ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 41 (Issue 16) Year 2020. Page 22

Formation of culture-universal competence of non-linguistic specialties students in the process of teaching the English language

Formación de competencia cultural general de estudiantes de especialidades no filológicas en el proceso de estudiar inglés

ZHUMBEI, Marianna M. 1; KOSTIUK, Svitlana S. 2; PALCHYKOVA, Oleksandra O. 3

Received: 23/01/2020 • Approved: 13/04/2020 • Published: 07/05/2020

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Results

4. Conclusions

Bibliographic references

1. Introduction

Public educational policy of Ukraine is characterized by a new tendency, focused on the integration of Ukraine in world educational system, development of cooperation, cultural exchange and, the most important, human-centered orientation where a subject occupies a central position in teaching. His / her individual characteristics, cultural background, interests are taken into account, while a subject-matter has to comply with definite speaker’s intentions according to the sphere of knowledge application.

For modern educational system, which is considered to be polycultural, a typical feature is cultural extension and establishment of contacts with representatives of foreign societies for close partnership in economic, political, cultural, social, educational living activities. At present, Ukraine is assuredly regarded as a centre of cultures crossing, as far as the representatives of multiple countries, whose languages, views, customs, patterns of behaviour, lifestyles cross during knowledge acquisition, are involved in key fields of human activity. In consequence of culture crossing there is a necessity for intercultural communication as an important tool of contacts establishment between representatives of various societies, cognition and cultural exchange.

New social order, which involves learning a foreign language as a means of intercultural competence and molding of the personality, ready to associate with representatives of foreign culture, reflects in a number of program documents of Ukraine: “The Law of Higher Education”, “The National Doctrine for the Development of Education” (2002). Special attention should be paid to legal regulations of the European Union: “The Bologna Declaration on the European space for higher education”, “Common European Guidelines on Language Education: learning, teaching, evaluation”, “The European Language Portfolio”.

The National Strategy of Development of Education in Ukraine for the period up to 2021 puts the development of standards of higher education, oriented towards a competency-based approach, aligned to a new structure of education qualification levels of higher education and the National Qualifications Framework, in the foreground (National Strategy of the Development of Education in Ukraine for 2012-2021). Within 2018–2019 new standards of higher education are being actively developed by the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance. Generally, more than 250 standards have already been developed. New standards of higher education (Standards of higher education, 2019) are grounded on a competency-based approach and take into account requirements for specialists’ training, developed in European Commission Project “Harmonization of educational structures in Europe” (TUNING, 2000).

A concept “competence” is a key one in the developed provisions, and termed as a dynamic combination of knowledge, capabilities, skills, thinking paradigm, views, values, other personal qualities, which specifies person’s ability to successfully socialize, conduct professional or further learning activity (Methodical Recommendations for Higher Education Standard Development, 2019). The competences are divided into three key groups: integral, common, special (professional and subject ones).

The analysis of the Higher Education Standard for specialties 071 “Accounting and taxation”, 073 “Management”, 075 “Marketing”, 122 “Computer sciences”, 131 “Applied mechanics”, 141 “Electric-power engineering, Electrical engineering and Electromechanics”, 242 “Tourism” etc. showed that among common competences the ability to speak a foreign language holds one of key positions. The developers of the standard place an emphasis on the importance of the formation of the capability to preserve and increase moral, cultural, scientific values and society’s achievements based on the interpretation of history and laws of development of a subject area.

Hence, the target of education is personality’s social, cultural, career development, aimed at effective life-sustaining activity.

Successful teaching of a foreign language depends primarily on person’s language proficiency, which envisages abilities to create coherent statements in educational and professional field concisely deliver the content of the material previously read or heard to inform the setting, ask and adequately prehend messages, express one’s opinion and maintain one’s attitude. Concurrently, communication practice testifies that knowledge of phonetic and lexical-grammatical language building is not enough for effective interaction between representatives of diverse cultures. The important factor of entering into and keeping productive cooperation is cultural immersion, which considers becoming familiar with history of the country whose language is being learnt, cultural norms, values, rules of non-verbal behaviour, psychological characteristics of native speakers etc. That is why the aim of teaching a foreign language is not so much that to acquaint students with the rules of language units use, it is that to prepare them for intercultural contacts: to teach to understand and accept cultural diversity, to acquire new culture by means of language, prepare for intercultural and interpersonal communication. Command of knowledge and abilities for a language and culture, ability to ascertain differences which prevent understanding during communication, will become the key to successful person’s development in multicultural environment.

