Professionally-oriented teaching of a foreign language at the agrarian university

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Vinnytsya National Agrarian University

Professionally-oriented teaching of a foreign language at the agrarian university

Nataliya Tymoshchuk, Ph.D.(Philology), Associate Professor

of the Ukrainian and Foreign Languages Department

The article considers peculiarities of professionally-oriented teaching of a foreign language at the agrarian university. Nowadays, the problems of enhancing professional competence of future professionals, their training for future activities in the current socio-economic conditions are extremely urgent. Exploration of higher education standards applied in recent years reveals a significant increase in the requirements forforeign language knowledge gained by non-linguistic students. In terms of intensive cooperation with foreign partners, it is extremely important to be able to communicate with foreign colleagues. Therefore, one of the core elements of students ' professional competence is the ability to speak a foreign language at the level that is accessible for perception by a recipient. That is why teaching a foreign language as a means of communication in the future professional activity should be a priority goal of teachers. Thus, the formation of foreign language professional communicative competence of future agrarian specialist required for the use and analysis offoreign language information and data is an actual goal of the modern high school. The aim of the research is to offer ways to improve the quality of the professional training ofagricultural students in the process ofmastering foreign languages. It should be noted that the formation ofprofessional skills of students in the process of learning foreign languages will be effective if the current level of personal development is taken into consideration as well as the prospects for professional development, possible communication difficulties are anticipated and prevented by means of adequate tasks for group and individual work, systematic activities aimed at developing motivation and reasoning of joint decisions are organized.

Keywords: professional qualities; foreign language professional communicative activity; communicative competence; competences.

Наталія Тимощук, кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри української та іноземних мов Вінницького національного аграрного університету

ПРОФЕСІЙНО СПРЯМОВАНЕ НАВЧАННЯ ІНОЗЕМНІЙ МОВІ

В АГРАРНОМУ УНІВЕРСИТЕТІ

У статті розглянуто особливості професійно-спрямованого навчання іноземній мові в аграрному закладі вищої освіти. Одним із найважливіших елементів професійної компетентності майбутніх фахівців є володіння іноземною мовою нарівні, доступному для сприйняття реципієнтом. Нами досліджено особливості формування професійних якостей майбутніх спеціалістів у процесі вивчення іноземних мов та визначено основні комунікативні якості та компетенції, що формуються у студента у процесі вивчення іноземної мови.

Ключові слова: професійні якості; іншомовна професійна комунікативна діяльність; комунікативна компетентність; компетенції.

1. Statement of the problem

The new social and economic conditions of Ukrainian development cause changes in all spheres of social life. The education system isn't an exception because it is the intellectual and spiritual potential of the people, besides it serves as a powerful means of solving both scientific and technological problems, professionalization of the country's life and its national revival. That's why, educational institutions have a responsible task, i.e. to provide highly professional training of specialists able to solve complex problems of building a democratic state. The problem of training agricultural specialists have a significant impact on the economic life of society taking into account the prevalence of the agrarian sector in the Ukrainian economy So, it becomes of particular importance.

The level of knowledge of foreign languages by specialists in the agricultural sector undoubtedly affects the competitiveness of domestic agricultural and processing enterprises. Both profound professional knowledge and good command of English are of significant importance for future graduates of non-linguistic faculties (lawyers, agronomists, ecologists, technologists, managers, mechanics, engineers, etc.). It is a necessary condition for successful professional activity and further selfdevelopment of future agrarian specialists. Modern education requires an approach that fully reflects the specifics of future professional activities of students.

Analysis of recent researches and publications. The foreign language specifics as a subject and its teaching peculiarities at agrarian higher educational institutions (different levels of students language competence, lack of language environment, considerable amount of educational material, imperfect methodological support) determine the priority task of forming the professional qualities of cultural and linguistic personality (M. Hordienko, Y. Dolmatovska, S. Kolomiets). Nowadays, much attention is paid to the aspects of learning foreign languages as a language of professional interaction. The researchers (N. Boiarko, N. Vynokurova, O. Hladysheva, S. Museychuk, V. Perminov, S. Sheremet, etc.) offer a variety of innovative technologies for the formation of professional students communication at higher educational institutions of Ukraine.

Taking into account that the author of the article works at the higher agrarian educational institution this publication aims to offer ways to improve the quality of the professional training of agricultural students in the process of mastering foreign languages.

