Ways of improving of civil servants’ foreign language competence

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Kherson National Technical University

Ways of improving of civil servants' foreign language competence

УДК 81'243:378.147

Анотація

Бранецька Марина Сергіївна, старший викладач кафедри іноземних мов та української філології, кандидат педагогічних наук

Херсонський національний технічний університет

Шляхи вдосконалення іншомовної компетенції державних службовців

У статті досліджується поняття «іншомовна компетенція» та «іншомовна компетенція державних службовців», вивчаються шляхи їх формування та вдосконалення, зроблено висновки про потребу використання різних методів та форм роботи зі слухачами магістратури щодо поліпшення іншомовної компетенції державних службовців.

Ключові слова: іншомовна компетенція, державні службовці, методи та форми роботи.

Аннотация

Бранецкая М.С. Способы усовершенствования иноязычной компетенции государственных служащих

В статье исследуются такие понятия, как «иноязычная компетенция» и «иностранная языковая компетенция государственных служащих», изучаются способы их формирования и усовершенствования, сделаны выводы об ииспользовании разных форм и методов работы со слушателями магистратуры для успешного формирования иноязычной компетенции государственных служащих.

Ключевые слова: иноязычная компетенция, государственные служащие, методы и формы работы.

Abstract

This paper focuses on such notions as “foreign language competence ” and “Civil Servants' foreign language competence”. The emphasis lies on forms and methods of work concerning the improvement of civil servants' foreign language competence.

Statement of the problem. Employees in public administration accept and inform foreign visitors, receive, transfer, answer phone calls, accept and reply letters and e-messages, write and explain reports, analyses, articles, cooperate in public relations and different marketing activities, accept, classify, and process documents in foreign languages, have to complete and control transport, export- and import documents, design and write letters and other documents in foreign languages, enter documents in evidences, manage lists and evidences, archive documents, study foreign laws and rules, control international tenders, issue confirmations and certificates, prepare agreements, gather data about the possibility of education and training abroad, participate in EU and other projects, organize international meetings and conferences, prepare documents for meetings. All these tasks require in front of all a good command of at least one or preferably more foreign languages because they have to communicate both orally as well as in writing.

The purpose of the article. Our article intends to specify the notion “foreign language competence of civil servants” and to describe methods and ways for improving speech habits of civil servants.

Our task was to study psychological, linguistic and methodical literature and to point out the definition of the mentioned above notions, to give the reasons for the usage of the communicative approach when teaching civil servants.

Summary. Competency has different meanings, and continues to remain one of the most diffuse terms in the management development sector, and the organizational and occupational literature.

Competencies are also what people need to be successful in their jobs. Job competencies are not the same as job task. Competencies include all the related knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes that form a person's job. This set of context-specific qualities is correlated with superior job performance and can be used as a standard against which to measure job performance as well as to develop, recruit, and hire employees. It is known, that language and speech serve all types of civil servants' activities, we should distinguish the difference between speech and language competence. Language competence - is adopting, awareness of linguistic rules that have developed historically in phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, semantics, stylistics and their adequate use in any human activity in the use of a particular language. Language competence - is an integrative phenomenon, encompassing a number of special abilities, knowledge, skills, strategies and tactics of verbal behavior, attitudes to the successful implementation of speech communication in a specific context.

Speech competence - is the ability to use appropriate language in specific situations (to express their thoughts, desires, intentions, requests, etc.), use this as a linguistic and extralinguistic (facial expressions, gestures, movements) and speech intonation means of expression.

It was determined, that civil servants' foreign language competence is a complex of different language (speech, lexical, phonetic and grammar) competences that help to realize their professional activities. To form all mentioned above competences we are to use different methods. It should be mentioned, that there is a great number of approaches to the process of teaching. Among them are audio-lingual method, communicative language teaching, comprehension approach, lexical approach, community language learning, computer-assisted language learning, content-based instruction, language immersion, lexical approach etc.

Communicative language teaching or the communicative approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study. The development of communicative language teaching was also helped by new academic ideas. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, the dominant method in that country at the time. CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices.

Conclusions and outcomes. The core competencies for the civil servants differ in many ways from the past. The skills, knowledge and competencies are increasing and becoming more complex. To ensure compliance with the normative framework, reduce the level of conflict, guarantee peaceful co-existence, make contemporary government and public administration into an example of dialogue between cultures, the employees in public administration should be acquainted with at least one foreign language. To our mind, the communicative approach, is the best approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study. So all the institutions which train civil servants should review their curriculums and add more courses for the reason to improve civil servants' foreign competence and the best ways of training should be investigated.

Key words: foreign language competence, civil servants, forms and methods of work.

