Applying digital technologies for developing communicative skills in English learning course

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Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University

APPLYING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPING COMNNUNICATIVE SKILLS IN ENGLISH LEARNING COURSE

V.I. Tynnyi PhD in Pedagogical Sciences,

Associate Professor of the Department of

Foreign Languages

Summary

digital technology language learning

The article analyzes the essence and content of terms «comptence», «communicative competence», «digital competence», the ways of efficient foreign language learning and costructing communicative competence through information and communication technology, enhancing communication knowledge and skills under conditions of intercultural communication by means of digital technologies.

Key words: communicative competence, communicative competence, intercultural communication, foreign language online learning, information and communication technology, digital technologies.

The main text

In the modern system of education efficient training of modern specialists skilled in using professional foreign language and intercultural communication by means of information and communication technology is a subject to be researched further.

It is noteworthy that the nation's culture is grounded on its integral component - the language which represents the national characteristics, cultural and historical experience of the nation, as well as the worldview of people, ways of life and thinking. As a result of effective foreign language learning students enhance their language knowledge system and skills. Mastering language contributes to overcoming intercultural barriers, effective communication with foreigners, in particular, interaction and intercultural communication resulting in advanced students' communicative competence. The communication that occurs through digital artefacts is usually insufficient and inappropriate as it lacks both quantity and quality, even though these artefacts possess the potential to facilitate communication [1,2,3]. However, it is not clear if it happens due to the drawbacks of the artefacts or the faults of interlocutors' general abilities and knowledge.

Teaching foreign languages is realized through a vast number of approaches and methods. Nowadays the existence of a new economic model, i.e. the knowledge economy, provides such diversity. This term was firstly introduced by the AustroAmerican economist Fritz Machlup. He outlines the following components of this sector: mass media (radio, television, telephone, etc.) (28.1%); information services (13.2%); education (44,1%); information technology (6.5%); research and development (8.1 %).

Knowledge is defined by F. Machlup as a combination of scientific and everyday knowledge. He determines knowledge as a process of production and distribution. According to the scientist's concept, information transforms into knowledge when it is “communicated and used”. Therefore, economic growth and competitiveness of any state is driven by the production of knowledge. Also, under current conditions the transfer and use of knowledge is impossible without mastering, first of all, the “language”, both native and foreign. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the issue of teaching a foreign language in today's multicultural world.

In the current education system, learning foreign languages is based on the Council of Europe's concepts of multilingualism and intercultural communication. Therefore, emphasis is made not just upon learning one or more foreign languages, but on creation of a language environment enabling each student to demonstrate all his linguistic expertise, skills and knowledge. The educational process is aimed at the formation of communicative competence on the ground of knowledge and language experience with wide-scope interaction with each other. Developing abilities of using a foreign language as a tool for communication in the dialog of cultures, as well as a means of scientific and technical (professional) communication, should be a primary purpose when teaching foreign languages in the system of higher vocational education.

The concept of “competence" has much wider range of connotations than terms “knowledge", “ability", “skill", as it includes social, motivational, and behavioral aspects. A.V. Khutorskoy argues: "competence is a set of qualities that are necessary for their use in any industry" [4]. The concept of communicative competence appeared as an opposition to the previous approaches which concentrated on grammar. Hymes defined communicative competence as “the aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts" [5]. According to him the communication process was not an individual process any longer. The role of all speakers, listeners, writers and readers in this process became considerably more active. All their work turned into cooperative one.

There were four different categories of competences poposed by Canale and Swain: grammatical, discursive, sociolinguistic and strategic competences. A more complex version of communicative competence by Brown (2001) summarizes the concepts presented by Canale and Swain and other linguists. Basically communicative competence consists of some combination of the following components: organizational competence (grammatical and discourse); psychomotor skills (pronunciation); pragmatic competence (functional and sociolinguistic); strategic competence [6].

Developed competence is proved by the ability to apply knowledge and skills successfully solving certain problems of a wide range on the basis of expertise. More detailed definitions of competence on the basis of relevant sources are the following ones: particular abilities and character internally determining the effectiveness of a acting person; a number of a person's abilities and qualities required for his/her effective work, their description in terms of behavior; personal characteristic including skills, knowledge and behaviors as a basis for person's activity.

Effective communication is based on a person's practical skills in applying technologies and information for communicating as well as language expertise.

