Formation of language personality in the pedagogical discourse in Belarus

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Formation of language personality in the pedagogical discourse in Belarus

Levonyuk Lilia -- Senior Lecturer of the Foreign Languages Department, Brest State University named after A.S. Pushkin, Brest, Belarus

Maksimuk Larisa -- Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Foreign Languages Department, Brest State University named after A.S. Pushkin, Brest, Belarus

The article deals with the actual problem of the formation of a professional language personality in the process of foreign languages teaching at a non-linguistic University. The concept of professional language personality, its multilevel structure, as well as the role played in its formation by a professionally oriented educational language environment created in foreign language classes using modern computer technologies and innovative educational techniques are considered. language personality pedagogical discourse

Special attention is paid to the use of a professionally oriented approach to the formation of a language personality. This approach contributes to the formation of students ' ability to communicate in real professional, business, scientific fields and specific situations. The specificity of a professionally oriented approach in teaching foreign languages lies in the fact that the development of the language personality of a student occurs primarily through immersion in the sphere of professional knowledge, through the features of his future profession, in other words, the familiarization of the language personality with the professional sphere begins starting from his familiarization with professional discourse. Professional discourse is a set of oral and written texts generated by the language personality of a specialist in foreign professional communication.

The creation of a vocationally oriented educational environment in teaching a foreign language is considered as the main factor in the formation of a professional language personality of students. A professionally oriented language environment is defined, on the one hand, as a combination of means and technologies for collecting, accumulating, transmitting, processing and distributing educational and professionally oriented information, on the other hand, as conditions leading to the emergence and development of information interaction between the teacher, students and information and communication technologies. In this context, the specialist model serves as a unique basis for the design of the information technology support of the educational process as a whole.

Key words: professional language personality; professionally oriented educational language environment; modern computer technologies; innovative methods; professional discourse.

ФОРМУВАННЯ МОВНОЇ ОСОБИСТОСТІ

У ПЕДАГОГІЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ БІЛОРУСІ

ЛЕВОНЮК Ліля -- старший викладач кафедри іноземних мов, Брестський державний університет імені А.С. Пушкіна, Брест, Білорусь

МАКСИМУК Лариса -- кандидат педагогічних наук, доцент кафедри іноземних мов, Брестський державний університет імені А.С. Пушкіна, Брест, Білорусь

Стаття присвячена актуальній проблемі формування професійної мовної особистості в процесі навчання іноземної мови в немовному ЗВО, яка набуває особливої значущості на сучасному етапі розвитку суспільства у зв'язку з розширенням міжнародних зв 'язків і вступом Білорусі до світового економічного співтовариства і є невід 'ємним компонентом професійної підготовки фахівця. Розглядається поняття професійної мовної особистості, її багаторівнева структура, а також роль, яку відіграє у її формуванні професійно- орієнтована освітня мовна середовище, яке утворюється на заняттях з іноземної мови за допомогою сучасних комп'ютерних технологій та інноваційних освітніх методик.

Особлива увага приділяється використанню професійно-орієнтованого підходу до формування мовної особистості в процесі навчання іноземної мови у немовному ЗВО. Такий підхід сприяє формуванню у студентів здібностей до комунікації в реальних професійних, ділових, наукових сферах і конкретних ситуаціях. Специфіка професійно-орієнтованого підходу у викладанні іноземних мов полягає в тому, що розвиток мовної особистості студента відбувається передовсім через занурення у сферу професійних знань, через особливості його майбутньої професії. Інакше кажучи, залучення мовної особистості до професійної сфери починається із залучення до професійного дискурсу, тобто процесу мовної діяльності, обумовленого професійною діяльністю мовця - сукупністю усних та письмових текстів, породжуваних мовною особистістю фахівця в іншомовної професійної комунікації.

Створення професійно-орієнтованої освітньої середовища під час навчання іноземної мови розглядається як основний фактор формування професійної мовної особистості учнів, який сприяє розвитку у них спеціальних навичок професійної міжкультурної комунікації. Професійно-орієнтована мовне середовище визначається як сукупність, з одного боку, засобів і технологій збору, накопичення, передачі, обробки та розподілу навчальної та професійно- орієнтованої інформації, а з іншого, умов, що сприяють виникненню і розвитку інформаційної взаємодії між викладачем, студентом та засобами інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій. Для створення спеціальної профе- сійно-орієнтованої навчальної середовища на заняттях з іноземної мови використовується метод педагогічного моделювання, за допомогою якого можна розглянути кожну з її складових в їх єдності і взаємодії. У такому контексті модель фахівця виступає своєрідною основою для проектування і конструювання відповідних технологій навчання, а значить, і інформаційно- технологічного забезпечення освітнього процесу загалом.

