Formation Of Interethnic Tolerance Through Educational Situations At Foreign Language Classes

Abstract

Nowadays the interethnic tolerance of subjects of the educational process is becoming increasingly important. The author of the article considers the interethnic tolerance of subjects of the educational process in universities, first of all, as a manifestation of the future specialist's ability to interpersonal interaction in professional activities. The author of the article presents a system of educational situations aimed at forming interethnic tolerance among university students (at foreign language classes). The above-mentioned system of educational situations of the interethnic tolerance formation is primarily aimed at students in multicultural groups and includes the following educational situations: the educational situation "Adaptation", the educational situation "Initiation" and the educational situation "Integration". In the process of developing a system of educational situations aimed at the formation of the interethnic tolerance, the author identified psychological, pedagogical and organizational principles, namely: the principle of integrity, the principle of subjectivity, the principle of dialogicality, the principle of organizing work in cooperation, the principle of creativity. In our view, compliance with the above-mentioned principles contributes to the effective realization of the system of the educational situation for the interethnic tolerance formation. As far as each university teacher is always relevant to the task of developing methodological support for the taught discipline, selecting appropriate for a goal and tasks means of teaching students, this article will be useful for university teachers, graduate students, specialists of advanced training courses that operate on the basis of pedagogical universities.

Keywords: Interethnic tolerance, ability to interpersonal interaction, educatonal situation, educational environment, educational situation of interethnic tolerance formation

Introduction

The modern world represents the globalized, multi-faith, multicultural education. At this stage of the world community development, humanity will have to solve the problems of states integration, migration processes and their consequences. In this regard, at the forefront there is a need to find solutions to a number of tasks associated with setting up a process of dialogue among religions and cultures of various ethnic groups, a need to solve problems, which, on the one hand, related to the adaptation of minorities to the realities of the modern world and, on the other hand, problems of continuity of the ancestral cultural heritage and preserve the national identity by the modern generation of small nations, the problem of interaction between representatives of different civilizations.

A number of scientists (Illich, 2006; Luksha et al., 2018) believe that it is the education system that has a special role to play in solving a number of problems associated with integration processes and related to this process issues associated with the diversity of cultures and languages. The system of higher professional education should pay special attention to the preparation of a competitive specialist who can adapt to the realities of modern life and, in particular, to the requirements of the modern labor market. At the same time, a competitive specialist, in addition to professional competence, must have personal competence, which is manifested in the future specialist's ability to effective interpersonal interaction in professional activity (including the manifestation of empathy, interethnic tolerance towards people belonging to different ethnic groups and social strata that profess different religions).

According to the «Declaration of principles of tolerance» (UNESCO, 1995), «special attention should be paid to improving teacher training, curricula, the context of textbooks and lessons, and other educational materials, including new educational technologies, in order to foster caring and responsible citizens who are open to other cultures, capable of appreciating the value of freedom, respecting human dignity and differences, and able to prevent conflicts or resolve them by non-violent means».

In view of the above-mentioned, today it is particularly relevant to develop training tools that allow a university teacher (in particular, a foreign language teacher) to form in the future specialists the ability to empathy and interethnic tolerance, without which it is impossible to form a future specialist's ability to interpersonal interaction in professional activities.

Problem Statement

The works of many scientists are devoted to interethnic tolerance, for example, a number of researchers (Abzhapparova & Darkenov, 2013) considers the interethnic tolerance as a «guarantor» of peace and harmony, as a mean helping to prevent the interethnic conflicts. The latter is particularly relevant in connection with the mobility of students, the development of international educational systems, and the demand on the world labor market for specialists capable of effective interpersonal interaction in professional activities and, consequently, capable of showing interethnic tolerance to others.

Other researchers (Banshchikova et al., 2015; Jackson, 2015; Karabinar & Guler, 2012; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2004) consider interethnic tolerance as an essential characteristic of a specialist's multicultural competence.

The works of Perepelicina (2004), Turumbetova (2013), Filpisan et al. (2012), Savu (2014), Fungchomchoei and Kardkamklai (2016), Gromova and Hayrutdinova (2016) are devoted to the consideration of the interethnic tolerance in the context of teacher training.

