Foreign Language Linguodidactics in the Conditions of Language Education Digitalization

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the linguodidactics problems in a foreign language of business and professional communication at a higher educational institution. The main methods in the article are that of system analysis, person-oriented, multicultural approaches. Firstly, the article examines the problem of competitive specialist training in the field of intercultural contacts and secondly, it aims to assess the opportunities and main means to significantly improve professional training for competitive specialists, which are considered quality indicators for university education. The importance of the concept of student-centered education which includes the learning organization along an individual educational trajectory and provides development of students’ personal capacity is emphasized. The purpose of the article is to assess the possibilities for improving the training of competitive specialists in the context of digitalization of education and substantiate the need for a transition to a visual-logical presentation of educational material using modern digital technologies.

Keywords: Competitive specialist, digitalization of education, foreign language training, intercultural communication, personality-oriented technology

Introduction

One of the most important problems and needs of the modern interconnected world is the problem of education of comprehensively and holistically developed personality, capable of carrying out communicative activities at a high level. The introduction of digital technologies in modern linguodidactics opens up many new opportunities for developing students' communicative competencies, and numerous publications confirm the high efficiency of using these forms of education (Calderón, 2018; Canals & Al-Rawashdeh, 2019; Dmitrenko, 2009). But the modern system of linguodidactics is a complex coexistence of both traditional and new innovative teaching methods and tools, which reveals a number of problems requiring in-depth analysis.

Problem Statement

The new philosophy of language education focuses the attention of teachers on the development of an educated and responsible personality, capable of solving global problems within the framework of international cooperation, of a tolerant attitude towards the global problems of human society. Today, interest in a foreign language as a reflection of sociocultural reality is sharply increasing, which accordingly makes it necessary to study a holistic picture of the world, present in the cultural tradition of one’s own people and the people studied (Byram et al., 2013). The concept of education is very complex: it includes not only knowledge and skills, but also the ability to think critically, to evaluate historical and any other events in the world from a highly moral standpoint, and to implement the knowledge creatively (Dmitrenko & Makhmutova, 2021). The integration of education, science and production allows us to intensify the use of such teaching methods as problem lectures, practical exercises of a problem-search nature, business and heuristic games (Tomlinson & Jarvis, 2014).

More advanced training materials involve the use of role-playing games, trainings, the use of computer technology to search for the necessary information, etc., which involves building the learning process on a personal-activity approach to learning. Compiled taking into account the digitalization of language education, teaching materials of a new generation help students not formally learn the language material, but work it out creatively, “pass through themselves”, feel it, live it, and skillfully apply it in practice. Modern educational materials increase attention to problematic moments in the formation of personality, focusing on them (Moust et al., 2019, p. 94).

A new course in the competitive specialists’ language training is paving its way. One of the goals now is to build students’ readiness for intercultural communication. Accordingly, one of the most significant trends in teaching is the trend to co-study of language and culture with an emphasis on culture.

Nowadays one of the basic ideas for the renewal of education and culture, the formation of a new type of thinking is the transition to a digital school and a digital university, where a serious emphasis in professional training is placed on the cultural component, what is dictated by general conditions of a multicultural environment. This implies a socio-cultural orientation of education, the inclusion of students in the dialogue of cultures, which is reflected in more advanced educational materials and tools.

Another significant trend in the new linguodidactics system is the trend to person-oriented teaching in which digital educational technologies open wide possibilities to take into account all individual cognitive abilities of students.

Research Questions

A feature of the current situation in the language education system is the existence of two strategies for learning organizing: traditional and innovative, which creates a new type of educational process using more advanced materials, using digital learning technologies while liberating the personality of a teacher and a student.

The interaction of traditional and innovative technologies is a methodological guideline in the teaching activities today. If traditional learning technologies help students reproduce educational material, then modern educational technologies, together with more advanced educational materials, imply a transition to active and interactive methods and forms of learning, which significantly increase the interest of students, activate their cognitive activity, while increasing their independence. In this case, there is a creative comprehension of the educational material, experience is gained in the practical application of language material in a situation of foreign language communication.

