COMMUNICATION-CENTERED APPROACH TO TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN NON-LINGUISTIC UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

The article deals with the process of realization of the communication-centered approach to the study of foreign languages of the students of non-linguistic specialties. It consists in the modeling of the basic regularities of foreign language communication taking into consideration their professional needs The main conditions of the communicative organization of foreign language classes have been analyzed: the foreign language speech orientation of the educational process, which consists in the practical application of the target foreign language; the learning functionality that includes the methods allowing the most effective acquisition of lexical units and grammatical structures in speech; the situational learning that permits to coordinate the educational material with the professional orientation of students; the novelty of the educational material, consisting in the continuous updating of the material studied; taking into account the individual characteristics of each student. The emphasis has been placed on the fact that the communication-centered approach to the study of foreign languages contributes to the maximum immersion of a student into the foreign speech activity. It has been shown that the communication-centered approach to the study of foreign languages involves the formation of students’ skills and abilities of the adequate perception of foreign language speech and expression of their own opinions in the foreign language according to the specific situation. The peculiarities of the formation of foreign-language communicative competence of students of non-linguistic specialties as mastering special linguistic means and non-verbal aspects of the studied language have been revealed. It has been proved that the development of foreign language communication skills of students of non-linguistic specialities is successfully realized in business communication training, which combines the foreign language knowledge and special scientific skills as well. They contribute to the formation of the productive professional language skills of students. Some of the most effective types of communicative activities (conditional conversation, discussion, commentary, dramatization, business game) and techniques (work in pairs, group work and cooperative learning) have been analyzed. The conclusion about the necessity of using the communication-centered approach to teaching foreign languages in a non-linguistic university has been made. It maximally brings the learning process to a real linguistic situation, developing the professional communication, sociolinguistic, socio-cultural competences of students.