Despite a lot of works devoted to interethnic tolerance, we have not found any works describing the means of forming interethnic tolerance in a future specialist in the educational process at university.

Research Questions

It is obvious that due to the emergence of new interpretations of the modern education goals and tasks, it is necessary to develop training tools corresponding to the new goals and tasks. In this regard (when planning a course of discipline «foreign language») it is advisable to study a number of issues at the university, namely:

what training tools contribute to the formation of the interethnic tolerance in a future specialist;

what principles are fundamental in the development of an educational situation aimed at the formation of interethnic tolerance among university students.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this work is to carry out several tasks, namely: 1) describe the system of educational situations aimed at the formation of the interethnic tolerance among university students (for example, classes in the discipline "foreign language"); 2) identify the principles underlying the development and effective implementation of educational situations aimed at the formation of the interethnic tolerance in students.

Research Methods

In order to carry out the research tasks, we applied the methods of theoretical analysis of philosophical, psychological, pedagogical and methodological literature on the investigated problem and the method of observation, which allowed us to identify the features of the interethnic tolerance formation. We also used methods of comparison and logical analysis, which allowed us to interpret the results obtained in the course of observation and formulate the principles of effective implementation of educational situations aimed at the interethnic tolerance formation among university students.

Findings

There is no doubt that in order to ensure interethnic harmony, when developing training programs for future specialists, it is necessary to provide the use of such training tools in the educational process of the university that have the potential to educate future specialists in accordance with the spirit of multicultural peace, interethnic understanding, respect for human rights in a multicultural environment. The above-mentioned funds should be used to develop skills of effective interpersonal interaction of the future specialist in professional activities, including with representatives of various nationalities and faiths.

The conducted analysis of the works of a number of scientists allows us to conclude that the concept of "tolerance" covers such essential characteristics as empathic attitude, flexible switching from understanding to expressing feelings, to accepting another person. According to Olport (2011), one of the most important features of an ethnically tolerant person is the ability to empathize. Therefore, being one of the essential characteristics of the future specialist's ability to interpersonal interaction in professional activities, the formation of the ability to express empathy, in turn, can also influence the forming of the interethnic tolerance in the future specialist in the process of his studying at the university. So, when developing a system of educational situations aimed at the formation of the interethnic tolerance, we took as a basis a system of educational situations for the formation of the future teacher's ability to interpersonal interaction in professional activities.

Barker (as cited in Smolova, 2008) proposed a theory of «behaviour environment». According to this theory, "behaviour environment" refers to a pattern of behaviour along with certain spatio-temporal characteristics that are inherent in this behaviour and the people who are in this space. The behaviour of people who are in a certain behavior environment does not depend on personal characteristics, their behaviour is a pattern of behaviour in a group. The scientist emphasized that the environment of behaviour (in our case, we are talking about the educational environment of a university) represents a self-regulating organism, due to which people are able to realize some of their needs. The scientist came to the conclusion that the environment of behaviour exists only in action.

The Soviet scientist Il'in (as cited in Glebov, 2010), the founder of the theory of integral educational process, also emphasized the importance of activity for the formation of a harmonious personality and concluded that it is necessary to ensure: 1) the accordance of actions, that involve the subject of the educational process in, to the system of actions of an advanced person, thoroughly educated and harmonious whole person; 2) the accordance of the system to the place, role and functions in the larger whole, in which the system is included as an element.

Therefore, activity acts as an external condition for the development of cognitive processes in the subject of the educational process (Sinenko, 2013). The educational situation, representing a part of the activity, has a number of its characteristics: heuristic, hierarchical, structured and systematic (Sinenko, 2018). As far as passive perception of educational material is ineffective, the activity should be organized in such a way that the subject of the educational process is involved in it as actively as possible. Moreover, the activity organized by the teacher in a class (a number of classes) as a solution to a learning task, according to the conclusions of Serikov (2012) "is an objective process of movement of objects, operations, logical actions, step-by-step internalization of given samples and so on. In this sense, the activity is the same for all, and the conclusion from it will also be common for all" (p. 28).

