V. Kassyanova
Kostanay State University named after A.Baitursynov,
Kazakhstan
The use of interactive methods in teaching a professionally-oriented
foreign language
At present taking into account students’ future profession
while teaching a foreign language is of prior importance at non-linguistic
faculties. Under profession-oriented training we mean training based on the
students’ needs to study a foreign language (FL) dictated by the
characteristics of their future profession. Professionally-oriented approach in
training FL provides the formation of students’ ability to communicate in a
foreign language in specific professional, business, academic fields and
situations, considering the peculiarities of professional thinking in
organizing motivation and incentive, orientation and research activities.
It should be noted that the process of training FL is
focused not only on reading literature on students’ specialty, but on
developing skills so that they could easily navigate in the flow of
professional information and assimilate specialized vocabulary and terminology.
It is very important to develop their communication skills in specific
professional situations, their ability to share information in an understandable
recipient level, i.e. be effective participants in cross-cultural
communication. In the process of teaching FL the teacher should focus on the
development of students’ skills to organize and maintain a dialogue, the
ability to express their views on certain issues (using the available means of
the language), to argue their point of view, and the ability to listen and hear
the partner, to recognize and adequately interpret the intention of the
partner. The effectiveness of communication depends on the ability of partners
to understand the intention of the initiator of the conversation, as well as to
bring own intentional meanings to the interlocutor. The ability to “enter” the
situation of the partner of the communication is essential for achieving a
meaningful contact, which is the basis of full dialogical relations and
determines the success of a professionally-oriented communication in a foreign
language. This is achieved through the use of productive educational
technologies (interactive teaching methods of FL), the distinguishing features
of which are: the highest level of consciousness and enhance thinking,
perception and behavior of students, the high degree of involvement in the
learning process and strict necessity of
students' interaction with each
other, high level of motivation and creativity in training, the effectiveness
of the development of professional and applied skills in the shortest possible
time.
Teaching
FL in modern conditions is organized on an interactive basis, which assumes the
maintenance of intentional dialogue interaction of the teacher and students,
students in groups. This is achieved by modeling situations of real
professional communication, creating conditions as close as possible to the
activity of the expert in the field of students’ future profession. In created
situations of a professional nature it is necessary to pay attention to the
modeling of social and subject content of future professional activity that
will help students to understand its essence and requirements for a specialist.
The teacher should help the students mentally to construct the image of a
specialist who can effectively carry out tasks, correlate this image with a
student’s own "I" and develop the strategy. The main types of this
work include playing out communicative situations, disputing professionally
important problems, as well as discussions, role plays, dramatization and
interviews. It is necessary to mention that the use of projects and
presentations promotes mastering the language of professional communication.
The use of interactive learning technology develops students' ability to apply
independently previously acquired knowledge in a new situation, to find the
solution of a given problem with the help of previously learned ways of
working, learn to establish dialogic relations with partners in the
professional communication.
When
organizing role-playing games, dramatizations, real communicative situations
(for example, a conversation with clients at the office, booking plane tickets
or hotel rooms, the solution of a possible trouble with the delivery of goods,
etc.) the teacher should pay attention not only to working out the necessary
grammatical structures and vocabulary units, but also to explain the best in
these situations speech tactics, creating a possible scenario of the
communication. During training a foreign language a special attention is paid
to the work with texts as sources of necessary lexical and terminological
units, as well as the latest information on the profile of training. Since the
purpose of education is to develop in the future specialist the ability to use
the target language as an instrument of real communication in a multicultural
environment, the texts should be of an authentic character. These are original
texts which are used to create the conditions for real communication, valuable
in cognitive terms and reflecting the characteristics of the profession, the
life and culture of the country of the studied language. It is important to use
pragmatic texts, articles from magazines and newspapers, the Internet
resources paying special attention not
only to the tasks which allow the teacher to check understanding the content of
the text ( for example, such tasks as: answer
the questions to the text; express your agreement or disagreement with
the following statements on the content of the text; make tables or diagrams on
the content of the text; retell the text, etc.), but also the tasks of the
creative nature which will contribute to the development of students’ skills in
understanding the main idea of the text, will enable the students to interpret
the author’s intentional direction, to express own vision and attitude to the
problems presented in the text. The tasks may include pre-reading activities
(for example, the discussion of issues relating to the theme of the text,
predicting the content of the text by the title, photos, pictures, etc.) and
post- reading activities: give a summary of the text and express your own understanding of the main
ideas of the text; express your attitude to the problems existing in the
text; discuss in details the problems
raised, not only in the framework of the information contained in the text, but
find additional materials on the issues, etc.).
The
effective way of the development of communication skills is organization of
discussions of topical problems relevant to the professional and personal
formation of students. Discussions may be based on the interpretation of texts
and articles related to current professional situations. The teacher can also
formulate questions for a discussion. Such questions do not usually require
simple answers, but involve students in a versatile consideration of the
affected problems and open up opportunities for the exchange of views in this regard.
Besides the questions, the teacher can use the tasks where the students are
required to express agreement or disagreement with the following statements,
present their interpretation of the statements to justify their attitude to the
problem. The teacher can also organize a discussion in small groups or ask the
students to make a monologue on the subject, etc.
In
the process of discussion and debate the students face a variety of
value-semantic orientations, value positions. They get experience in public
argumentation of their own point of view, the experience of listening to the
arguments of partners in a dialogue, the experience of taking someone else's
values and
purpose position, experience of group interaction, cooperation in the search
for optimal solutions, etc. The use in the teaching process project tasks is
another effective interactive tool which is very effective for formation of
professional skills and personal qualities of future specialists.
The project technology is based on the idea of students’ interaction
in a group, in which they undertake individual and collective responsibility in
solving problems. The use of project technology creates conditions for
collaboration and cooperation of the teacher and students, students with each
other, allows to step up training and cognitive activity and to enhance the
student as the subject of this activity, to realize his personal capacity, to
develop teamwork skills The project technology involves solving a specific
problem, its detailed development and is aimed at obtaining and presentation of
the results that can be applied in real practice. To achieve the desired
results in the course of the project activities, students must think
independently, using interdisciplinary communication, mobilizing the knowledge
from different areas of their personal experience; it is necessary that the
students should be capable to predict the results of the various solutions of
the problem, establish cause-and-effect relationship. Of the various types of projects,
it is reasonable to perform project tasks with professional direction which
will represent the professional interests for students (for example, the
preparation and presentation of the project of construction firms and
companies, the development of projects of advertising companies and promotion
of their products, etc.). The results of this work can be presented in the form
of presentations with the use of computer technologies.
Foreign language
today is not just one of the university disciplines, but it is an essential
part of training and is aimed at the formation of professionally important
traits and a comprehensively developed student. Teaching a foreign language
based on professionally-oriented approach, combined use of active methods and interactive
learning technologies, the selection of the studying material having a
professional importance will contribute to the formation of competent
professionals.
Литература:
1.
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иностранному языку в неязыковом вузе. – М.: МГЛУ, 2000.
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методика обучения иностранному языку: Учеб. Пособие для студ. филол. фак. высш.
пед. учеб. заведений // 2-е изд., стер. - М.: Академия, 2004. - 264 с.
3.
Мусницкая Е. В. Новые тенденции и актуальные проблемы формирования умений
иноязычного общения у студентов неязыкового вуза Cб. науч. тр. МГЛУ. – М., 2000. – Вып.454.