Ключові слова: професійна мовна особистість; професійно-орієнтована освітня мовне середовище; сучасні комп'ютерні технології; інноваційні методи; професійний дискурс.

There is no doubt that in modern conditions of globalization and economic integration readiness for adequate communication with foreign colleagues and business partners is the most important criterion for assessing the professionalism of a specialist in any field. Therefore, the formation of a professional language personality in the process of learning a foreign language at a non-linguistic university acquires special significance and is an integral component of the professional training of a specialist. As a result of such training, students should develop the following skills: 1) ability to speak a foreign language with professionals in their field and work with specialized literature; 2) possession of the basics of business communication in compliance with its ethics; 3) ability to critically analyze the information obtained from the text; 4) ability to use the methods of generalization, analysis and assessment of the reliability of information when working with texts in the specialty.

All the above mentioned components make up the foreign language professional competence of the individual and ensure the readiness of the university graduate to use the acquired knowledge in their professional activity.

At the present stage, the goal of the university education system is to form a specialist competent in a certain field of activity, professionally qualified, capable of organizing various types of work, possessing business communication skills in both oral and written foreign language. Thus, a professionally oriented approach to teaching a foreign language at a non-linguistic university becomes especially relevant. This approach contributes to the formation of the students' ability to communicate in real situations of professional, business and scientific activities. In addition, it involves the formation and development of students' skills and abilities to work with oral and written texts and extract useful information from the foreign literature of the relevant profile.

The essence of vocationally oriented education lies in the fact that language disciplines are integrated with special subjects in order to provide students with specific knowledge from the sphere of their future profession and form professionally significant personal qualities, including the professional language of their specialty. In our opinion, a high level of formation of the language personality in this case is a criterion of improving professional competence and personal development of students and is a prerequisite for the successful professional activity of a future specialist.

Analysis of recent research and publications. In recent years, in the theory and practice of professionally oriented teaching of foreign languages at non-linguistic faculties of universities, much attention has been paid to issues related to the use of a foreign language as a tool of communication in the dialogue of cultures and civilizations.

In scientific and methodological literature, a foreign language as an academic subject in the system of higher vocational education is examined by scientists from different perspectives: problems of teaching a foreign language as a means of communication in higher educational establishments (Alekseeva, 2002); problems of formation of communicative skills by means of a foreign language (Leontev, 1997); formation of professional orientation (Karaulov, 1989); communicative approach to teaching a foreign language (Konnova, 2003).

Currently, in pedagogical science, a sufficient number of models of teaching foreign language at non-linguistic faculties of universities have been developed. For example, L.E. Alekseeva proposed a model of the process of teaching foreign- language professionally oriented communication for the students of non-linguistic faculties, which looks as follows: task - link - stage. The author proceeds from the fact that the model of each lesson or several lessons, thematically grouped in a separate block, consists of a number of certain stages: familiarization, training and speech practice. Each stage is proposed to be expanded by introducing links of the educational process smaller than the stage itself. Inclusion of these links in the model contributes to the formation and training of verbal knowledge and skills. Each link, in turn, aims at performing a number of tasks, united by one specific requirement. The effectiveness of the use of the model proposed by the author in the educational process depends on how correctly the teacher chooses teaching methods, based on the students' psychological characteristics and behavior (Alekseeva, 2002).

There is another, completely different generalized model of professional pedagogical communication, contributing to the formation of communicative abilities of students of non-linguistic specialties, presented by L. Khokhlenkova (2000). The basis for her model is intensively communicative, vocationally oriented teaching of oral and written communication, which consists of two blocks: the first block - information and theory - includes a descriptive characteristic of a teacher's highly professional personality, creating a psychological portrait of a student as well as motivation for learning activities, taking into account the role of non-verbal communication tools, creating a positive emotional background; the second block is represented by the speech activity component of the linguistic and didactic model of foreign languages teaching.

In our opinion, the theoretical model of the development of professional foreign language competence of a specialist through multi-level education at a modern university developed by Z. Konnova (2003) is particularly interesting. Its basis is an integral system of continuous language training, including all degrees: bachelor - specialist - master, and aimed at developing the professional foreign language competence of the future specialist. The main components of this model are the following: motivation and value, informative, procedural and managerial, communicative. The author pays special attention to the role of the informative component in the structure of professional foreign language competence.

However, we think, that none of the proposed models of teaching foreign languages to students of non-linguistic faculties of universities is universal.

The analysis of scientific and methodological sources showed that the term «professionally oriented teaching» is used to refer to the process of teaching a foreign language at a non-linguistic university, focused on reading special literature, studying professional vocabulary and terminology, and more recently, on communication in the field of professional activity. A modern professionally oriented approach to teaching a foreign language implies the formation of students' ability to speak foreign languages in specific professional, business, scientific fields and situations, taking into account the peculiarities of professional thinking, while organizing motivational and stimulating research activities as well as.