Introduction

Formulation of the problem in general. World, its economy, government and the majority of other sectors are getting more and more internationalized. This means increased communication, sharing of information and experiences among different areas. The economy and government have become intertwined and co-dependent although there are many cultural differences and barriers especially between Ukraine and Europe with their different languages and histories of individual nations and tradition. The role, which is played by civil servants in such situation, is growing up constantly. That is why special attention is paid to the training and education of civil servants, and especially to their foreign language competence and speech habits. The internationalization means searching data bases, agents, representatives, sending off brochures and information to prospects, discussing possible representation, corresponding in English and other foreign languages, arranging for legal registration abroad, talking to local accounting and consulting firms. In an international area it is necessary to communicate by e-mail, mobile phones, text-messaging, video- and Web-conferencing as well as by international travel and face-to-face meetings. Employees in public administration accept and inform foreign visitors, receive, transfer, answer phone calls, accept and reply letters and e-messages, write and explain reports, analyses, articles, cooperate in public relations and different marketing activities, accept, classify, and process documents in foreign languages, have to complete and control transport, export- and import documents, design and write letters and other documents in foreign languages, enter documents in evidences, manage lists and evidences, archive documents, study foreign laws and rules, control international tenders, issue confirmations and certificates, prepare agreements, gather data about the possibility of education and training abroad, participate in EU and other projects, organize international meetings and conferences, prepare documents for meetings. All these tasks require in front of all a good command of at least one or preferably more foreign languages because they have to communicate both orally as well as in writing.

According to Civil Service Law (which was adopted by Verkhovna Rada on 05.12.2012) chapter IV, article 15, civil servants are required to be Ukrainians, to know writing and speaking state language, to be over the age of 18 and to have full competence to exercise their duties.

As it is mentioned in the presidential Decree about the workforce “New elite of the nation” (which was canceled on 02.09.2014), civil servants must know native language and one of the European Union languages.

In the project of the Civil Service Law, ( which was adopted by the National Agency for state services on 24.09.2014), Civil services are classified as fallow: a) by nature of competencies: civil services of execution and of leadership; b) by requirements concerning educational terms: A category civil service, B category civil service, and C category civil service. “ A” category civil servants bring the law into operation and carry it out, perform studies, verifications, counseling, coordination, guidance, elaborate regulations, take decisions and perform any other services that require specialized superior knowledge. It is also said, that “A” civil servants must know state language and can speak one of the languages of Council of Europe fluently.

Analysis of recent researches and publications. Among modern scholars, whose work are focused on improving the communication and language culture, are the works made by B. Antonenko-Davidovich, V.Berkov, H. Volkotrub, O. Horbul, O. Kubrak, O. Serbenska, F. Hmil, T. Chmut, S. Shevchuk etc. A competency model of education is based on the idea of the activity approach, the founder of which is L. Vygotsky, A. Leontiev, S. Rubinstein, and the development of the approach was got in the works of G. Atanova, B. Badmaeva, P. Halperin etc. The study of the major problems of implementation of competence-based approach in education was made by A. Bermus, J. Winter, O. Khutorskoi.

System analysis of some scientific papers by S. Dubenko, K. Inhrem, V. Kalnysh, V. Meadow, A. Obolensky, V. Tron and others, confirmed the presence of problems of managers' foreign business communication in the public service. International activities require special sensitivity and comprehension.

The purpose of the article. Our article intends to specify the notion “foreign language competence” and to describe methods and ways for improving speech habits of civil servants.

The main material

Dictionary of Modern English explains "competence" in three ways: capability and the ability to carry out necessary activities; having special knowledge in a certain area; special skills to perform certain professional duties. Competence (from Lat. Competens - proper, necessary, fitting, appropriate) is a set of necessary for effective work professional activity, systematic functional knowledge and skills (scientific, political, psychological, educational, economic, meaningful and relevant personal qualities). A "competence" (компетенція), according to many researchers, is derived from the concept of "competency" (компетентність) and defines the scope of personal knowledge and skills, while "competency" (компетентність) is semantically a primary category and represents the system of knowledge in a specific field. Another dictionary defines competence as a cluster of related abilities, commitments, knowledge, and skills that enable a person (or an organization) to act effectively in a job or situation [5].

Competence indicates sufficiency of knowledge and skills that enable someone to act in a wide variety of situations. Because each level of responsibility has its own requirements, competence can occur in any period of a person's life or at any stage of his or her career. If to speak about law, competence is the capacity of a person to understand a situation and to act reasonably. Disputes regarding the competence of an individual are settled by a judge and not by a professional (such as a doctor or a psychiatrist) although the judge may seek expert opinion before delivering at a judgment. Also called legal capacity.

