FORMATION MODEL OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Abstract

In the present article, a model of formation of intercultural communicative competence of tertiary students majoring in technical specialties is considered. Essential features of various concepts on developing foreign language communicative competence are reviewed. Various scientific and theoretical literary sources on the topical issue are analyzed. Based on this analysis and the authors’ own experience in the field of ELT, a definition of the notion of «Intercultural Engineering Communicative Competence» is formulated and its structural components are proposed. Thus, lingua-communicative, socio-cultural, engineering-conceptual and project-research subcompeteces are distinguished and explained. Moreover, the principles and conditions of the formation of technical university students’ intercultural communicative competence using a Situated Language Teaching (SLT) technology are suggested. The authors have defined the basic principles and specific features of the use of SLT in the development of intercultural communicative competence of future engineers. Within the developed framework the situational tasks can be implemented in different forms, including and not limited to case-study, problem and project based learning, role-plays, simulations, etc. – unless they are produced in accord with the principles and conditions of the model. The designed formation model of technical students’ Intercultural Engineering Communicative Competence has been experimentally tested. This article also exhibits the results of a pedagogical experiment conducted at Satbayev University. The findings of this study can benefit researchers, curriculum developers and teachers in the field of foreign language teaching, particularly English language teaching.