The main part of the research. The state standard of higher professional education requires professional specifics consideration. Nowadays foreign language teaching should focus on the tasks implementation of future professional graduates activities. That is why foreign language teaching at non-linguistic higher education institutions involves the formation of students' ability to study a foreign language in specific, professional, business and scientific situations [6, 824]. Therefore, teaching professional foreign language should be considered through the pri sm of the graduate s further professional activities. Its important task is the formation of specialized competence in the areas of professional and situational communication acquiring the latest professional information through foreign scientific and commercial sources.

Teachers of a foreign language should use various activities to encourage speech and language development in order to form professional skills. It is recommended to give a priority to a communicative approach; use authentic language materials, domestic and foreign teaching aids, modern audio, video and multimedia materials that will promote the formation o f th e c o mmun i cat iv e c omp et en c e o f fu tur e professional sphere; to control the students knowledge at all stages of training.

According to Liudmyla Pokushalova nowadays the scheme of foreign language teaching at the non- philological universities should be based on such principles as determining models, features and means of communictaion; selection of lexical and grammatical units necessary for understanding, reading, listening and speaking; tasks focused on professional communication and language mastering; the audio and multimedia facilities for problem solving situations [7, 307].

The young specialists training is usually tightly coupled with the profound knowledge of future specialty professional vocabulary. In other words, teaching foreign languages you should take into account the future specialty of your students. In our opinion, it is of great importance to master both the common agricultural vocabulary and terminology of a particular field, i.e. agronomy, agribusiness economics, production and processing of livestock products, environmental protection and so on. The teacher 's special attention should be drawn to polysemous terms, abbreviations that are the frequency phenomenon of specialized literature.

The professionally-oriented teaching of a foreign language as a rule involves reading and discussing of popular science articles corresponding to the future students professions. This activity has such tasks as agrarian scientific publications review, foreign agricultural research awareness, and materials selection for scientific and practical activities. Of course, popular science articles have their formal logical style and their own rules. From the first lessons, students should be taught to analyze grammatical and lexical peculiarities of popular science texts. It is recommended to combine new grammar material with professional vocabulary. As a rule, popular science texts have many passive and impersonal grammatical structures, complex and complicated sentences are widely used. That is why more attention should be given to these grammatical constructions. The professionally oriented reading is one of the priority activities of agricultural universities students because it allows future specialists to use all the necessary means of information, it is also related to the stylistic aspects of the language of science, semantic complications and transformations.

It is undeniable that the linguistic theories on language teaching and learning of the last 50 years and their application in the classroom have influenced teachers worldwide. Most English language programmes have communicative competence as one of their main objectives. Learners worldwide need English to communicate. Teachers worldwide are using (more or less successfully) the Communicative Approach to teach English. However, time in the classroom for listening to learners, supporting them and helping them become communicatively competent is limited.

As experience shows, independent extracurricular work of students is one of the effective ways to expand their terminological vocabulary. As a rule, it is organized in the form of additional (home) reading. I think it should contain both professionally oriented articles and texts for everyday communication. These texts provide new information on agrarian innovation, research and development and cause the formation of such professional qualities of personality as autonomy and initiative.

The independent extracurricular work is also aimed to expand and improve practical communicational skills. It is understood that this activity should greatly vary from classroom ones. According to the recent foreign researches [8; 9; 10] blended education is considered one of the most effective forms of higher education teaching; it is the dominant strategy for higher educational institutions in the United States. It is a teaching method that is not limited by temporal, spatial and situational barriers; blended education provides high quality interaction between teachers and students.

When the classroom environment within a blended approach is used appropriately, it is an effective way for teachers to fulfil their multidimensional role. It gives teachers the possibility of giving more individual attention to learners, it maximises social interaction in the classroom, and it facilitates teacher-learner communication outside the classroom. Research suggests that when online and face-to-face elements are combined, learners often place a greater value or emphasis on the face-to-face aspects of the experience (Garrison, D. R. & Kanuka, H. (2004). Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. Internet and Higher Education, 7(2), pp. 95 - 105.). However, teacherlearner communication does not stop when learners leave the classroom; it continues outside the classroom environment.