Some scholars see "competence" as a combination of practical and theoretical knowledge, cognitive skills, behavior and values used to improve performance; or as the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified, having the ability to perform a specific role. For instance, life, management competency might include systems thinking and emotional intelligence, and skills in influence and negotiation [12, p. 316]. civil servants language

Competency is also used as a more general description of the requirements of human beings in organizations and communities. Competency is sometimes thought of as being shown in action in a situation and context that might be different the next time a person has to act. In emergencies, competent people may react to a situation following behaviors they have previously found to succeed. To be competent a person would need to be able to interpret the situation in the context and to have a repertoire of possible actions to take and have trained in the possible actions in the repertoire, if this is relevant. Regardless of training, competency would grow through experience and the extent of an individual to learn and adapt.

Competency has different meanings, and continues to remain one of the most diffuse terms in the management development sector, and the organizational and occupational literature.

Competencies are also what people need to be successful in their jobs. Job competencies are not the same as job task. Competencies include all the related knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes that form a person's job. This set of context-specific qualities is correlated with superior job performance and can be used as a standard against which to measure job performance as well as to develop, recruit, and hire employees [10, p. 168].

Academician of NAPS N.Bibik clarifies the essence of this concept in the following way: "Competence concerning the structure of educational content that is based on modern standards and sectoral programs, displays universal metalevel that represents the integrated form of educational outcomes [2, p. 18-24 ]. According to O. Pometun, competence approach in education is associated with personal-oriented and active approach to learning. It requires the transformation of educational content. Its transformation under the competence approach is primarily determined by fundamentally different principles of selection and structuring aimed at the final result of the educational process - getting the competencies by the student [6, p. 51-52].

One of the first who introduced the concept of "core competencies" in scientific and educational literature is O. Khutorskoi. He proposes to separate the general and individual knowledge and to distinguish synonymous terms "competence" and "competency". Competence includes a set of interrelated abilities of person (knowledge, skills, ways of life), which are defined with the respect to a range of objects and processes needed for the quality of productive activities. The key competencies by O. Khutorskoi are sets of leading goals of general education, experience, personality, and basic activities of the student, allowing him to acquire social experiences, to build skills and to use them in society:

- value-semantic competence that is related to the person's perceptions of value, its capacity for orientation in life;

- general cultural competence, which means that the person has knowledge and experience in certain activities;

- educational and cognitive competence as a set of person's competencies in independent cognitive activity; ability to choose the target, planning analysis, reflection, self-assessment, teaching and learning activities;

- Information competence that is associated with the formation of person's ability to extract, to analyze, to choose the necessary information;

- communicative competence that includes mastering the ways of interaction with people, skills to work in a group;

- social and labor competence as mastery of knowledge and experience in civil- social activities, social and labor issues, matters of economics and law;

- competence of personal self-improvement that focuses on mastering the ways of physical, intellectual and spiritual self-development [7, p. 58-63].

A. Belkin specifies professional competence as a set of professional and personal qualities that ensure effective implementation of the competencies which are required to carry out professional activities [1, p. 56] .

A very interesting point of view belongs to I.Zyazyuna, who considers that competence is the fundamental principle of professionalism. The most important thing is the complexity of knowledge, namely the ability to synthesize material, analyze the situation of communication, to comprehend the essence of phenomena, choose means of interaction [3, p.198].

The previous analysis of the definitions let us to outline some general points. The notion “competence” is always considered in the context of professional activity; it is understood as an integrative education of the employee, which is a combination of different competencies. It describes the readiness of a civil servant to the profession, and the nature and effectiveness of the implementation and is formed in the course of improving it. In addition, all researchers emphasize that the essence of professional competence displays business reliability and the ability to perform professional activities successfully and accurately in both stereotypical and in unusual situations.

To improve the civil servants' foreign language competence we offer to take into consideration four different sub-competencies:

• grammatical (ability to create grammatically correct utterances),

• sociolinguistic (ability to produce sociolinguistic appropriate utterances),

• discourse (ability to produce coherent and cohesive utterances),

• strategic (ability to solve communication problems as they arise) [13, p.214].

It is known, that language and speech serve all types of civil servants' activities, we should distinguish the difference between speech and language competence. Language competence - is adopting, awareness of linguistic rules that have developed historically in phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, semantics, stylistics and their adequate use in any human activity in the use of a particular language. Language competence - is an integrative phenomenon, encompassing a number of special abilities, knowledge, skills, strategies and tactics of verbal behavior, attitudes to the successful implementation of speech communication in a specific context.

Speech competence - is the ability to use appropriate language in specific situations (to express their thoughts, desires, intentions, requests, etc.), use this as a linguistic and extralinguistic (facial expressions, gestures, movements) and speech intonation means of expression.

Lexical competence - the presence of a certain stock of words in professional development, the ability to use tokens adequately, appropriate use of figurative expressions, sayings, proverbs, idiomatic phrases.