Taking into consideration the fact that the primary goal of teaching at HEE is training of highly competitive specialists, establishment of common culture through the acquisition of knowledge about culture achievements and understanding, perceiving of universal human values, which is impossible in modern world without mastering new ways of accumulation, transformation and transmission of competence cultural property, guarantees future specialists’ preparation for intercultural business situations, taking into account intercultural discrepancies, common features of cultures for choosing communication strategies and tactics in intercultural business relationships.

The analysis of the concept “culture-universal competence” allowed to conclude that this term is considered by scientists as:

– cognition, experience in the area of national and universal human culture, moral fundamentals of person’s and humanity’s life, cultural basics of family, social, common phenomena and traditions, role of culture and religion in individual’s life, their influence on the world; experience of acquisition of scientific worldview, which expands up to cultural and universal understanding of the world (Khutorskoy, 2003);

– integrative person’s capability, conditioned by the experience of acquisition of cultural space, level of learn ability, social training and development, aimed at using cultural paragons as evaluation criteria while solving cognitive, worldview, vital, job-related problems (Troyanskaya, 2004);

– personality’s basic competence, which provides its inclusion in the space of world culture and self-identification in it, application of job-related knowledge and abilities in activity, mastering speaking etiquette norms and literary language, also international speaking culture and ability to orient oneself within social medium (Nigmatzyanova, 2014).

Taking into account the definitions introduced, it becomes evident that culture-universal competence is a framework for forming professionalism, person’s occupational mobility, it forms a man of culture as a culture-bearer and creator, determines his / her active life-sustaining activity, harmonizes inner world, and facilitates tolerance building.

In the context of the research of the scientists (F. Boas, V. Humboldt, Е. Sapir, S. Ter-Minasova, B. Whorf) language and culture are equal and interdependent life spheres, language accumulates and fixes national culture, specific visions in diverse fields. Consequently, teaching of the English language with regard for cultural component promotes molding the personality, able to engage in a dialogue of cultures.

Hence, taking into consideration the scientists’ thoughts, in our follow-up study we will operate the following definitions of the culture-universal competence of a future specialist: specialist’s basic competence, person’s integrative quality, readiness for professional engagement in multicultural society. The essence and structure of a culture-universal competence depend on a type of a person’s professional engagement. The common feature of a culture-universal competence for all types of professional engagement is a culture of communication, readiness for dialogue in polycultural communicative space.

In the structure of a culture-universal competence M. Rozov defines such components as: informative (comprehension of situation in the context of cultural patterns, understanding, relationships, and assessment); problem-operational (adequacy of detection of situation, setting and accomplishing goals, discharging tasks and norms under certain circumstances); communicative (adequate communication within cultural context) (Rozov, 1992).

S. Troyanskaya defined a three-component structure of the competence afore-referenced. Cognitive component includes a complex of knowledge, intellectual elements, which are acquired while learning and understanding. Value-orientational component provides inclusion in culture as a transfer of values through emotional experience during spiritual communication. Communicative-operational component has operational-behavioural orientation, which implies preservation and transfer of social experience through ways of human activity (Troyanskaya, 2004).

А. Krasnoshchok advanced an idea that a culture-universal competence of a prospective law enforcement officer is a professionally significant integrative personal quality, which combines motivational and axiological, cognitive, operational and emotional components, which provide the unity of common and professional culture and defines a subject’s ability to orient themselves within modern sociocultural space (Krasnoshchok, 2014).

In view of the fact that the culture of a person is a product of its action, and being aware of the factors that stipulate the character of a person’s future action, namely: values that incline towards active creative activity, meanings of activity, attitude to environment, experience of activity, traditions and customs of its application, – we defined such structure of a culture-universal competence of non-linguistic specialties students as: cognitive, moral, communicative, intercultural competences.