The definition of the aim and objectives of the research. The purpose of this article is to define the concept of a student's professional language personality as well as to show the main principles of forming such a personality in the process of foreign languages teaching by means of creating a special professionally oriented learning environment in foreign language classes.

The research outcome. It should be noted that the concept of «language personality» has appeared in science relatively recently but this topic still arouses an increased interest of researchers. In this article, under a language personality we understand the totality of abilities and characteristics of a person, which determine the creation and perception of texts, which may differ in the degree of structural and linguistic complexity in depth and accuracy of the reflection of reality and have a certain target orientation (Karaulov, 1989, pp. 3-8).

In the context of professional communication, a special type of language personality is formed - a professional language personality, which «is revealed in the peculiarities of the linguistic units and integral texts produced by this personality, in the originality of the individual's professional discourse, expressing goals and objectives of the professional activity» (Golovanova, 2009, p. 14). Such a definition allows us to distinguish four aspects in the study of a professional language personality: psychological, linguistic, social, and the one connected with professional activity.

The psychological aspect is determined by the process of perception and production of professional foreign language texts (written and oral) by a person, representing him/her as a subject of professional communication, possessing unique personality characteristics. The linguistic aspect is manifested in the system-structural organization of professional texts. Professional texts represent a professional picture of the world at the language level, a result of the reflection of the objective reality by a person, which determines the psychological view on the language professional personality (Golovanova, 2009, p. 17). The social aspect allows us to consider the carrier of a professional language personality as a subject of social inter- cultural professional communication. And, finally, highlighting the goal in the texts makes it possible to characterize the professional language personality from the perspective of foreign language speech activity.

Since a professional language personality is formed and developed in speech activity, it is necessary to consider the concept of professional discourse in order to study this phenomenon more closely. If we define discourse as a process of linguistic activity in combination with extra-linguistic factors (psychological, social and cultural, pragmatic, etc.); then professional discourse is understood as a process of speech activity resulting from the speaker's professional activity: a set of oral and written texts generated by a professional language personality in a foreign language professional communication.

Participating in a professional discourse, a language personality, on the one hand, reflects his/her individual characteristics in it, on the other hand, the sphere of professional activity - actions in a specific communicative situation, organization and conditions of communication - requires the choice of communicative strategies and strictly defined language tools which in this area act as conditions for successful communication, while the individuality of the language personality «gives way to professional necessity» (Myskin, 2013, p. 153).

We distinguish the following levels in the structure of a professional language personality: communicative competence, linguistic-cognitive and motivational. It should also be noted that the introduction of a person to one or another professional sphere requires mastering special language and speech patterns as the main regulators of professional activity. L. Vygotsky believes that only when learned, a language becomes a part of a personality and can manifest its essence as part of an activity (Vygotckii, 1996, p. 33). If the profession is understood as an activity that is a source of living and which requires certain knowledge and skills, then it can be said that professional activity is not about a lexicon, but only about a thesaurus of a language person characterizing the latter as a professional from the point of view of the language. And here, in our opinion, not only the degree of proficiency in linguistic knowledge and skills is considered, but also «the ability to practice and independently implement professional activities» which is based on acquired professional knowledge, intellectual experience, values and inclinations (Myskin, 2013, p. 153). This characteristic reflects the person's professional language competence, his/her speech portrait, which is the most important characteristic of the professional qualities of a language personality.

Since we are talking about a professional language personality, it seems necessary to characterize the formation of language communicative competence, which is considered as a category belonging to the sphere of relations between knowledge and practical activity of a person. L. Khokhlenkova defines language competence as «the ability to understand and produce statements not so much grammatically correct, as corresponding to the context in which they appear» (Khokhlenkova, 2000, p. 74). This definition allows us to understand professional communicative competence as a set of abilities to carry out successful professional communication in accordance with the goals and objectives of professional activity on the basis of acquired special knowledge and skills. Thus, the communicative competence level is introduced into the structure of the professional language personality.

Another level - linguistic and cognitive - is reflected in the professional picture of the world, which in turn is expressed by the thesaurus, as well as by the image of the person's professional world.

The next level of professional language personality - motivational - is represented by a system of motivating factors causing the bias of the person's linguistic professional consciousness as a reflection of objective reality (Myskin, 2013, p. 155). Thus, the structure of the professional language personality includes three levels, each of which must be developed in the process of of learning a foreign language at a non-linguistic university in order to form a professionally competent specialist.

To our mind, the specificity of a professionally oriented approach to the teaching of foreign languages lies in the fact that the development of the language personality of a student occurs primarily through immersion into the sphere of professional knowledge as well as through the specifics of his future profession.