Phonetic competence - the correct pronunciation of some sounds of foreign language, sound combinations according to rules of stress, well-developed phonemic hearing, which allows to differentiate phonemes; possession intonational means of expression of speech (tempo, timbre, strength of voice, logical stress, etc.).

Grammar competence - unconscious use of grammatical forms of foreign language according to the laws and rules of grammar (gender, number, case, etc.), sense of grammatical forms, availability of remedial skills in the use of correct grammatical forms [4, c. 89].

So, we can say that, civil servants' foreign language competence is a complex of different language (speech, lexical, phonetic and grammar) competences that help to realize their professional activities.

To form all mentioned above competences we are to use different methods. It should be mentioned, that there is a great number of approaches to the process of teaching. Among them are audio-lingual method, communicative language teaching, comprehension approach, lexical approach, community language learning, computer-assisted language learning, content-based instruction, language immersion, lexical approach etc.

Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study. The development of communicative language teaching was also helped by new academic ideas. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, the dominant method in that country at the time. CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices. As such, it is most often defined as a list of general principles or features. One of the most recognized of these lists is David Nunan's five features of CLT:

1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.

2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.

3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself.

4. An enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning.

5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom [11, p. 109].

These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom. Under this broad umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps students develop their communicative competence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form of instruction. Thus, in the classroom CLT often takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage learners to develop their confidence, role-plays in which students practice and develop language functions, as well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities.

It makes use of real-life situations that generate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real- life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics. Several concepts related to communicative language teaching are presented here.

The ultimate role that teaching must assume is to generate communication. A language communicates meaning. Grammar instances should be presented and practiced in order to achieve this goal [9, p. 18].

During communicative activities a classroom is far from quiet. The students do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their seats to complete a task. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible managers of their own learning. In communicative classrooms teachers will find themselves talking less and listening more, becoming active facilitators of their students' learning. The teacher sets up the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometimes acting as a monitor. Thus, communicative language teaching often takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency- based activities that encourage learners to develop their confidence, role-plays in which students practice and develop language functions, as well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities. Some of the most frequently classroom activities used in communicative language teaching are: role-play, interviews, information gap, language exchanges, surveys, pair work etc. The communicative approach emphasizes the idea of an effective communication between the teacher and the students and focuses on language as a medium of communication. It recognizes that all communication has a social purpose - learners have something to say or find out. Classroom activities maximize opportunities for learners to use target language in a communicative way for meaningful activities. The emphasis lies on meaning (messages they are creating or task they are completing) rather than form (correctness of language and language structure) - as in first language acquisition [8, p. 69].

Conclusions and outcomes

In the past ten years a number of world's changes have contributed to significant changes of the public administration which requires new skills, attitudes and behavior among civil servants at all levels. The core competencies for the civil servants in the 21^st century differ in many ways from the past. The skills, knowledge and competencies are increasing and becoming more complex.

To ensure compliance with the normative framework, reduce the level of conflict, guarantee peaceful co-existence, make contemporary government and public administration into an example of dialogue between cultures, the employees in public administration should be acquainted with some basic intercultural competences.

Competencies and competency models may be applicable to all employees in an organization or they may be position specific. Identifying employee competencies can contribute to improved organizational performance. They are most effective if they meet several critical standards, including linkage to, and leverage within an organization's human resource system. One of the ways to display the civil servants' professional competence is improving of their foreign language competence.

In our article according to different researches we defined several competences (language competence, speech competence, lexical competence, phonetic competence, grammar competence) and sub-competences (grammatical (ability to create grammatically correct utterances), sociolinguistic (ability to produce sociolinguistic appropriate utterances), discourse (ability to produce coherent and cohesive utterances), strategic).

Communicative approach, that is mentioned in our article, is not just limited to oral skills. Reading and writing skills need to be developed to promote students' confidence in all four skill areas. By using elements encountered in a variety of ways (reading, summarizing, translating, discussion, debates) language is made more fluid and students' manipulation of language more fluent. It is important not to be restricted to one textbook; text-book must not be used from cover to cover. It can be considered only a tool, a starting-point. With a little inspiration and imagination, text-books can be manipulated and rendered more communicative. Spontaneous and improvised practice helps to make minds more flexible and inspire confidence in coping with unforeseen, unanticipated situations. There is a need to use different registers and develop alternative ways of saying things.

Prospects for further research. Foreign languages are among the most important intercultural competencies of civil servants. Foreign languages express different cultures and give the possibility to understand different cultures. Knowledge of foreign languages opens the door to other cultures and can improve intercultural understanding in Europe and with the rest of the world. So all the institutions which prepare civil servants should review their curriculums and add more courses for the reason to improve civil servants' foreign competence and the best ways of training should be investigated.

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