methods of performing professional activities and ability to fulfil their professional activities in certain area and in foreign language speaking environment.

The tourism and hospitality future professionals training shall be based on the authentic materials reflecting the specific features of tourism and hospitality overseas experience including regional culturally marked component that can inform foreign clients about native culture and recreational resources of the given area.

The methods of formation of the cross-cultural competence should have in its foundation the following principles of linguadidactics: the principle of orientation to “cross-cultural letiracy” formation, the principle of contrastivity reflecting the cross-cultural aspect of training, the principle of co-studying the languages and cultures, the principle of lingua cultural orientation.

The important elements of the formation of cross-cultural competence of the tourism and hospitality professionals should be emphasized as follows: lingua country studies – the knowledge of the lexical units marked with national and cultural semantics as well as ability to use them adequately in the certain communication situation; lingua culture studies – readiness to percept the different form of communicative behaviour, understanding its differences and variability depending on the culture, avoiding both sense and cultural failures strategy formation.

Список використаної літератури

1. Гершунский Б.С. Философия образования для XXI века / Б.С. Гершунский. – М., 1997. – 693 с.

2. Зимняя И.А. Ключевые компетентности как результативно-целевая основа компетентностного подхода в образовании. Авторская версия / И.А. Зимняя. – М. : Исследовательский центр проблем качества подготовки специалистов, 2004. – 42 с.

3. Розов Н.С. Философия гуманитарного образования / Н.С. Розов. – М. : Исс-ледовательский центр проблем качества подготовки специалистов, 1993.

4. Флеер А.Я. Культурология для культурологов : навч. посіб. для вищ. школи / А.Я. Флеер. – М. : Академический проект, 2000. – 496с.

5. Михеева, С.А. К вопросу реализации культурологического аспекта профессиональной подготовки студентов туристского вуза на занятиях по иностранному языку. // Материалы 5-й студенческой научно-практической конференции г.Сочи, 23-25 марта 2006 г. (Дни науки Социально-педагогического института СГУТиКД).- С.69-70.