The Model of Promoting Professional and Communicative Foreign Language Competence of Future Engineers

Abstract

The article presented concerns the problem of improving the quality of professional training being one of the main objectives of policy-makers, managers and practitioners working in the field of higher education.Scientific and technical cooperation and international business expansion mean that the demand for professional and foreign language communicative competence has increased in recent years. The growing need for engineering specialists with professional and foreign language communicative competence makes the current research topical and relevant.We see the professional competence of the engineer as a complex integral phenomenon, including a wide range of components with knowledge, skills, personal qualities, ways of thinking, taking responsibility for the actions constituting the basis.The purpose of our study is to provide a theoretical review and experimentally test the model of promoting professional and foreign language communicative competence of future engineers at University. Our research was conducted on the basis of Minin Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University (Russia), 120 students majoring in engineering taking part in the experiment.To assess the reached level of professional foreign language communicative competence, we have developed criteria describing value and motivation, cognitive and activity, reflexive and creativity spheres of the personality, each component of professional foreign language communicative competence manifested at elementary, functional and advanced levels. The received results with the described criteria prove that the developed model has a positive impact on promoting professional and foreign language communicative competence of future engineers.