Graduates’ competitiveness through acquisition of foreign language for professional purposes: competency-based approach issue in FLT

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National University of Trade and Economics

Kharkiv Institute of Finance of Kyiv

Graduates' competitiveness through acquisition of foreign language for professional purposes: competency-based approach issue in FLT

Agibalova Т.М., Associate Professor

Summary

The following article is devoted to the peculiarities of graduates' competitiveness through target language communicative performance. It determines the particular aspects of capacity to objectify their conceptual picture of the world, and more specifically, lingualize their context view and transfer the language intentions to the partners or customers as the most significant abilities of competitive graduates of Economics Departments. The acquisition of that level of CC prepares students for productive and stimulating careers at financial sector. The paper accents the importance of extralinguistic factors comprehension, that are regulated by socio-lingual features of the nation, through discussion-based techniques in foreign language acquisition.

This approach is effective across a range of professional situations, when the recipient becomes a producer of a new more complicated language unit and consequently represents the new language reality. When operate at the international market, the mentioned factors are determined with the rules of “political arena”, because even small international business must consider the regulations, laws and policies of the host country in order “to completely get the message” and escape socio-cultural clash of opinions. The content and specificity of every stage of perceiving and productive performance through targeted verbal acts are clarified on the basis of Bloom's taxonomy which involves knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels of CC.

The three last items are the most considerable to estimate the level of students' intercommunication mastery. In line with the concept of lingualized intellectual capacity, the present paper provides samples/pattems of classroom activities to achieve a variety of professional communicative purposes.

Key words: foreign language-based competitiveness, lingualization, communicative competence, competency-based approach, conceptual picture of the world, extralinguistic factor, taxonomy.

Анотація

У статті досліджено особливості формування іншомовної конкурентоспроможності студентів ВНЗ економічного профілю у межах комунікативного підходу до викладання іноземних мов. Ідею превалювання уміння лінгвалізувати власну контекстуально-концептуальну модель і комунікативні інтенції впродовж професійного спілкування в іншомовному оточенні над «правильністю» мовлення окреслено у проекції на сучасний курс країни на євроінтеграцію. З огляду на природу сприйняття і продукування іншомовного контенту, об'єктивовану таксономічною теорією Блума, визначено як змістове поле комунікативної компетенції на різних етапах навчання, так і аспекти постановки навчальних цілей, що дозволяє об'єктивно оцінити успішність розвитку мовної особистості студента на кожному з етапів формування комунікативних навичок.

Ключові слова: іншомовна конкурентоспроможність, лінгвалізація, комунікативна компетенція, компетентнісний підхід, концептуальна картина світу, екстралінгвістичний фактор, таксономія.

Аннотация

В статье рассматриваются особенности формирования иноязычной конкурентоспособности студентов ВУЗов экономического профиля в ракурсе коммуникативного подхода в преподавании иностранных языков. Идею превалирования навыков лингвализации собственной контекстуально-концептуальной модели и реализации коммуникативных интенций в иноязычном профессиональном общении над «правильностью» говорения рассмотрено в проекции на современный курс страны на евроинтеграцию. В рамках таксономической теории Блума, актуализирующей природу восприятия и продуцирования языкового контента, обозначено как содержательное поле коммуникативной компетенции на разных этапах обучения, так и аспекты постановки учебных целей, что, в свою очередь, позволяет объективно оценить уровень развития языковой личности студента на каждом из этапов формирования языковых навыков.

Ключевые слова: иноязычная конкурентоспособность, лингвализация, коммуникативная компетенция, компетентностный подход, концептуальная картина мира, экстралингвистический фактор, таксономия.

In current globalized environment significant development of any branch of study is regulated by economic reasons. It obviously implies foreign language mastering component of competitiveness as one of the most considerable factor in preparing qualified employees for international communication. Therefore, the process of language acquisition is becoming an essential part of educational practice.

On a worldwide scale, each FLT practice is selected on the basis of its output, which reflects its importance and relevance. Nowadays, students are extremely motivated to study English as a language of global marketing. First factor of language-based professional success is evident for its supremacy over others. A verbal capacity to bring an idea and ways of its implementation into line for employer or partners smoothly coordinates with ability to intrigue and persuade clients to accept the proposal. When operate on the international market, the second factor is determined by the rules of “political arena”, because even small international business must consider the regulations, laws and policies of the host country in order “to completely get the message” and escape socio-cultural clash of opinions.

The investigation of the following approach leads to conclusion that in order to be competitive applicants at the arena of the global market must acquire communicative competence (CC) in their professional field of study. For economists, it's obviously a capacity to perform the models of Business talk and negotiations. Within education discourse, the relevance of the given subject of research is considered in appliance with Ukraine's state policy to European integration, that requires bringing Ukraine language education standards to the European level.

