CC BY
23
УДК 378
FORMATION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF PR SPECIALISTS ON THE BASIS OF AUDIOVISUAL MEANS
E.P. Komarova, N.N. Turkina
This paper describes the usage of audiovisual content requirements in the process of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists. For the purpose of successful foreign language communicative competence development the model of foreign language communicative competence development is presented. It includes the genre peculiarities of audiovisual news content, the components, pedagogical conditions and the assessment of the level of foreign language communicative competence formation. The experience has been undertaken during three academic years in two groups of PR specialists at Voronezh State Technical University. The results of the experience and the propriety of audiovisual news content usage for foreign language communicative competence acquirement are proved
Key words: Foreign language communicative competence, audiovisual news content, public relations
The integration process of Russian higher education into the world's educational system, the increase of contacts with foreign countries due to the global economic processes raise the problem of students' foreign language communicative competence development. This leads to the changes in standards of the Russian state professional education. The introduction of the new state educational standards (so-called "the third generation standards") assumes the appearances and focus on competences - general (basic) and professional - where the foreign language communicative competence development relates to the group of basic (general) competences. This fact emphasizes the vital importance of foreign language communicative competence development due to the present economic, political, social and cultural contacts with foreign countries. [1,2]
It is necessary to have a high level of foreign language communicative competence for participation in the intercultural communication. The foreign language communicative competence is not the equivalent of communicative competence because the conditions and psychological mechanisms of the native and foreign languages learning are not similar. Foreign language communicative competence is a certain level of foreign language fluency, which presupposes the knowledge and following the standards and patterns of foreign people behavior, the ability to understand authentic texts and extract professionally significant information, operation of foreign-language terminology, finding, analyzing, usage of the information from different foreign sources including multimedia. The foreign language communicative competence consists of several components: linguistics, sociolinguistic, sociocultural, strategic and discourse competences. In pedagogical research sometimes several more components of foreign language communicative competence are distinguished: social, pragmatic and autolinguadidactic competence. [3]
The concept of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation until 2020, the RF Law 'On
Комарова Эмилия Павловна - ВГТУ, д-р пед. наук, профессор, e-mail: vivtkmk@mail.ru
Туркина Наталья Николаевна - ВГТУ, аспирант, e-mail: vivtkmk@mail.ru
education', 'National doctrine of education in the Russian Federation (for the period up to 2025)', The Concept of the information society formation in Russia', 'The Concept of Informatization of education' and other state documents reflect the need for Internet and TV resources usage, development of electronic textbooks, computer learning programs. The use of authentic audiovisual news in the process of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists is one of the promising ways to enhance the activity of the students, to prepare the learners for real communicative situations and to produce competitive person, ready for continuous professional growth, social and professional mobility, creativity, openness to innovation, readiness for constant work, self-education and development. In Russian and foreign literature questions of the competence approach in education are revealed in the works of Verbitsky, Zeer, Zimnyaya. Questions and problems of listening comprehension are thoroughly investigated but most of the research is devoted to the secondary school (Vaisburd, Luchina, Kochanowski). Some individual problems of listening comprehension are considered, such as listening to monological and dialogical texts (Satin,Llihobabin) or public-political texts (Alekseeva, Eremina, Konoshonok). These studies contribute to the accumulation and systematization of scientific information about listening and comprehension but the aspect of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR-specialists through listening audiovisual news is examined for the first time. The necessity of studying the problem of formation of foreign language communicative competence PR-specialists by listening audiovisual news was caused by contradictions between necessity of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists and the absence of the developed model, allowing to carry out this process effectively; personality-developing potential of listening to audiovisual news and its clearly insufficient application in the educational process; the necessity to evaluate the level of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists and the absence of criteria and indicators to determine it. [4,5]
The scientific research allowed to develop the pedagogical model which identifies the pedagogical
Table 1
Question Answer Percentage/Score
What is your attitude to the usage of TV and internet resources for foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists Extremely positive Positive 50% 46,4%
Which audiovisual news content seems to you the most difficult? Politics Culture and Science Sport Weather broadcast 3,2 (max - 4) 2.26 2.14 1.1
What are the advantages of audiovisual news content for foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists? The presence of video The cover of the main world news The presence of the most frequently used words of English language 44.4% 24% 28.8%
How often should we use audiovisual news content in the process of foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists? Every lesson Once in two lessons 35,7% 64.3%
In other words, the audiovisual news content
conditions, purpose, structure, basic approaches, principles, units, methods, implementation stages and levels of foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists. The theoretical analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, the last research in this field helped to define the structure of foreign language communicative competence formation, the pedagogical conditions, requirements to audiovisual news content and work out the model of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists. [6]
Methodological basis of the research were the following approaches: systematic, competence, personality-oriented, contextual, problem-modular, communicative. The research methods applied are theoretical (analysis of Russian and foreign psycho-pedagogical literature; systematization of materials related to the research, forecasting, modeling), experiential (the survey, the method of expert estimates, the pedagogical experiment, methods of mathematical statistics and data processing).[7]
This study presents the results of implementing the model of foreign language communicative competence of PR specialists via audiovisual news content and the specific requirements to audiovisual content in the process of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists. The experiment has been run during three consecutive academic years in two groups of PR specialty (№081, 091) at Voronezh State Technical University. The foreign language communicative competence development via audiovisual news content was an optional subject taught starting from the first year of education. Nevertheless, all 25 students preferred to take part in the experiment and improve their level of foreign language communicative competence.