Cognitive competence reflects the culture of cognition and world reflection and is based on a specialist’s awareness of science, religion, creativity. It covers:

– skills of research, processing, analysis of information from a variety of sources;

– creative use of information regarding cultural aspect of professional situation;

– capability for self-education and self-development;

– comprehension of the value of cultural knowledge for further professional occupation.

Moral competence, grounded on the culture of social organization and regulation, interpersonal interaction comprises:

– attitude to various styles of organization, management and leadership;

– capability to ensure a favourable social psychological climate in the team for high-quality solving of production problems;

– capability to harmonize relations.

Communicative competence involves business protocol, formed information culture for applying in professional occupation. The key characteristics of the component indicated are as follows:

– openness to communication, communicative tolerance, language capabilities, verbal communication skills and non-verbal behaviour, capability for improving the level of language proficiency;

– capability for accumulation of job-related sociocultural experience, enforcement of exchange of cultural information, social and occupational experience;

– development of creativity due to transfer of notions, ideas and work methods from one subject area into another one (Bakum, Morozova, 2015).

Intercultural competence, related to the capability of orienting in various types of cultures, value systems, translating into practice cultural knowledge, adapting to the conditions of other culture, cooperation with the representatives of other cultures. The component specified implies:

– comprehension of non-verbal means for correct message interpretation;

– use of expressive means of foreign language in the process of intercultural communication;

– application of knowledge of foreign peoples’ culture and values within intercultural communication for achieving its results;

– positive perception of differences in cultural values, norms of the representatives of other linguistic-cultural societies;

– capability to estimate the correspondence of one’s conduct to universal moral norms, to reconcile inconsistencies to these norms.

The aim of the paper is to substantiate both theoretical and practical aspects connected with the necessity to develop culture-universal competence while teaching the English language.

The research took place at SHEE “Precarpathian National University named after Vasyl Stefanik”, Kryvyi Rih National University, The Dnipro Polytechnic National Technical University. A total of 200 students (4 control groups and 4 experimental ones) were involved in the experiment. To obtain accurate results all students had approximately the same level and conditions of studying so, students were divided into groups in a random manner.

The first stage of the experiment aimed at exploring the current state of the process of formation of culture-universal competence of future specialists to shape the trends of its further improvement. There was performed a questionnaire to identify the students’ attitude to cultural aspect while learning a language. The questionnaire results testified that 46% of students consider learning of the English language significant for future profession, instead, professional experience in polycultural environment, tolerance and respect for others, knowledge of history, culture of Ukraine and other states were not supposed by the students as significant for further professional engagement (their index accounted for from 7 to 1).

The second stage involved the implementation of the developed structure-functional model of shaping culture-universal competence while training of non-linguistic specialties students. The model is based on the assumption that the formation of the competence mentioned while teaching the English language is possible provided cultural and humanistic discipline orientation, and also by means of the development of motivational and communicative constituents of learning process. To adjust the quality of a cognitive, moral, communicative and intercultural competence to the process of teaching future specialists the English language, a collection of materials “Сrossing cultural barriers” was used. Its content is focused on the development of language personality, who consciously analyzes and compares cultural discrepancies to avoid barriers in communication.

The third stage covered testing and questioning of the participants of the experiment, which aimed to define the efficiency of the model proposed and dynamics of growth of culture-universal competence. To diagnose students’ openness to dialogue and their communicative tolerance V. Boiko’s technique was used (Boiko, 2008), the level of formedness of moral competence was measured in conformity with R. Quinn’s and K. Cameron’s questionnaire (Cameron, Quinn, 2011).

Cognitive competence is presented by reproductive communicative tasks, oriented to increase students’ insight into peculiarities of behaviour of communication participants, communicative strategies and rules. The instruction to the tasks was as follows: “Look at the pictures, describe how people greet each other”, “Study the information from the table. What does the demand for workplaces depend on? Give arguments”, “Make questions to the interview “How the youth spend their leisure. Role-play the interview with your group mates” and productive communicative exercises (game “Debates”. Form two groups. Prove or disprove the statement: “Environmental disaster – fiction or real threat?”).

