Integrated foreign languages teaching: development of learning outcomes for IT majors

Abstract

Introduction. Design of descriptors for achieving objectives of foreign language education in case of non-language majors at tertiary level on the basis of the existing scales of the Common European Competences in Foreign Language (CEFR) promotes the policy of cultural diversity and multilingualism implemented by the Council of Europe. The motivation for the research lies in the fact that Russian universities lack a clear and transparent system of criteria that can be used for planning and assessing foreign language competences for non-language majors. The paper presents a developed scale of descriptors for planning learning outcomes and assessing language proficiency of undergraduate students majoring in information technologies in the context of Russian education at tertiary level. With regard to federal state educational standards for higher education, foreign language competence is described as integrative foreign language professional communicative competence which combines professional and linguistic constituents. Materials and methods. The exploration adopted combined methods of analysis of previous studies, CEFR descriptors, interviews with master and bachelor students of IT majors (Togliatti State University, Russia), and foreign language communicative needs analysis in the IT industry. The obtained data were then processed in the backward design of targeted learning outcomes following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages format. Research results. The study elicited cross-cultural communicative needs in the industry in question, and then there were selected appropriate CEFR descriptors for their subsequent modification. The choice of the CEFR format was justified by its high adaptability and the author’s previous successful experience of elaborating such scale descriptors for automotive engineering majors. The author designed a scale for A2, B1 and B2 levels, where learning outcomes are presented as descriptors of communicative language activities with CEFR level distinctions being combined with activities involved in on-the-job cross-cultural communication. Conclusion. The initiated research should be helpful to investigate ways of devising and testing adequate sets of CEFR-based descriptors to improve the quality of university syllabi. The proposed scale of descriptors has certain limitations, therefore, further exploration directions are outlined. Keywords: integrative foreign language professional communicative competence, learning outcomes, CEFR-based descriptors, assessment, IT majors