Development of the National Security Masters’ communicative language ability

Abstract

Knowledge of the English language is very important not only for civil but also for the military personnel because there are a lot of changes in defense relations all over the world and English is the operational language. So, we should focus on high quality training of specialists who are able to work not only under standard conditions, but also to solve professional problems. According to the Ukrainian current legislation, one of the professional competences of border guards is to speak in English while accomplishing duties on the state border. So there is a necessity to analyze methods and ways of organizing the educational process of this category. The article reflects the key issues connected with the educational program of border guards; investigates integral, general and professional competencies and program learning outcomes. The main attention is paid to peculiarities of English for Specific Purposes and its aim to form foreign professional communicative competence according to the NATO Standards at the 2nd level. The hypothesis of our article is that the development of the national security masters’ communicative language ability depends on use of up to day learning methods at the English language lessons. The discipline ESP for border guards training includes such themes: “Conceptual bases of politics and public administration in the sphere of national security and defense of Ukraine”, “Border security of Ukraine”, “Border Security of the USA and EU country-members” and “Conceptual bases of politics and public administration in the sphere of national security and defense of the USA and EU country-members”. The organization of the lesson “Land navigation: map reading” has been discussed and its five-stage plan (introduction, input, practice, production, and conclusion) has been investigated. The information obtained from this paper could be of interest for English for Specific Purposes teaching material developers and foreign language instructors.