Training Foreign Language Teachers To Provide Safety In Professional Activities

Abstract

The conditions of growing potential danger and different emergencies brought about the necessity to train teachers capable of providing safety of students, staff and educational institutions where they work. One of the means of this training is the proposed learning technology of training foreign language teachers to provide safety in professional activities designed in Astrakhan State University. Based on the monitoring of students’ academic progress, the technology proved its efficiency and effectiveness while delivering the Life Safety training course. Training foreign language teachers to provide safety in professional activities is a regulatory requirement for developing respective competences within the process of teaching the Life Safety study course. In order to achieve the goals and objectives of the Life Safety study course and develop respective competences, the authors designed a technology to prepare students for providing safety in professional activities. The students’ progress in learning this subject proved the designed technology efficiency.

Keywords: Safetydangertrainingprofessional activities

Introduction

From the moment human beings started walking the Earth, they were living and acting in the conditions of constantly changing potential dangers (Shilova, 2000; Dymova, 2013). The actualization of these dangers results in emotional upsets, injuries, diseases, disability and fatal outcomes. Dangers mean different situations that are likely to cause phenomena and processes that have a potential to injure people, inflict harm on and destroy their habitat (techno-sphere). Educational institutions are also a place where potential dangers, including fires, terrorist attacks, hostage taking, and drug abuse etc, can arise. In this context, danger prevention and protection from it are urgent issues and society upon the whole and pedagogical community in particular is highly interested in solving these issues (Dymova, 2012).

Problem Statement

In the current conditions, all population must be thoroughly trained to protect themselves in the situation occurring in natural environment, household arrangement, as well as in professional activities and giving rise to various potential dangers. People often lack special knowledge, skills and experience to efficiently approach these dangers and minimize their consequences. It evidently increases the role of education system and its responsibility for training students in the issues pertaining to personal safety and safety of people around. Educational institutions need teachers possessing necessary knowledge and competences to provide for the safety of students, teaching and technical staff and the institution itself (Abaskalova, 2008).

Research Questions

How to train Pedagogy major students (with two training profiles) enrolled at the Department of Foreign Languages of Astrakhan State University to provide safety of professional activities?

Purpose of the Study

The study aims to reveal the essence of training 2nd-year students, enrolled at Pedagogy and Foreign Language (English, German, French) programme of the Department of Foreign Languages of Astrakhan State University, to provide safety of professional activities.

Research Methods

Analysis of Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education (FSES HE) for 44.03.05 ‘Pedagogy’, profile of training ‘Foreign Language’; designing the technology of training students to provide the safety of professional activities; modeling dangerous situations of different origin (natural, social, anthropogenic); monitoring of students’ progress in the Life Safety training course.

Findings

The FSES HE for 44.03.05 ‘Pedagogy’ major programme (with two profiles) was approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation on February 9, 2016. The conducted analysis of this document revealed that the tasks of the graduates’ professional activities include the task to provide protection of student’s health and life in the course of educational process. After studying at the programme, a graduate should have the following competences developed:

1. general cultural competence, implying ability to use first aid techniques, protection methods in emergencies (GC-9);

2. general professional competence, implying ability to provide protection of student’s health and life (GPC-6).

Taking into consideration these regulations, work programme of the Life Safety training course that is taught in the 3rd term was compiled. The course aims to develop a system of knowledge, required to provide comfort, health and safety in the system ‘human-environment’; ensure the understanding of the intrinsic unity of efficient professional pedagogical activities and requirements to safety and protection of a human; to strengthen skills of ensuring safety of schoolchildren in professional pedagogical activities. The course has the following objectives: studying theoretical fundamentals of health and safety provision; getting acquainted with the classification of dangerous and extremely dangerous situations of various origins; using first aid techniques; mastering methods of protection in dangerous and extremely dangerous situations.