As a means of forming the interethnic tolerance in the future specialist, we use the educational situation. The term «educational situation», we understand as “structural unit of learning activity of a didactic nature aimed at the revitalization of the subjects of the educational process by obtaining their own meanings in the result of activity for one class or sequence of classes, united by goal and tasks of the educational process” (Sinenko, 2013, p. 91).

It is important that the implementation of the educational situation (system of educational situations) aimed at the formation of the interethnic tolerance is carried out in the context of a professionally-oriented environment of the university, representing part of the process of professional training of a specialist. It is the professional orientation of students' activity in foreign language classes that acts as a single system-forming vector that permeates the entire process of professional training of future specialists. The formation of interethnic tolerance in future specialists is primarily linked to sociocultural changes to which students are gradually adapting, starting from the moment they apply for admission to university and subsequently (in the case of admission to a particular university) receiving in the course of study, the opportunity to carry out interpersonal interaction of a professional orientation with students of different ethnic groups and religions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to interact with the world of «subject» (environment of a particular university).

Cross-cultural orientation and numerous interdisciplinary connections, dialogic nature of the discipline «foreign language» contributes to the creation of the professionally-oriented educational space that contributes to the formation of the interethnic tolerance. In foreign language classes, we use a system of educational situations aimed at formation of the interethnic tolerance in future specialists.

is applied by us at the beginning of the first year of learning. In this educational situation, the teacher offers students to read the text (about the city where the university is located, about the family of a "potential" student and so on) or asks students to tell a little about themselves later, when performing various exercises on the text, students of a multicultural group get to know each other, exchange information about their families, about their homeland, which allows the foreign language teacher to create a friendly atmosphere, interest and motivate students to further interact in the course of educational activity and create conditions for students to accept each other.

The educational situation "Initiation" is implemented by us when teaching students of the first year multicultural group. A documentary film (text, presentation) dedicated to the history, culture, religion, traditions, or any country-specific realities can become a mean of forming the interethnic tolerance. After reading this material, students are offered exercises aimed at fixing the lexical and grammatical material on the topic under study, as well as exercises that encourage students to independently search for information about a given country and peoples living on the territory of this country, traditions and customs. Subsequently, students (within the studying of the topic "My country") can be asked to prepare a similar material (for example, a report) about the country from which he or she comes. The educational situation "Initiation" promotes an adequate perception of the subjects of the educational process by each other, helps students to remove psychological barriers, helps the dialogue of representatives of different nationalities.

The educational situation "Integration". In this case, the mean of forming the interethnic tolerance is the joint work of students on a presentation or project of a professional orientation (for example, on the topic "Famous scientist"), which allows, along with improving team skills, with the development of organizational skills, to receive feedback that contributes to the reflection of the future specialist on the correctness of his or her activity and the effectiveness of his or her own interpersonal skills. Students learn to carry out tasks together and, working in a multicultural team, get the opportunity to adequately evaluate and perceive people, analyzing the performed work and reflecting on the results of joint activity (thus avoiding the so-called "ethnic stereotypes"). Exactly in the process of joint activity the future specialists acquire skills of emotional self-regulation and acquire communicative flexibility, which contributes to the formation of interethnic tolerance.

During the development and subsequent implementation of the system of educational situations aimed at forming of the interethnic tolerance in students, we identified psychological, pedagogical and organizational principles. A foreign language teacher will be able to develop and implement in their practical pedagogical activity the educational situation of the interethnic tolerance formation most effectively observing the following principles:

. On the one hand, according to this principle, each subject of the educational process is an integral, self-sufficient person, a unique gestalt, with his or her inherent mentality, which implies a personality-oriented approach to learning and, in some cases, the development of an individual learning trajectory. On the other hand, according to Il'in (as cited in Glebov, 2010), the effectiveness of means of personality formation largely depends on the degree of their system and integrity, on the extent to which the regularities of the forming of individual's properties are taken into account.