Scientific sources and publications review. In theoretical and practical context, the following issue is investigated as the most multifaceted aspect of current methodological and philological study. The main theoretical features of FLT for professional purposes were developed by T. Dudley-Evans, J. Berman, M. Brammer, C. Brown, M. Hewings, J. Henning, T. Hutchinson, 0. Bykonya, D. Brinton, S. Donna, P. Emmerson, G. Grynyuk. But an issue of investigation of the main principles of interlanguage mastery in terms of project oriented teaching remains the point of current interests. Therefore, the purpose of the present article is to clarify the basis and practical means for development and estimation students' professional CC performance.

Statement of the problem. For obvious reasons, it isn't just enough to adopt given patterns of speaking and learn extended vocabulary notes, because at every stage of its development language is being developed, and at the same time, is developing new, more complicated senses and contexts as a background for further intellectualization. On the one hand, we observe constant standardization and rationalization of intralinguistic modality, but not only orally/visually perceived by humans' sensory system and revealed by such structural branches of language study as Phonology and Orthoepy, Grammar and Syntax, Lexicology and Phraseology. The anthropological principle of current scientific discourse determines human-oriented model of any contemporary field of study, so connects far more naturally to such larger issue in cognitive linguistics as language processing, objectified with connotations, informativity, implicitness, autosemantization.

On the other hand, in present-day economizationed environment, the fundamental principles of society structure are rather flexible, so in order to serve as means of intercommunication language is concerned to overcome existing borders, established for certain cultural/ethnic group. Therefore, in spite of geographical, political and historical processes, a particular set of extralinguistic factors is always regulated by socio-lingual features of the nation reality. The mentioned observation confirms Levi-Strauss's theory of structural anthropology. According to scholar's concept, universal patterns in cultural systems are always products of the invariant structure of the human mind [1].

As mentioned in previous section of paper, current methodological principles in FLT refers to an issue of prospective oriented communicative competence of an applicant entering an international market. Therefore, the first item, should be mentioned within the context of effective foreign language acquisition, appears to be the article of interest due to its nature origin for participants of educational process. It occurs in the field of consistency, or succession in Curriculum for foreign language aims. Entering higher educational institutions, graduates are considered to be prepared for accepting particular sets of Vocabulary, Grammar, Stylistics, Phraseology knowledge. In its turn, it presupposes they got the same language background based on secondary school educational programs, but being strong in theory, in practice, the following assumption tends to be rather overstatement. The implementation of obtained skills reflects extended gaps at pragmatic level of language performance.

Therefore, the second item occurs in the field of pragmatic, or project oriented capacity. In case the context concerns modeling problem situations, which include intellectual obstacles, students spend a plenty of time making efforts to pull through linguo-cultural misunderstandings. Overcoming the following communicative barriers provides performing socio-mental functions with the means of obtained language. It includes analytical and synthetic thinking, comparative capacity, generalization experience, implication competence in metaphorical case of study, etc., which lead to language cognition development via target language attainment. In global cultural dimension it maintains the notion of multiple intelligence, introduced by H. Gardner, who among the multiple intelligences distinguishes the linguistic, logical- mathematical, visual-spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic and naturalist intelligences [2, p. 62].

No doubts, the prominent goal of language education can be performed through continual sessions of practice. At the lesson all the participants of educational process should recognize short-term goals they set for themselves in order to estimate the achievements. Teacher's role in this scenario is determined by the communicative approach to TFL. It follows from educational priorities in language mastery and regulates the ways to accomplish general or specified by a professional study area objectives. In terms of philological and methodological study, the route of learning foreign language aims to establish the foundation of interlanguage cognition, when person is able to operate at the analysis level, at the synthesis level, at the evaluation level of comprehension, according to Bloom's taxonomy [Bloom, B., 1956], worked out by John Henning into an adaptable algorithm for carrying out a procedure for identifying the stages of question-based educational discourse [3]. Language option is always motivated by world view peculiarities at any stage of human development.

Therefore, according to Humboldt's concept, language personality is revealed through a set of expressive means in everyday communicative practice that distinguishes one individual from other ethnic features keepers [4]. We consider the English language one of the most appropriate field for foreign language cognition development because of its universal codes throughout world nations, ethnic, academic and professional communities.

The mentioned three stages of educational objectives achievement reveal the true essence of CC mastery and serve as measures to estimate teacher-students output. At the analysis level, students are asked to divide and organize concepts, ideas, or other information into their component parts to better understand its organizational structure. This may include looking for patterns, recognizing hidden meanings, analyzing the relationship between parts, and recognizing guiding organizational principles. The analysis level is considered cognitively higher than the application level because it requires an understanding of both the content and the structure of an idea.