The creation of new generation educational materials contributes to the development of the communicative culture of students, promotes much higher level of language acquisition. Assimilation of educational material by students now takes place at a creative level, which significantly increases the students’ communicative and professional competence.

More advanced educational materials certainly intensify the educational process, activate the cognitive process of students, reveal the reserves of student’s personality, in which they successfully overcome difficulties and find potential opportunities (Matsuda, 2017).

But despite the ongoing innovative processes in language education, teachers still need to strike a balance between traditional methods that have proven themselves in educational practice and modern teaching methods.

Purpose of the Study

A modern foreign language teacher has at his disposal a whole set of various digital tools and software that allow not only to improve teaching materials and the learning process, but also significantly increase communicative activity in a foreign language by creating and immersing the student in a virtual interactive environment of the country of the language being studied. Digital technologies (simulators, virtual classes) make possible for a teacher in foreign language lessons to simulate situations typical for social and cultural context of a studied language country and enable students to gain experience of intercultural communication in the process of mastering foreign language speech activity and allow the experience of intercultural communication in the process of mastering foreign language speech activity in foreign language lessons (Imbernon et al., 2020).

Foreign language studying groups are often formed from representatives of different societies and cultures with different customs and lifestyles, different mentalities, different visions of the world. One of the goals of foreign language training in higher education today is the formation of students' readiness for

intercultural communication, intercultural sensitivity, which is so necessary for mutual understanding and establishing fruitful relationships between communicants (Dmitrenko, 2020). The achieving of this goal is greatly facilitated by the use of digital technologies in the classroom taking into account that the digital technologies didactic potential is unusually wide and implies adaptability and personalization of the educational process, high speed of information processing, transparency of activities, a comfortable development environment (tempo, content, psychological comfort, etc.), providing unlimited opportunities for human self-realization.

The use of digital technologies makes it possible to significantly diversify the lesson and make it more interesting and meaningful for students. Although acquiring and mastering foreign language communicative competence by students is a main goal of teaching it seems to be very difficult to achieve it without being in the country of the studied language. Modern technical means come to aid: digital technologies are specially selected by a teacher according to certain criteria - compliance with the interests and age characteristics of students, their basic skills and abilities, the subject of the taught material, etc. This has an emotional impact on students increasing their motivation and helps to create the illusion of being in a language environment or make up for its absence (Akiba et al., 2007).

Thus, the use of such technologies involves the transition to interactive methods and forms of learning, activating cognitive activity, increasing independence, contributing to the creative understanding of educational material, as well as gaining experience in the practical application of educational material in intercultural communication situations.

Research Methods

The main methods in the article are that of system analysis, person-oriented, multicultural approaches. Modern vocational education implements a fundamentally new personality-oriented approach, according to which the unique and original personality of a student is the center of the educational process. The current reorientation of the goals of higher education towards the development of personal abilities requires updating the content of education and optimizing of the educational process with the use of new digital technologies. But at the same time, student-centered learning technologies in higher education are a process based on classical didactics and being its practical continuation. On the way of competitive specialists’ language training one of important milestones is the task to form students’ ability for dialogical interaction between representatives of different linguistic cultures, the ability and willingness to interact in a global space consisting of many different cultures.

In order to form this adequate and effective communication ability students should aсquire

knowledges of background regional characteristics, skills of comparison and analysis of facts and phenomena belonging to different cultures as well as value attitudes, psychological and social identity characteristic of a given culture. An integral part of the training of a future specialist should be mastering the norms or rules of speech behavior, speech etiquette adopted in the country of the language being studied (Freeman, 2016).

Knowledge or ignorance of cultural characteristics play a decisive role in achieving mutual understanding in intercultural communication.

The analysis of the practice of foreign language teaching with the use of digital technologies reveals that they much contribute to saving study time, to cooperation between a teacher and a student, evaluation of information perception by students, development of educational and methodological support for a particular subject (Dmitrenko, 2017). They allow the use of various complementary forms of educational activity, group and individual forms of training, various complementary methods of verification of training effectiveness.