. According to this principle, each student is subjective, individual in the perception of both the surrounding him or her socio-economic, socio-political reality in general, and in the perception of the educational space of a particular university. A university teacher, in the process of developing and implementing an educational situation aimed at the forming of interethnic tolerance, should, if it possible, take into account such phenomena as the national personality structure, ethnic stereotype, and the mentality of an ethnic group. Moreover, a teacher working with a multicultural student body should take into account that the mentality represents a dynamic-functional, historically and socio-culturally determined, qualitative certainty of the neuro-psychological organization of the individual. According to the conclusions of Vasilyeva (2018), the mentality of an ethnic group is subject to change, the process of becoming an ethnic group's mentality looks like closing and opening the circle of some integrity, «completeness», «perfection». At the moment of opening, something goes away and simultaneously something accretes. At the same time, something remains forever and is strengthened each time-something stable, something that can be called an invariant.

We believe that the forming of an invariant of the student's ethnos mentality (we are talking about the functional component of the mentality, which depends on external factors and manifests itself in a particular individual in self-realization, self-expression) is more successful if the interpersonal interaction of a professional orientation is effectively organized by a university teacher through the implementation of an educational situation aimed at the formation of interethnic tolerance.

Compliance with this principle allows the university teacher to create conditions for active interpersonal interaction of future specialists in the process of performing joint work of a professional orientation in such a way as to give each participant of the dialogue the right to his or her own opinion, which is possible due to: 1) personal understanding of the issue being studied by each subject of the educational process; 2) the presence of feedback on what other participants in the dialogue think, perceive, and feel about this issue. In the course of dialogical interaction a future specialist gets the opportunity to conduct a reflection on his or her own educational activity, to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of his or her own interpersonal skills professional orientation with other subjects of the educational process. He or she also gets an opportunity to take into account the experiences of others to draw conclusions on the admissibility of patterns of their own behavior in specific learning situations of professional orientation. Compliance with the principle of dialogicality allows you to avoid criticism, contributes to prevent mistakes when performing tasks and contributes future specialists to overcome barriers to interpersonal interaction in their professional activities. It is compliance with the principle of dialogicality that allows the university teacher to create an atmosphere of friendliness and responsiveness in the classroom, which positively affects the forming of interethnic tolerance.

. Working in cooperation allows future specialists to improve their interpersonal interaction skills when performing learning situations of professional orientation, creates conditions for accepting both their own successes (failures) and achievements (mistakes) made by other subjects of the educational process in the course of completing educational tasks. Working in cooperation is characterized by the presence of constant feedback between the subjects of the educational process, which, in turn, contributes to the reflection of the future specialist, leads to the correction of their own behavior, motivates further professional growth. Working in cooperation contributes acquiring skills of working in a team by the students, teaches them to work in a multicultural team, which positively affects the formation of inter-ethnic tolerance.

The principle of creativity, from our point of view, contributes to the actualization of previously acquired knowledge, allows future specialists to activate their creative potential. Depending on the type of educational situation while forming the interethnic tolerance and on the specifics of the educational tasks, future specialists get the opportunity to show their creative potential and bring national flavour to the task, to familiarize and interest the subjects of the educational process with the historical heritage, culture and traditions of their nation. Compliance with the principle of creativity, on the one hand, contributes to expand the world-view and increase the interest of students in the cultural heritage of various ethnic groups, on the other hand, helps the university teacher to unite the multicultural student body and integrate the individual into the multicultural educational environment of a modern university.

Conclusion

This article proposes a system of educational situations aimed at developing future specialist interethnic tolerance in the process of preparing for professional work in the university, consists of the following educational situations: the educational situation "Adaptation", the educational situation "Initiation" and the educational situation "Integration".

The development and implementation of the above-mentioned system of educational situations of the formation in a future specialist the interethnic tolerance in the educational process will be effective if a number of principles are observed, namely: the principle of integrity, the principle of subjectivity, the principle of dialogicality, the principle of organizing work in cooperation and the principle of creativity.

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