The designed technology of training students to provide safety of professional activities includes the following components:

1. studying theoretical material of the course, employing the following techniques of the verbal method: problem-setting lecture, narration, explanation, interactive conversation, discussion and instruction;

2. studying practice focused material employing such techniques of the visual method as illustration, demonstration, presentation and situation modeling;

3. studying practice focused material, employing such practical methods as educative exercises, quests, educative observation, verbalization (articulation of a conceptual plan, performance techniques and features of factors and phenomena observed); learning the algorithm of actions (instruction); modeling of actions; participation in solving extreme tasks (learning); training (repeating the same actions for reaching perfection in their performance); analysis and correction of actions, methods for providing safety while completing the actions;

4. studying practice focused material, employing such verbal, illustrative and practical methods as educative modeling of dangerous and extremely dangerous conditions and situations (verbal description of the conditions by students with their imaginary ideas); actual modeling, imitation (creating extremely dangerous conditions and situations with the use of special means and methods); psychological modeling of extreme difficulties (stimulating students’ peculiarities of intellectual, emotional and volitional processes that are typical in dangerous and extremely dangerous situations); acting out situations, modeling of stress and tension (moral, psychological and physical);

5. Self-training, including work with study materials, completion of educative tasks, learning, revision, self-training exercises; self-observation, self-analysis, self-assessment, self-education.

The key component of the designed technology is modeling dangerous and extremely dangerous situations at lectures and practical classes in order to form respective behavioral skills in students because such modeled situations do not threaten their health and working efficiency and allow to perfect the behavioral algorithm, as well as to consider different peculiarities of such situations. The ‘Life Safety Workbook’ proposes different types of modeled situations to students (Dymova, 2013).

Practical classes include business games that are very interesting for the students to participate in. For example, a business game “Investigation of an Industrial Accident” is held within the topic “Man-Caused Emergencies and Ways of Protection against Them”. Such facilities as radiation (a nuclear power plant), chemical (a mineral and organic fertilizer plant), biological (a tuberculosis dispensary), hydrodynamic (a dam) and fire hazardous (a cinema) are taken as industrial facilities for consideration. During the game the students simulate all the stages of the situation at hand, including causes of the accident, the personnel’s actions and investigation procedure (commission appointment, reporting, drafting a final document with activities for providing safety at hazardous facilities).

An example of a practice-oriented game is the game “Premedical First Aid for People Injured in an Affected Area”, where the students deliver premedical first aid, using medical equipment and a certain algorithm, to “injured” persons in different condition.

The general algorithm of premedical aid includes a set of actions that are done by the students at the lessons:

To move the injured person away from the affected area (to pull him/her from under the debris), to eliminate the traumatic factor effect (to provide with fresh air in case of carbon monoxide poisoning or to move away from the power source in case of an electrical injury).

To eliminate the environment harmful effect (to move indoors or, if necessary, to a cool place, to warm and give to drink).

To deliver necessary aid (to apply a bandage in case of a wound, to apply a splint in case of a fracture, to ensure temporary hemostasis).

To take the “injured” person to a hospital or to call “an ambulance” (Remizova, 2017).

This game is very valuable as it checks the students’ personal qualities that allow to deliver correct medical (premedical) aid to the “injured” person and to relieve his/her condition. In these very situations of delivering medical aid the students demonstrate such qualities as emotional strength, self-determination, concentration of attention, spatial accuracy of movements, critical thinking. The students’ actions on delivering premedical first aid to the “injured” persons are an indicator of future teachers’ readiness to professional activities.

An essential component of the technology to prepare students for providing safety in professional activities is motivation that is formed at Life Safety classes through explanation of personal life importance and the necessity of training, formation of a goal to achieve high training results; convictions in personal opportunities, development of life (professional) ambitions, giving examples of people who have reached life heights and successfully overcome great difficulties (Remizova, 2017).

An efficient method for forming motivation to learn the subject “Life Safety” is to use case study tasks, i.e. specific situations that imply a problem-oriented analysis carried out by the students. The aim of applying the case study method is an analysis, carried out by a group of 2-3 students, of a hazardous, emergency or any other situation that occurs under specific circumstances, and finding of a practical way out of it. A case study task always finishes with assessment of the proposed algorithms and a choice of the best solution in the context of the problem at hand.

The case study technology resides in the fact that, based on the certain rules, a model of a specific real-life situation is developed, and it reflects a set of knowledge and practical skills that must be obtained by the students. Case study tasks are given below.

Specify a set of activities that must be conducted in an epidemic, epizootic or epiphytotic affected area.

Illustrate the difference between disinfection, disinfestation and deratization as compulsory integrated activities in distressed and disaster areas.

Explain why nowadays there are so many victims during mass pilgrimage tours and visits to holy places.