At the beginning of the semester the importance of foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists is explained. The most complicated issue of the foreign language communicative competence development is the perception of audio information. This fact is confirmed by the data obtained by the questionnaire survey done at random sampling among student at Voronezh State Technical University. Students place the problem of understanding audio texts to the first position commenting that listening tasks seem to them the most difficult. The students often experience such problems as unknown words and expressions, unintelligible manner of pronunciation, the absence of any assumptions and expectations about the text. Authentic audiovisual news content has got a number of features which can help successfully cope with the problems and develop a high level of foreign language communicative competence. [8]
Most students regard TV and internet resources for foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists as the most productive. Here are some responses of the students revealed in table 1:
seem to the students appropriate and important for foreign language communicative competence development.
The research comprises the examples on news content of different topics (Politics, Emergency, Culture, Sport, Economics, Medicine and ect.) The study of audiovisual foreign language news content let make the glossary which reflects the most frequently used vocabulary and the changes that are going on in the language. Students are introduced to the basic forms audiovisual news content: short information (up to 30 seconds). It may be accompanied by 'live' sounds, fragments of the interview, reports, stand-ups, and etc.
The model of foreign language communicative competence development via audiovisual news content assumes three stages. On the first stage - the genre, lexical and grammatical features of authentic audiovisual materials are explained. The grammatical group of Simple tenses is revised. During the first year of education the student get acquainted with the main peculiarities of news content. The short information (up to one minute) is presented. The task is to get the main idea.
In the second year the students study the glossary of terms, specific expressions and abbreviations. They should be able to answer to W-questions (who, when, why, what (for), where, and how, how many (much). The grammatical constructions of Continuous and Perfect group are considered. The audiovisual information can be up to 2 minutes.
On the third step the students ought to be ready to use the foreign language communicative competence for getting their professional goals: image creation, presentations making and negotiations conducting in foreign language, preparation of press releases, etc.
However, the successful formation of the foreign communicative competence of PR specialist via audiovisual news content is possible only in case of obeying certain requirements to audiovisual news information. To select the proper audiovisual material
one should take into account the content, structure and length of audiovisual content. The main requirement to the audio texts are being authentic, in accordance with the topic of the lesson, new and not more than 2,5 minute-length. One more point is pre-listening and listening activities.
Pre-listening, while (and post) -listening exercises help cope with difficulties of audiovisual news content perception. They are presents in table 2.
Table 2
Exercises
Pre-listening Listening
Keyword (repetition of the new words and translation) General comprehension of the audiovisual news content
Necessary words (names personal and geographic, abbreviations and ect.) Generally detailed comprehension of the audiovisual news content
Recognition of grammatical constructions Additionally detailed comprehension of the audiovisual news content
Focus on interjections and compound sentences
Anticipations of the coming audiovisual news content
The exercises of the first group are intended at potential language difficulties removal. Pre-listening exercises let the students learn the keywords, vital phrases, personal and geographical names, abbreviations, dates, introductory words and expressions, numerals, international words; deal with grammatical structures and compound sentences. They may also allow students to guess the main topic of the coming audiovisual news information.
Exercises of the second group are aimed at retrieving general, detailed and additional information from an audiovisual news content. It presupposes the readiness to divide the text into parts and title them, match the content of the audio news with various diagrams, drawings, formulas and schemes and etc.
Regarding the questionnaire of the students, the course of foreign language communicative competence development via audiovisual news content of PR specialists raised the level of its formation and made them feel more confident and professional. Before implementing of the model of the foreign language communicative competence students were asked to estimate their level of foreign language communicative competence. At the beginning of the first semester most respondents (42,8%) assessed their level of foreign language communicative competence as 'pre-intermediate', the rest students' answers divided equally between 'elementary' and 'intermediate' (28% - each group).
The main targets of experimental work were: the implementation of the model of foreign language communicative competence development via audiovisual news content of PR specialists on the basis of the competence approach, obeying of the pedagogical conditions, raise the level of foreign language communicative competence development of PR specialists, find the drawbacks of the model and formulate the ways of their elimination.
The experimental work was carried out by three stages. During the time of ascertaining experiment two groups - experimental and control - were determined. To
assess the level of foreign language communicative competence development among PR specialists correctly some auditive news abstracts with a list of listening exercises were offered to complete and three levels of foreign language communicative competence development were considered.
