Supporting English competence development in university teachers: Principles and practices

Abstract

In today’s world, the English language communicative competence is a major soft skill of university teachers which is needed for personal and professional fulfilment and career development. This study aimed at the design and practical realisation of the 72-hour English course stimulating the teaching staff’s engagement in language learning and English communicative competence development at the Omsk State Agrarian University. The authors have discussed the principles and approaches to the course content design and efficacy of four classroom management strategies: the use of real life communication situations, making presentations, visual thinking strategy and short-film-based discussions for developing EFL communicative competence in university teachers. The situational approach to the content design introduced ‘real-life’ communicative situations serving as a teaching method and an assessment tool. The participants of the course took an online test: ‘Evaluation of Readiness for The Certificate Exam in English’, developed by the Tomsk Polytechnic University, at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the course.
 Keywords: Communicative competence, adult language learning, university teaching staff, visual thinking, situational approach, communicative environment.