Teaching business foreign language communication in master's courses at railway transport university

Abstract

The paper explains the necessity of new professional training requirements. The role of foreign languages at higher educational institutions is emphasized, which is reflected in the Federal National education standards. The paper dwells upon approaches and peculiarities of developing a competence-based model of teaching business foreign language communication to postgraduate students of the railway transport university. The paper gives examples of tasks and teaching technologies, used by the author in the process of implementing the teaching programmes for postgraduate students of the railway transport university. The above-mentioned model is viewed as a complex of linguistic, communicative, culturological, psychological and professional components. The characteristic features of teaching a foreign language to postgraduate students of technical universities are researched. The grounds for using an interdisciplinary approach in teaching a foreign language for business communication are considered. The interdisciplinary approach allows to integrate students’ knowledge and skills acquired in the process of studying other subjects and to successfully implement them in mastering a foreign language and developing a competence in business foreign language communication. The paper gives an overview of the study guides developed by teachers of Foreign Languages Department of the Rostov State Transport University for postgraduate students majoring in technical subjects. The perspectives of further research are defined.