Hymes interpretes term “communicative competence” linking linguistic competence with its applicability in various communication situations [5].Therefore, an individual's ability to behave correctly and effectively in particular situation is a communicative competence. Applying the concept of foreign language communicative competence, the scientist outlines the following components: discursive; sociolinguistic; linguistic; strategic [5]. The scientist emphasizes another integral component of communicative competence - digital competence.

The Council of the European Parliament defines digital competence as the confident use of technology for work, leisure and communication. Therefore, learning a foreign language is characterized by combining digital technologies with traditional teaching methods.

Global digitalization, social networks and modern technologies have stipulated new approaches in the business world as well as educational environment where training requires preparation for current educational conditions.

The American professor Ruben Puetendur outlines the piculiarities of using information technologies in the foreign language teaching [7]:

• Substitution stage. In other words, use of computer technology substituted previously performed actions. As for teaching and learning, there are no functional changes in this process. Teacher here still has central role.

• Augmentation stage. This stage is characterized by applying various digital resources as well as computer to solve special educational tasks. There is a number of tests (lexical, grammatical etc.) developed by the teacher on the basis of digital platforms including Google-forms, Edmodo and others that can provide these tasks. Here we can see changes in the educational process. The student actively participates in the learning receiving instant feedback.

• Modification stage. Here digital technology is basic tool for students' learning. For example, writing an essay can be accomplished applying a hand-written schedule, supporting materials as well as links for a further presentation, pudlishing in a blog. Students are motivated by interaction with real audience and prompt feedback from the teacher and other students.

• Redefinition stage. Digital technologies transform previously impossible for realizing pedagogical tasks into real ones. For example, students would accomplish the team assignment of creating an advertisement for certain product or service. Therefore, digital technologies serve as a tool for learning with active participation of the student.

According to Ruben Puetendura, all four levels of integrating digital technologies into the teaching process are effective, but the first two contribute to the effectiveness of the lesson, while the last two transform the learning process itself, contribute to the development of new qualities in the student, i.e. the higher is the level, the deeper we immerse ourselves in technology.

As part of the communicative competence of the student, it is necessary to develop such skills and abilities as phonetic and phonological, dialogic and monologue speech skills, grammatical skills, writing and speech skills, oral speech skills, and lexical skills.

Integrating digital technologies is efficient at all four stages of combining them with the teaching process. While first two are crucial for learning effectiveness, the last two stages change the learning process itself, foster the development of new student's abilities.

Further advancing communicative competence of the student requires developing dialogic and monologue speech skills, phonetic and phonological, writing and speech skills, grammatical skills, lexical skills, and oral speech skills.

Developing phonetic and phonological skills requires applying web resources that translate speech into text. Digital technologies allow the student to record a short part of speech and then check the correctness of the spoken fragment, comparing it with the original. It is provided by tools available on mobile applications, computers and online services.

Educational platforms can efficiently provide tools for formation and development of grammatical skills. While applying them teachers can create grammatical tests like alternative test; test with missing keywords; yes-no choice; conformance test.

The resources provide efficient functions for instant verification and evaluation of learning results. So, the student can perform an error analysis and this way an effective feedback is realized. Students further on can discuss their results with the teacher and/or with other students. The learning content will be efficiently mastered due to the faster teacher's response. Thus, a new technology of student-centered learning with close cooperation aimed at teaching foreign languages is realized.

Students' lexical skills while developing communicative competence among students of non-linguistic universities, the study of professional vocabulary from the very beginning are of crucial importance while learning a second foreign language. That can be efficiently provided by information and communication technologies (ICTs) intended for creating lexical tests with crosswords or elements of gamification (for example, quizlet).

The formation and development of lexical, phonetic phonological and grammatical competencies combined with previously analyzed tasks provide the development of other systemic and professional competencies. They enhance the skill of finding, understanding and transmitting new information when working with reference materials in foreign language, the ability of selecting and using materials for independent study based on personal capabilities, the ability of applying digital technology tools for professional activities, the ability of team work, as well as the skills of independent distant work, and more.

An effective formation of communicative competence is also based on the speech activity. There are well-known 4 types of speech activity: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening, reading are receptive, and speaking, writing are productive types of speech activity.

