PROJECT-BASED LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES AS A MEANS OF FORMATION OF MULTICULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF FUTURE SPECIALISTS IN THE FIELD OF TOURISM IN THE CONDITIONS OF BLENDED LEARNING

Abstract

The aim of the article is to investigate and theoretically substantiate the role of project-based technologies as a means of developing multicultural communicative competence in future tourism professionals within the context of blended learning. The effectiveness of tourism and hotel business depends on a set of factors. Among them is the professional competence of employees which reflects the ability and willingness of specialists to use their knowledge and practical skills in practice, and thus forming the model of a practitioner capable of solving problems in the chosen field of activity and demonstrating their high efficiency. In addition to professional competence, a future specialist in the field of tourism must have intercultural communication competence which reveals itself through the specific way of carrying out productive activity, and is formed during the period of training at higher education institution as a part of the process of project activity. It is assumed that project activity is treated as the goal and method of learning which creates conditions for the development of skills underlying the competence. Among the skills are: creative thinking, reflection, goal setting, forecasting, choosing effective solutions, creating working teams, achieving results and evaluation of their effectiveness. The article considers the project technology as a means of the formation of multicultural communicative competence of future specialists in the field of tourism. It is stated that expedient and properly organized work on the project during the study of language material will help to form and improve specific language skills, which will lead to the development of multicultural communicative competence. The article focuses on the implementation of principles of project technology into the process of teaching foreign languages to students of speciality 242 “Tourism and Recreation”. The paper presents the analysis of the main features of project-based learning as well as the stages of work project. It also reflects the experience of application of project method in the process of the formation of multicultural communicative competence of future specialists in the field of tourism. It is proved that the use of project method in foreign language classes in the sphere of professional communication contributes to the development of students’ competencies as a set of knowledge, skills and abilities that ensure their readiness to solve specific problems in a multicultural environment. The main advantages of implementation of project technology were defined based on the conceptual analysis of pedagogical literature, own pedagogical experience, systematization of theoretical approaches and methods existing in the educational environment of higher school. It is noted that properly organized work on the project at classes on professionally oriented foreign language not only forms multicultural communicative competence, but also allows forming professional, social competences in parallel. As a result, one more goal of training in higher education institution is achieved, namely the formation of students’ project competence. It has been concluded that project-based activities not only enable students to learn the language, thereby developing multicultural communicative competence, but also contribute to the acquisition of academic skills and the formation of integrative project-based experience in the process of studying a range of academic disciplines.