The interconnected communicative, social and cultural, professional, and cognitive development of students as a means and result of the formation of a professional language personality is intended to help students: 1) understand and assimilate the professional lifestyle of representatives of the country whose language they study; 2) use the foreign language in all its manifestations in authentic situations of professional communication; 3) expand their «individual picture of the world» by means of «professional language picture of the world» of the native speakers of the foreign language they study; 4) form their own speech style of behavior, which will demonstrate the uniqueness of their language personality and allow them to take a worthy place among professionals in a particular field.

Cognition, skills and abilities, development and self-improvement are links of one chain related to the formation of a personality. At the same time, the cognitive aspects of the functioning of the personality and the intellect of a person are manifested primarily in language. According to A. Leontyev, a language personality is made up of a person's ability to carry out various types of speech and thinking activities and perform various kinds of communicative roles in the conditions of social interaction of people with each other and with the world around them (Leontev, 1997, p. 287).

Therefore, it can be concluded that a professional language personality is a category implying such qualities as creativity, independence, ability to build interaction and mutual understanding with partners in professional communication. In our opinion, a professional language personality is an ideal variant, the achievement of which in the conditions of a higher educational institution is hardly possible because of an insufficient number of hours in the curriculum for learning a foreign language.

Despite this, however, we believe that, despite this, both the adoption of a professional language personality as an initial model and its structural organization allow us to raise the question of the levels of proficiency in a professional foreign language, achieved by a person in the process of his/her studies at a university and further professional activity.

In our opinion, the model of a professional language personality makes it possible to define the conditions for the implementation of the personality developmental capabilities of the process of a professional foreign language teaching and get a complete picture of the mechanisms which will help students master their professional language in the academic environment. It is known that a person is a stable system of socially significant traits that characterize an individual as a member of a certain society. Consequently, if we are talking about the personality developmental possibilities of the process of teaching a professional language, we mean the development of the person as a whole, both his/her non-cognitive (emotional characteristics, will, etc.) and intellectual (cognitive) aspects that are manifested in language and explored through it.

Thus, the more similarities in the images of the professional consciousness that two or more speakers of a professional language have, the more complete their mutual understanding will be in terms of professional communication. That is why it is very important to form students' readiness for a deeper understanding of the professional component of the foreign language that they are learning. We believe that the implementation of this task is possible on condition that a professionally oriented learning environment is created while teaching a foreign language.

A professionally oriented language environment is, on the one hand, a combination of means and technologies for collecting, accumulating, transmitting, processing and distributing educational and professionally oriented information, on the other hand, conditions contributing to the emergence and development of information interaction between the teacher, students and information and communication technologies (Iurev, 2008, p. 153).

We think that for successful formation of a professional language personality at a non-linguistic university, it is necessary to strive to create a special vocationally oriented learning environment while teaching a foreign language. Speaking about the special environment, one should keep in mind the importance of filling it with special professionally oriented content that meets the requirements for the training of specific specialists.

We singled out the following fundamental principles for creating a professionally oriented environment in the process of a foreign language teaching: 1) a student is defined as an active subject of knowledge; 2) students are oriented to selfeducation and self-development; 3) students' individual psychological and psycho- physiological as well as their communicative characteristics, and reliance on their subjective experience (student centered approach to learning) are taken into account; 4) a foreign language is taught in the context of future professional activities of students.

To create a special professionally oriented learning environment it is advisable to use the method of pedagogical modeling, with the help of which you can consider each of its components in their unity and interaction.

Conclusions

After having examined the nature and tasks of the professionally oriented approach to teaching a foreign language to future specialists, and having defined the concept of a professional language personality and the role that a professionally- oriented educational language environment plays in its formation, we draw the following conclusions:

The creation of a professionally oriented educational environment while teaching a foreign language is an important factor influencing the formation of the student's professional language personality.

The formation of the professional foreign language communicative competence of a language personality begins with his/her acquaintance with the special literature in the studied foreign language by means of introducing students to the professional discourse and continues during his/her further work activity.

The level of development of the specialist's professional language consciousness reflects his communicative competence. Using the latest computer technologies in foreign language classes makes it possible for students to become familiar with the professional world view through the process of communication with practitioners, teachers and professionals of the country of the studied language (video lectures, TV bridges, joint projects and video conferences). This way the formation and assimilation of a professional thesaurus takes place.

A professionally-oriented educational environment in foreign language classes, created with the help of innovative educational technologies, contributes to the development of students' special language skills as well as specific professional thinking. All this is a reliable basis for achieving professional goals, and also contributes to the development of professional skills and abilities, the cultivation of professionally important personal qualities and the improvement of communication skills.

We believe that further study of the phenomenon of professional language personality, the search for ways to form such a personality by creating a professionally oriented language environment while learning foreign languages are the most important tasks in the field of training future successful professionals.

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