Structural characteristics of foreign language communicative competence of the modern specialist in the pedagogical concepts of Ukrainian and German scientists

Abstract

The article offered is devoted to an attempt to analyse the structural framework of foreign language communicative competence (the FLСC) of the modern specialist in the pedagogical concepts of German and Ukrainian specialists. The aim of the paper is to consolidate the research positions of German and Ukrainian scholars in the field of educational sciences on the structure of the FLСC which is conditioned by the solution of the tasks of studying the theoretical basis of the competence approach in the modern education. The object matter of the research is the FLСC itself, and the subject matter comprises its structural features in view of the conceptual grounds of Ukrainian and German educators. The methodological basis of the work are general scientific methods like those of analysis and synthesis, comparison and contrast, as well as the narrow scientific method of frame analysis which allows to build an integrated structural characteristics of the FLСC. The study found that Ukrainian and German scholars have the same understanding of the essence of competence as the root element of the competence-based approach to education which is perceived as unity of theory and practice, whilst the FLСC is interpreted as a set of professional elements of knowledge which includes skills and abilities for the effective use of a foreign language by a communicator in a particular situation in order to achieve communication results deriving also from the extralinguistic factors. A special theoretical premise of the German- language professional literature is the close correlation of the FLСC with the learner’s native language communicative competence and translation sub-competence. The elements of the FLСC can include not only language and speech components, but also extralinguistic components, as well as situational knowledge because in the process of learning a foreign language other skills are acquired that depend on the content of education and are of an interdisciplinary nature.