Gavrylenko K. M.

National Technical University of Ukraine “KPI”

Optimization of foreign language training of future IT specialists

Currently one of the most important challenges facing the national educational system is the problem of improving the quality of higher education. The quality of education is determined by the status and effectiveness of the educational process of teaching, its conformity with the needs and expectations of society and involvement of social components, which include the formation of the intellectual development of the individual, his positive self motivation.

Foreign language knowledge at a level at least sufficient for professional communication in the professional sphere is one of the requirements of modern society for young professionals and is a required component of training of the modern technical specialists. The rapid development of computer technology in recent years and its intensive use in the classroom has led to some changes in the education system.

The main requirements of development of the information society are responsible modernization of the education system in higher education. Modern society is interested in professionals who are willing to take their own responsibilities for their decisions, able to set goals and to choose the way of achieving them, based on their inner priorities, thereby demonstrating their own individuality. Young professionals in any field should be able to assess their capabilities realistically as well as their professional activities and results.

However, nowadays the effect of information technologies development has changed the goals and content of higher education and a foreign language learning in particular. The main reasons of changes are lack of technical base of higher educational institutions and economic costs, and lack of conceptual theoretical foundations based on information and communication technologies (ICT) in the educational process.

The main purpose of the use of ICT for learning a foreign language is to develop of a foreign language communicative competence and the students’, ability and willing to learn a foreign language as a means of communication. Multimedia technologies provide the opportunity for teachers to abandon traditional teaching routine activities, allowing them to use the intellectual forms of work, free from the long and boring presentation of a significant part of the training material and routine tasks associated with development of working skills. Methodologically correct use of ICT allows us to change the process of learning, replacing memorizing text to developing communicative abilities and different skills.

Today education specialists should focus not only on defining of the students’ professional and personal needs, but also take into account the needs of the society. And the use of the competency approach in education contributes significantly to achievement of these goals.

Foreign language is one of the popular subjects in the non-linguistic universities. Knowledge and skills of one or two foreign languages gives students an opportunity not only to receive a professionally relevant knowledge, but also to learn cultures and traditions of the country of the studied language and expand their own horizons, the ability to take independent, non-standard solutions, and receive adequate training of foreign languages relevant to their needs. Foreign language course in technical universities is communicatively oriented and professionally directed and its objectives are defined by communicative and cognitive needs corresponding to specialists’ profile.

However, at present learning a foreign language in most technical universities is usually held in the first years at university, when students are just beginning to get acquainted with their future profession and begin to study basics of the future specialty. So many teachers have noted that in the classroom they are not eager to develop their speaking and language skills or communication in a foreign language. It comprises explanation of technical terms that do not fall within their competence, and thus limited to reading of popular scientific texts on their specialty and memorizing common technical terms. All this hinders the success of the educational process and is not contribute to the development of students' cognitive skills, as part of the training program.

Moreover, the experience shows that the majority of students of higher technical institutions does not practice a foreign language at the end of the course of foreign language teaching and lose previously developed spoken and language skills. As a result after school graduation, where learning a foreign language is carried out at a higher linguistic and professional level, students have to start almost from scratch learning a professional foreign language and experiencing considerable difficulty as foreign language becomes necessary not only for the exams, but also for detailed study of foreign literature as an object of scientific research, which is necessary for writing research papers, as well as for successful performance at international conferences of young professionals whose aim is to obtain and exchange information necessary for further research activities.

Relevant way to build an efficient process of professional training in non-linguistic universities that meet the requirements of the potential employers should be considered and provided by competent approach. According to the pedagogical content the term "competence" includes the following learning concepts: knowledge, skills, and communicativeness. Professional competence should be seen as the willingness and ability to act in accordance with the requirements of the professional needs, and methodically organized to meet the challenges and self-assessment of its performance. Competence approach describes the ability of a person to realize their human potential in different professional activities. Therefore, systematic development of educational environment in the research activities of students promotes creativeness, as well as improve the quality of higher education in general. Competence is considered as the ultimate goal of higher education and is defined as implementation of the educational process for successful performance of professional activities.

Professionals work should be conducted on the improvement and modernization of programs for teaching of foreign languages in technical universities and professional developed of teachers. A variety of methods and techniques for improvement of quality of the educational process is necessary to develop. Some technical universities suggest continuous course of foreign language teaching, consisting of three stages of learning from the first to the seventh term. These requirements for proficiency in foreign language knowledge at the first stage (the first to third term) are aimed at development of language communicative competences, sufficient for further training and study of foreign language experience in a certain professional field for science and technology, as well as for business contacts on elementary level. In case of lack of language and communicative skills within the secondary school program this stage includes the corresponding refreshment course. In the second stage (during the fourth and fifth terms) the ultimate goal is the acquisition of necessary communicative competence and for creative interpretation of international experience in professional and related scientific and technological fields, as well as for the business professional communication. And at last, the final requirements of the third stage is the development of communicative competence necessary for qualified informative and creative activities in different areas and situations of business partnerships, joint production and research. However, the proposed uninterrupted course of learning a foreign language is designed specifically for students who have successfully passed the exam at the end of the first phase of training, which is one of the main tasks of young professionals’ preparation.

Other experts suggest starting a two-year foreign language teaching in technical institutions of higher education that have not yet fully adopted the two-level system of education, offering students more cognitive activities for their future profession. It should be mentioned, senior students have a good command of professional knowledge that allows them easily to percept and assimilate communicative and professionally oriented course of foreign languages’ study.

All the difficulties at implementing communicative and professionally oriented course for students of foreign languages can be overcome by the contribution of various departments, especially by the Department of Foreign Languages and departments, preparing specialists for the various engineering specialties. With the help and direct involvement of teachers of these departments the materials and guidance for students of these areas are published and prepared for print. They fully meet the content of training programs for students in the first and second courses in core subjects and allow overcoming lexical difficulties in acquiring of professional information in a foreign language. It also enables the teacher to pay more attention to the development of students’ speech and language skills. Materials for such jointly developed teaching aids are articles from scientific publications and original foreign textbooks on fundamental technical disciplines.

Traditional educational technology of foreign languages teaching has the main drawback – the inability to simulate a foreign environment, to create conditions for authentic communication in the target language. Teachers should take into account individual differences especially when working with large groups of students with low motivation. In this regard, it is necessary to prepare students to work in new environment as well as to use ICT in learning of foreign languages. The most popular are student centered communicative learning technologies.

In the future, to maintain a level of knowledge and skills acquired in the process of foreign language teaching in the first two courses, we consider it necessary to recommend implementing by the graduate teaching departments of undergraduate students of core subjects such as, for example, writing essays based on review of the current foreign scientific and technical literature. Furthermore, we consider it advisable to use original scientific sources of information in the target foreign language for students’ writing of term scientific papers for research projects in a foreign language. As a result of this practice, university graduates enrolling in the Master's and other degrees will perform a research work at a high professional level and will not experience difficulties during oral and written communication in a foreign language.