Poly-Multiculturality in Higher Education: Methodological Level of the Research Concept

Abstract

The article looks into the contemporary challenges for higher education in the era of unexpected global turbulences following the processes of globalisation not only in the social, political, economic and financial contexts but also in the educational domain. Multidimensional reality has brought its changes to communication and risen the standards of effective communication much higher than forecast in the previous years. The global developments drive for efficiency in intercultural dialogue, which causes reconsideration of the lingual status of education in multinational classrooms. The burning issues arise more sharply for cross border communication for business and diplomacy purposes. It means that a high demand in the educational market for LSP instructors (LSP – languages for specific purposes) at philology departments in Ukraine and abroad has started moving higher education to become more business oriented and stakeholder and university partnered. That said, it is necessary to analyse the existing foundations for poly- / multiculturality in higher education as supported by governments and the government of Ukraine, in particular, as well as go deeper into the levels of the research concept, the methodological level, to be more precise. As part of the research, the paper describes the key methodological approaches to foster and cultivate poly- / multiculturality in multi-dimensional classrooms – polylingual and multicultural. Such approaches are viewed fundamental to educate high-class LSP instructors in the field of foreign language instruction and acquisition in higher education. Among them are the systemic approach including the structural one, the synergic approach to cultivate poly- / multiculturality with future LSP educators in foreign language classrooms, cross-cultural approach, axiological and communicative approaches, environmental and reflexive approaches, etc.