Enhancing analytical reading skills by students studying a second foreign language is required and quite effective. Reading is an essential and complicated skill requiring comprehension and analysis. While reading in foreign language student can improve one's real-world knowledge, enhance his/her vocabulary bank, acquire new concepts and information. Reading requires two interrelated procedures: the vocabulary recognition and comprehension (making sense of expressions, words, sentences and terms). As for the English language learning, language proficiency is greatly effected by acquisition and retention of vocabulary whereas the lack of lexical knowledge is sufficient impediment in successful communication.

Current and emerging technologies offer a number of methods to develop and enhance the reading skills of foreign language learners, for instance: Practice Reading by the Internet Browsing, Practice Reading by Computers & Multimedia Programs.

Student's abilities of writing include creating language constructs according with the lexical, syntactic, grammatical, and spelling norms of the language being studied; using methods of logical consistency and connectivity, language compression; applying stable formulas, cliche for various forms of written communication. Students of economic universities use business correspondence as the most effective type of written communication when studying foreign language.

Developing writing skills for English language learners can be accomplished by means of some well-known modern technologies and methods: Writing Practice by Text-Chatting, Writing Practice by Emails, Writing and Calligraphy Practice by Robots and Haptics Devices, Writing Practice by Computers.

Writing skills are developed altogether with listening skills. Developing the ability to listen and recognize foreign speech is realized through a wide range of resources: watching and listening to news messages, podcasts, resources that transform written texts into audio files. Moreover, there is a vast number of resources in foreign languages with audio or video content, corresponding tasks designed like tests of various forms.

The ability to understand a speaker's accent, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and conception are the basic characteristics of listening. Therefore, a skilled listener should be able to perform these functions properly. Moreover, by means of listening students convey a considerable share of their education, information, and understanding of the environment surrounding them.

The most significant features in listening are [8]: to cope with redundancy, noise and the sounds; to guess and predict; to use graphical and environmental signs; to understand accent, dialect, pitch, and anxiety; exhaustion and fatigue; to understand conversational and informal terminology.

There are several ways to improve the above features and enhance the listening capability of English language learners using current and emerging technologies, some of which are listed as follows: Listening Practice by TapeRecorders/CD Players, Listening Practice by Computers, Listening Practice by Broadcasting, Listening Practice by Robots.

Speaking another integral part of a student's communicative competence in foreign language. Teaching speaking is aimed at the formation of student's skills and abilities to efficiently use their knowledge to perform oral communication both in the household and professional fields.

Moreover, we can confirm the effectiveness of creating a video resume with further discussion of results with other students. Assignments for describing infographics, graphs, creating business cases and quests are essential for developing both dialogue and monologue skills.

The procedure of implementing technology into developing English language speaking skills can be carried out through the following activities: Speaking Practice by Internet Voice Chatting, Speaking Practice by Video Conferencing, Speaking Practice by Social Robots, Speaking Practice by Speech Synthesis Programs, Speaking Practice by Mobile Games

Also, we defined a survey on students aimed at identifying the motivational factors of learning a foreign language. The most effective ones for students were: the ability to apply the language, especially in the professional field, awareness of their own progress and quick feedback.

Conclusion

The efficient formation of foreing language competences, including communicative competences, in the process of learning foreign language is ensured by the use of digital technologies and a communicative approach to the construction of the educational process. Developing communicative skills in professional vocabulary, using Web communities to communicate in a foreign language, introducing educational situations of a professional orientation, communication within a foreign language environment motivates educational activity of students, which facilitates the improvement of foreign language competence of students during their professional formation.

References

1. Thorne, S. (2003). Artifacts and Cultures-of-Use in Intercultural Communication. Language Learning and Technology, (7(2)), 38-67.

2. Thorne, S. and Payne, J. (2005). Evolutionary Trajectories, Internet-mediated Expression, and Language Education. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 371-397.

3. Bretag, T. (2006). Developing 'Third Space' Interculturality Using Computer-Mediated Communication. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 11 (4), 981 -1011.

4. Khutorskoy A. (2015). Competence as a didactic concept: content, structure and design models. Bulletin of the Institute of Human Education.

5. Hymes, D. (1972). On Communicative Competence. Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

6. Brown, D. (2001). Teaching by principles. (2nd ed.).White Plains, NY: Longman.

7. Puetendura, R. (2009). http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014Z11/13/SAMR_FirstSteps.pdf.

8. Saricoban, A. (1999). The teaching of listening. The Internet TESL Journal, 5(12). Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Saricoban-Listening.html

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