Integrating Foreign Languages and Business Informatics Teaching in Russian Universities. The Problem of Teaching Content

Abstract

Both researchers and practitioners have provided various ways of integrating professional disciplines and foreign language teaching. Generally, the integration is performed in the form of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) or teaching foreign languages for specific purposes. Despite the interest to this field, such integration is still low as far as engineering education and foreign language teaching are concerned. This is primarily due to the difference in professional logic, skills and competences acquired in engineering and language education. The paper focuses on integration of a foreign language and business informatics, the latter recently being incorporated into Russian higher education. Teaching foreign languages for professionals in business informatics, and specifically the content of such foreign language teaching, still needs further investigation. Thus, the paper looks into the principal components of foreign language teaching content for business informatics at the level of Bachelor degree with the focus on the English language. The methods employed include the content analysis of the relevant regulatory and standard-setting instruments, linguistic analysis of texts intended to be used for teaching purposes; analysis of other teaching materials and their availability; classification and descriptive methods, theoretical analysis of the relevant methodology. The paper discusses factors affecting content setting related to future professional activities. The findings reveal the basic teaching content components, which embrace linguistic and speech material; professional, linguistic and intercultural knowledge; the corresponding skills.