At the synthesis level, students are asked to originate, integrate, and combine ideas into a product or plan. They may be engaged in writing an essay, composing a speech, designing an experiment, creating a classification scheme, or generating any kind of proj ect that requires the formulation of new patterns or structures. Questions may prompt students to adapt, anticipate, arrange, assemble, categorize, collaborate, collect, hypothesize, or integrate. At the evaluation level, students are asked to make value decisions about issues, resolve controversies or differences of opinion, or develop opinionsjudgments, or decisions. Learning outcomes in this area are highest in the cognitive hierarchy because they incorporate elements of the previous five categories, plus conscious valuejudgments based on clearly defied criteria. Questions at the evaluation level may prompt students to compare and discriminate between ideas, assess the value of theories or presentations, or make choices based on reasoned argument and the value ofthe evidence [3, p. 18-21]. Therefore, the following method of participants' success appraisal provides a relatively simple way for teachers to identify whether or not their lesson plans are likely to lead to higher level outcome.

In any case, we don't state that wrong spelling or stylistic mistakes shouldn't be taken into consideration by the instructor and corrected politely, but insist that developed ability to verbally express their thoughts and position is the most significant sign of both tutor's and student's language success, so the right question shouldn't be modelled like Is it correct or wrong? Instead, we accent the intercommunication mastery as the prominent skill at the global marketing area. We consider a capacity to lingualize their conceptual picture of the world, and more specifically, lingualize their context view and transfer the language intentions to the partners or customers the most significant abilities of competitive graduates of Economics Departments. The comprehension of that level of CC prepares students for productive and stimulating careers at financial sector.

When dealing with conversation-based foreign language education, the communicative barriers become more flexible or even partly self-absorbed by power of interlanguage output. Zoltan Dornyei and Sarah Thurrell identify six points that may be particularly relevant to a conversation course: opening, turn-taking, interrupting, topic-shift, adjacency pairs, closing [5, p. 42-43]. For those purposes, communicative activities are the most effective means to improve established mechanisms oflanguage mastery.

Accenting the importance of classroom discussion and in order to reach FLT aims, we adapt the mentioned principles for the following activities, targeted at the students of Economics Departments. For the lack of space, we suggest just some patterns at the field of topic “The Rules of Intercultural Intelligence and Corporate Culture”, that combine knowledge and awareness in the professional area of study with socio-cultural context, mirroring the intelligent peculiarities of student's language personality:

1. Pre-reading activities. Task 1. You are going to read an article about acquisition of some unwritten rules of corporate culture. Discuss with your classmates the following options for newbies. Explain your choice and ask your partner to argue his /her position.

Task 2. Before reading the article scan the following list of international -words. Ask your classmates to give as many synonyms as they know. Check your variants consulting business thesaurus: 1) a graduate; 2) labour; 3) to shortlist; 4) a handwriting expertise; 5) a culture clash; 6) to withdraw; 7) a co-worker; 8) a corporate symbol.

1. Get the CV right but the cover letter wrong andyou destroy your chances of getting short-listedfor interview. 2. When it comes to the cover-letters, the French expect candidates to handwrite detailed ones which may be analysed by handwriting experts. 3. If you are an applicant, the best adviceforyou looks like: “Be aware of culture clash". 4. You behave completely wrongly, if withdraw your application because they've invitedyoufor a second interview. 5. Your suit is all about the smart corporate symbol with second thought to makeyou look twice. 6.Adapt a similar style of dress to your co-workers, eat the kind offood they eat, enjoy similar activities - these things help to win trust and respect.

2. Post-reading activities. Task 4. In small groups, discuss the following questions. What do you think organizations and companies can do to avoid negative unwritten rules? What unwritten rules do you imagine you might encounter in your country as an intern in: a) a government department?; b) a small public relations firm?; c) a manufacturing company? Argue with your partners issues on: a) office etiquette, e.g. dress code, punctuality, personal calls, coffee and lunch breaks; b) relationships with colleagues, clients and management, businesspartners.

6. Why is it important to be aware of `culture clash', when it comes to interviews?

To sum up, we state that the most effective ways to improve students' foreign language mastery competitiveness occur in the field of setting educational goals and FLT priorities concerning the measures to estimate participants' communicative achievements. We emphasize the importance of intellectual capacity, developed within discourse of classroom communicative activities, in order to lingualize the context conceptual world view and professional intentions, rather then just ability to built it grammatically correctly. A detailed study oflanguage-based competitiveness as a prominent goal of teaching English for professional purposes, manifested in particular contexts, requires further investigation and outlines a perspective for further research.

foreign language competitiveness communicative

References

1. Levi-Strauss C. Structural Anthropology / C. Levi-Strauss. - 1963. - V. l.-410p.

2. Gardner H. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences / H. Gardner. - N.Y. : Avon Books, 1983. - 253 p.

3. Henning J.E. The Art ofDiscussion-Based Teaching: Opening Up Conversation in the Classroom / J.E. Henning. - New York : Routledge, 2008.

4. Humboldt W. von. Language and cultural philosophy / W. von Hum- bold. -M. : Progress, 1985.

5. Domyei Z. Teaching conversational skills intensively: course content and rationale / Zoltan Domyei, Sarah Thurrell. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. -Vol. 48/1. -P. 40-49.

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