Name the reasons of emerging criminal youth organizations involved in mass riots. Specify the main features of such organizations.

Give recommendations on preventing criminal offenses against children and teenagers.

Explain which peculiarities of a deal under negotiation must arouse suspicion about partner’s dishonesty.

Describe the main rules of self-defense and explain which self-defense means are legal to use and which ones are prohibited.

Using case study tasks at practical lessons, a teacher takes the role of host who asks questions, fixes answers, keeps up discussion, prevents conflicts and creates the atmosphere of cooperation and, at the same time, competition.

Case technologies are very convenient to use in the process of teaching the subject “Life Safety” because, as a rule, there is no unambiguous answer to the question at hand, but there are several answers that can compete by a degree of truth; here the teaching task is immediately deviated from a classic model and is oriented not on obtaining one truth but on identification of several truths and orientation in their problematic field.

A valuable component of the case study method is not the mastering of a ready-made knowledge but its development, as well as formation of professional activity skills. Within the process of the problem discussion each student has the same rights as other students and the teacher.

We believe that the case study technology application results in students’ conscious values-based attitude to the chosen profession, aspiration for self-improvement and gaining of necessary professionally-important qualities in the field of life safety.

The authors monitored the students’ progress in the Life Safety study course on the basis of the point-rating system that has been used in Astrakhan State University since 2013. A total rating score of the subject semester completion is converted in a 4-score mark at a pass-fail exam (as a final form of knowledge control), where ‘fail’ (mark – 2) stands for less than a total score sum of 60 out of 100; ‘satisfactory’ (mark – 3, passed) stands for a total score sum of 60-69 out of 100; ‘good’ (mark – 4, passed) stands for a total score sum of 70-89; ‘excellent’ (mark – 5, passed) stands for a total score sum of 90-100 out of 100.

The results of the students’ progress monitoring during the study semester and at the final pass-fail exam show that there are no students who didn’t learn the Life Safety study course and get less than 69 scores. As a rule, 25-30% of a total number of students get 90-100 scores for the study course, 70-75% of them get 70-89 scores and more than 60% get more than 84 scores.

Conclusion

Training foreign language teachers to provide safety in professional activities is a regulatory requirement for developing respective competences within the process of teaching the Life Safety study course. In order to achieve the goals and objectives of the Life Safety study course and develop respective competences, the authors designed a technology to prepare students for providing safety in professional activities. The students’ progress in learning this subject proved the designed technology efficiency.

References

  1. Abaskalova, N. P. (2008). Teorija i metodika obuchenija bezopasnosti zhiznedejatel'nosti [Theory and Methods of Teaching Life Safety]. Novosibirsk: Publishing House of Siberian University.
  2. Dymova, T. V. (2013). Bezopasnost zhiznedejatelnosti [Life Safety]. Astrakhan: Publisher Sorokin Roman Vasilievich.
  3. Dymova, T. V. (2012). Faktory riska zdorov'ju cheloveka v urbasisteme i sposoby zashhity ot nih [Human Health Risk Factors in Urban System and Ways of Protection against Them]. Astrakhan: Publisher Sorokin Roman Vasilievich.
  4. Remizova, N. U. (2017). Obuchenie kak zona dlja netvoringa [Teaching as a Networking Area]. Paper presented at the Youth and Science: Urgent Issues and Tendencies of Pedagogy Development. Proceedings of All-Russia Youth Research & Practice Conference, Astrakhan, Russia.
  5. Shilova, I. M. (2000). Model professiogrammy spetsialista v oblasti bezopasnosti zhiznedeyatelnosti: struktura i soderzhaniye vysshego professionalnogo obrazovaniya [Job Description Model of an Expert in the Sphere of Life Safety: Structure and Content of Higher Professional Education]. Moscow: Publishing House ‘Higher School’.

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About this article

Publication Date

05 September 2018

eBook ISBN

978-1-80296-044-0

Publisher

Future Academy

Volume

45

Print ISBN (optional)

-

Edition Number

1st Edition

Pages

1-993

Subjects

Teacher training, teacher, teaching skills, teaching techniques

Cite this article as:

Dymova, T. V., & Remizova, N. U. (2018). Training Foreign Language Teachers To Provide Safety In Professional Activities. In R. Valeeva (Ed.), Teacher Education - IFTE 2018, vol 45. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 485-490). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2018.09.55