Corporate training in a professional foreign language

Abstract

Introduction. The need for employees of various companies to use a foreign language to solve professional tasks has contributed to the emergence of corporate language courses. However, the effectiveness of corporate courses for a specific target audience will depend on the chosen methodological approach to learning: a foreign language for specific purposes or content and language integrated learning. The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for corporate training in a professional foreign language and test its effectiveness experimentally. Materials and methods. The study involved employees of a recruiting company in Moscow (N=44). In order to test the effectiveness of the methodology for the control and experimental groups, the subject-thematic content of training and a set of training materials were developed. Participants in the control group (N=22) studied a foreign language for specific purposes, and participants in the experimental group (N=22) studied a course built on the basis of a model of content and language integrated learning. The subjects of control were: professional vocabulary, grammar, speaking (monologue and dialogic speech), oral professional communication in English, written speech, written professional communication in English, and professionally oriented knowledge. To process the obtained results, the Student's t-test was used. Research results. The study revealed that a corporate language course built on the basis of an content and language integrated training proved to be more effective than a foreign language for specific purposes in mastering grammar (t = 3.33; p ≤ 0.05), developing speaking skills (t = 3.78; p ≤ 0.05), oral professional communication (t = 4.19; p ≤ 0.05), written speech (t = 4.19; p ≤ 0.05), written communication (t = 5.57; p ≤ 0.05), and professional knowledge (t = 4.07; p ≤ 0.05). At the same time, the statistical analysis of the data did not show differences in the mastery of professional vocabulary by students (t = 1.81; p> 0.05), which confirms the effectiveness of the two compared approaches in the formation of this aspect of the language. Conclusion. The novelty of the study is in determining the stages of development of a corporate course in a professional foreign language and to determine the advantages of a course built on the basis of a model of content and language integrated learning over a foreign language course for specific purposes. The results obtained can be used in the development of a methodology for corporate courses in a professional foreign language.