The development of student`s communicative skills plays a significant role in teaching of professionally oriented foreign language. It is one of the most important components of the students educational activity of non-linguistic specialties because it stimulates the student's educational activity, provides the necessary and sufficient level of mastering a foreign language in situations of professional communication, encourages the use of more sophisticated ways to solve practical problems [4, 47].

Language exercises and situations used by teachers should simulate the typical real life situations of professional communication. A.M. Vetokhov has researched and proved the broad effective educational opportunities of this principle and emphasizes his great potential for further development [2, 25]. Teachers should practice monologue, dialogue and polylogue students speaking. The standards of speech are correctness, simplicity for understanding, speech expressiveness, purity of speech, various linguistic means usage, the absence fillers, the variety of vocabulary, and stylistic perfection [5, 9]. The student's high communicative awareness is formed in conditions of educational activities. However, it is formed as integral quality that combines both personal and professional parameters. Purposeful work in the teaching foreign languages process stimulates the activity of recipients and prevents the communicative barriers.

The implementation of the communicative approach of professionally-oriented teaching English to students at non-linguistic universities determines both the general subject structure and the professional communication skills formation. Communicative competence is considered to be formed if the future specialist uses a foreign language to receive and expand his knowledge and experience [1, 28].

In our opinion, professionally-oriented teaching English should include tasks on the modeling of typical communication situations that are aimed to develop oral and written communication skills using specialized (agricultural) material. That is why the students were offered the diverse tasks that helped them to develop the ability to share their own thoughts. The tasks aimed to develop discussion skills involves listening forms too. The ability to negotiate and debate involves a large number of linguistic, intellectual and social skills. Therefore, such tasks can develop professional qualities of future specialists, i.e. predictability, selfcriticism, and emotional stability For instance, the students of the management faculty of actively discuss such problematic questions: Is a successful manager a genius or hard working? Are women better managers? Does money make us happy? etc.

We can also mention the role games and situational tasks are the most widely used methods of problembased teaching because they form the conditions for solving non-standard situations. That is why students have to use professional knowledge, put forward hypotheses, and find ways to solve the problem in agriculture. In accordance with the methodology of carrying out this specified teaching form, it is necessary to determine the purpose and content of the game in advance, to distribute the roles between the participants, to develop the evaluation criteria, and to prepare the necessary material for simulating the situation of professional activity Professional and language competencies and creative approach are the basis criteria to evaluate the students activity. Business games are one of the means of acquiring professional communication skills; they also contribute to the development of student empathy, enabling the student to put himself in the position of another person, to understand his position and make a decision on its behalf. The skills mentioned above develop the student's personality, making him/her more attentive, understanding; they also optimize student professional activities.

Today, there are many computer programs for the study, development and improvement of students' knowledge, skills and abilities. Such software products can be divided into four main categories: 1) Electronic dictionaries (Lingvo, Webster's Dictionary, Longman Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary, etc.), they allow you to find words quickly, listen to the them and consider examples of sentences. They can be used for independent work with text, audio and video materials, etc. 2) Electronic translators (Prompt, Magic Goody and others), they can translate large texts but do not always meet all the syntactic and stylistic rules of the language. They are frequently used by students for independent work with text. 3) Programs for studying a foreign language, oriented to a certain level of language proficiency. They can be effectively used at different stages of work with lexical and grammatical material. 4) Programs for testing foreign language (electronic testing with TOEFL, IELTS, etc.), they are aimed to check and control knowledge, determine the total level of proficiency in a foreign language [3, 14].

Conclusions

Therefore, we can conclude that professionally-oriented teaching of a foreign language enables to organize active cooperation of all participants of the communication, which ensures mutual exchange of authentic, professionally meaningful information in a foreign language and mastering skills of professional communication. Professionally-oriented teaching English to students at non-linguistic universities should be organized considering professional specifics. The possibility of learning a foreign language in non-linguistic universities is expanding every year: innovative technologies, multimedia learning tools are introduced increasingly; there are more opportunities to use a variety of authentic sources, benefits for the teachers, and so on.

The professionally-oriented foreign language training of future specialists is an integral part of the university syllabus of training agrarian specialists who use a foreign language as a means of intercultural and international communication in the field of their professional interests and in the situations of social interaction. The use of active teaching methods, nonstandard forms of work greatly enhances the motivation of learning foreign languages in general.

language teaching competence education

Література

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