Findings

In order to achieve foreign language communicative competence today one should possess not only knowledge of language material itself but also be ready to adapt to social norms of speech communication, rules of speech behavior typical for representatives of a foreign language culture (Dmitrenko & Kadilina, 2020).

Today, priority is given to the authenticity of language material and to language learning in a sociocultural context what requires more advanced educational materials aimed at teaching students a free orientation in a foreign language environment and developing students' ability to adequately respond to various situations of everyday, both professional and non-professional, foreign language communication. The authenticity of the language material satisfies the needs of a student in getting acquainted with the country and culture of the people of the language being studied.

International educational practice shows that, at the present stage, foreign language training begins to be conducted in the context of dialogue of cultures. The main procedures for introducing students to a new cultural reality are the comparison and analysis of facts and phenomena belonging to different cultures (Dmitrenko & Kadilina, 2020).

The strategic direction of enhancing the efficiency and quality of education today is not only increasing the amount of information transmitted in the learning process, but also creating didactic and psychological conditions for understanding it.

Nowadays the basis for the development of the axiological potential of the student’s personality as a whole constitutes the formation of tolerance attitudes and abilities towards representatives of a foreign culture.

In teaching with the use of digital technologies the main task of a teacher is to support and guide such students’ activities as, for example, trainings, project activities, portfolios, etc. which aim on the formation of tolerance abilities.

Acquisition of knowledge about the values of business communication culture in a country of studied (target) language is of particular importance in the modern process of foreign language teaching.

In a foreign language class interesting problematic situations could be posed, the way out of which is possible only by possessing of this knowledge.

So, cultural space modelling during the lesson, practice-oriented communicative tasks aimed at the formation of intellectual flexibility and tolerance towards foreign language speakers and their culture (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013) should become an integral part of modern education teaching.

An important component of increasing the effectiveness of intercultural interaction is the knowledge of general stereotypes of foreign language speech behavior, an understanding of what is appropriate and what is not in a particular culture. But students should be prepared to overcome stereotypes in situations that arise differently in different cultures. Immersion of students in such situations, the formation of skills to overcome stereotypes of behavior in such situations is carried out by using the methods of situational modelling. The latter contribute to the formation of the ability to decode information about the specific personality of the interlocutor, to better understand the psychology of a partner, to find the right tone in conversations (Ennis & Riley, 2018).

Digital educational technologies create comfortable conditions for learning, because they contribute to providing the possibility of learning along an individual educational trajectory that fully takes into account individual cognitive abilities, motives, inclinations of a student.

Modern educational materials involving the use of digital technologies allow to design tasks of different levels of complexity, as well as situations in which students could ask questions, exchange their experience, thoughts, and ideas. Taking into consideration and using the personal experience of each student contributes to the success situation for each student. Based on the concept of student-centered education, modern methods for foreign language teaching involve the disclosure of students' personal potential and provide for teaching all types of speech activity in their interconnection and interdependence.

Taking into account the intellectual potential of students, when choosing forms of foreign language communication, ensures the preparation of students for the implementation of intercultural, professional and business communication, for working conditions in the modern multicultural world (Alkheshnam, 2012).

The use of innovative digital technologies significantly changes the process of interaction between a teacher and student, putting at the forefront the values of collaborations and co-creation. It presupposes the establishment of a different more liberal type of relationship: -joint search, -principled but benevolent, -joint analysis of results, - joint analysis of miscalculations. Such an organization of innovative learning contributes to the cultivation of individuality (Roberts, 2016).

Conclusion

A significant innovative trend in modern linguodidactics is the creation of a digital environment that is aimed at personalized educational activities organized in a digital educational environment, the key components of which are: data in digital format, processing, exchange and analysis results of which allow a specific person to achieve qualitatively new educational results. A competitive specialist must be ready to use digital technologies that provide unlimited opportunities for human self-realization.

One of the main goals of modern linguodidactics is the goal of student's personality development by educating such qualities as tolerance and openness towards representatives of other cultures.

Digital educational technologies create possibilities for learning along an individual educational trajectory that fully takes into account individual cognitive abilities, motives, inclinations of a student and allows to achieve qualitatively new educational results.

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