The basic level of foreign language communicative competence development involves the capability to understand the main idea of the audiovisual news information and the knowledge the grammar constructions of Simple time group. Adaptive level is characterized by the ability of students to answer five W questions - who, when, why, what (for), where, and how, how many (much) after audiovisual news material presented only once, knowledge of most grammar rules. Advanced level means the full understanding of the audiovisual news information and readiness to present your own press releases, pieces of news, stand-ups and reports. The advanced level is characterized by successful usage of foreign language communicative competence for the decision of the professional targets, self-perfection, adequate level of self-esteem , mobility, initiative, personal potential realization.
The result gained through the ascertaining experiment showed that most students of both groups have well-formed linguistic and communicative competence. It means that even with a basic level of foreign language communicative competence PR students try to communicate and explain themselves.
A formative experiment in the experimental group was targeted at the developed pedagogical model introduction of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR students in educational process. For the experiment variable (contents, forms, methods and means of teaching) and invariant (the number of hours spent on activities, strategic objective) variables were defined. Classes took place between September and May in ordinary lesson time in accordance with the schedule. The experiment for each group lasted for 68 weeks (4 semesters). In the experimental group the formation of foreign language communicative competence through listening audiovisual news was organized on the basis of the developed model, the blocks of the program of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR students and modules of the news media.
The results of the formative experiment are presented in the chart. So the level of formation of foreign language communicative competence levels (basic, adaptive, and advanced) in the experimental group was 82%, 18% and 0%, and in the control group 84%, 15% and 1%, accordingly.
As can be seen in the experimental group of PR students the results underwent significant changes: the number of students with low level of development of foreign language communicative competence decreased. In General, there is significant growth of students with adaptive level of formation of foreign language communicative competence. Now in the experimental group the data was distributed in the following way: 20% of students with a basic level of formation of foreign language communicative competence, 78% - with an
adaptive level, 2% - with an advanced level. The formation of socio-cultural, sociolinguistic, strategic and discursive competence significantly improved. In comparison with the beginning of the experiment a lot has changed: many students who were on a basic level of foreign language communicative competence formation moved to the group with adaptive or advanced level of foreign language communicative competence of formation by the end of the course. In the control group there had also been positive changes, but they are not so evident and significant: 76% of the students had the basic level, 23% - adaptive, 1% still kept the advanced level of development of foreign language communicative competence.
0% 50% 100%
development in case of following the requirements to the audiovisual content considered in the article.
References
1. Golubeva T. (2004) Application of information technologies in teaching foreign language. Orenburg.
2.MamontovA., Mann E.(2010). PR 100 %: How to become a good Manager. - M: Alpina publishers,. (35-126).
3. Serastanova N. (2012) Development of personal skills of future economists based on telecommunications project (2540) State educational standards of the third generation at http://www.edu.ru
4. Turkina N. (2011) The Model of Foreign Language communicative competence development via audiovisual news program for PR students. Science Prospect № 11(26)2011, Tambov, Russia, (36-39)
5. Turkina N. (2013) The use of information resources in the process of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists. Vestnik, Voronezh (109-112)
6.Zakharova I. (2005). Information technologies in education. M: Publishing center 'Academy'.
7. Komarova EP Psychological and pedagogical features of intellectual development of students in the context of competency paradigm / EP Komarova // Vestnik of Voronezh State Technical University. - 2012. - V.8 . - №10.2 -P 25-27 .
8. Komarova EP Emotional context of communication as a factor in social - moral personality development / EP Komarova // Vestnik of Voronezh State Technical University. - 2013 - V.9 . - №3.2 - P 160-163 .
The results of experimental work confirmed the effectiveness of the developed model foreign language communicative competence of formation through audiovisual news content of PR students, the research identified pedagogical conditions and the requirements to the audiovisual news materials and proving the usage of audiovisual news information in the educational process effective for foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists.
The research done determined the structure of foreign language communication competence; showed that the implementation of the model of foreign language communicative competence formation through listening audiovisual news content increases the level of its development among PR students; identified pedagogical conditions that contribute to the effective formation of foreign language communicative competence; formulated and experimentally tested the requirements to audio-visual news content for the purpose of successful foreign language communicative competence formation of PR students.
There are some more advantages of news programs usage for teaching purposes: video which makes the situation close to a real communication; presence of certain topics that usually repeat from one news broadcast to another and guarantee the learning of certain vocabulary, frequently used phrases and expressions, grammar constructions, abbreviations. Therefore, audiovisual news programs may be considered as one of the most appropriate source for successful foreign language communicative competence
Voronezh State Technical University
FORMATION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF PR SPECIALISTS ON THE BASIS OF AUDIOVISUAL MEANS
E.P. Komarova, N.N. Turkina
This paper describes the usage of audiovisual content requirements in the process of foreign language communicative competence formation of PR specialists. For the purpose of successful foreign language communicative competence development the model of foreign language communicative competence development is presented. It includes the genre peculiarities of audiovisual news content, the components, pedagogical conditions and the assessment of the level of foreign language communicative competence formation. The experience has been undertaken during three academic years in two groups of PR specialists at Voronezh State Technical University. The results of the experience and the propriety of audiovisual news content usage for foreign language communicative competence acquirement are proved.
Key words: Foreign language communicative competence, audiovisual news content, public relations