To form moral competence it is important to pay attention to person’s evaluative attitude to the culture of their own / foreign people. Due to productive communicative exercises it is possible to entirely present sense perception of cultural discrepancies and determine the level of intercultural interaction. The instructions to productive communicative exercises are represented in such a way: “Give answers to the questions. What should a fiancé / fiancée do in Ireland? Complete the table”; “Which qualities are important / unimportant to a man / woman in Asian countries? Choose five words which most commonly characterize a man / woman in Europe. Pay attention to the flections”. Among the advantages of these tasks are as follows: the possibility to make value judgements about the cultural sphere of Ukraine and other countries, using one’s own real-world examples or inspecting the conduct of the representatives of native and foreign cultures. Through this process, personal views of this or other culture and its representatives are formed.

Formation of communicative competence became possible due to the implementation of reproductive non-communicative, productive conditionally-communicative, productive communicative exercises. Thus, the development of skills of establishing and maintaining intercultural contacts, selection of verbal / non-verbal means of information transmission, application of appropriate style of communication in compliance with person’s social status or definite situation is feasible due to the use of reproductive non-communicative exercises with instructions: “Write down what one can and can not do in Ukraine and Israel on Easter / Pesah”. Productive conditionally-communicative exercises: “Explain to your friend, what it is necessary to know, when you pay a visit in Germany”; “Your acquaintance wants to go to Azerbaijan. Give him some advice on what one has to do during greetings; what talismans and clothes to take along; what dishes to taste”. Productive communicative: “What is it desirable / undesirable to talk about while greeting in Ukraine and Great Britain? Write down and tell”; “Describe the New Year’s symbols in the USA and Ukraine. Compare them.”

The development of all the skills specified takes place within dialogical speech. For example, while preparing a topic “Teaching at higher educational establishments” it is proposed to role-play the dialogue: one should imagine themselves students and help their foreign mates to find out about customs and rules of studying. Afterwards it is worthwhile asking about youth organizations in interlocutor’s native country.

The tasks in question foster the increase of person’s motivation, since the instructions to them make to ponder (“Imagine…”, “Tell a group mate…”, “Explain to your friend…”, “Ask your group mate…”, “Give some advice to your group mate…”), have situational character and incline to dialogical interaction. Besides, the participants not only reproduce a dialogue, using a definite vocabulary and speech patterns, but emotionally experience the situation, personating other natives, trying to understand their character’s direction in thinking, emulate their behavior, taking into consideration a system of cultural values and reactions to the situations relevant to them.

The development of intercultural competence took place providing the use of reproductive non-communicative, productive conditionally-communicative, productive communicative exercises. To master fundamentals of non-verbal behaviour (gestures, mimics, postural poses, look, handshaking, body touching, ways of using time and space during communication), etiquette patterns of communication and becoming acquainted with specifics of national character of foreign nationalities, such exercises were used as: reproductive non-communicative with instructions: “Complete the table”, where one needs to fill in the columns with names: “Words of greeting”, “Words of farewell”, “Greeting gestures”, “Farewell gestures”; “Write about similar and distinctive features of business negotiations in Ukraine and African countries”. Productive conditionally-communicative exercises: “Work in turns. Imagine, you’re a British. Ask your friend from Ukraine…”. Productive communicative: “Find 3 phrases, which are written on clothes in your country. Tell, what they mean”; “Ask your friend to an office party”; “Make a topic-based dialogue “An interview with a prospective employer…” (note, that the employer is a representative of a polyactive culture) (Bakum, Palchykova, Коstiuk, 2019).

The implementation of experimental technique facilitated changing students’ priorities regarding their subsequent professional engagement. Thus, the students determine it necessary in prospect to learn a foreign language (was 46%, and became 56%). Still, there was formed the understanding that a prospective specialist can not be successful, if he / she is not tolerant, respectful towards others (the index changed from 35% to 83%). Understanding of the necessity for tolerant behaviour preconditioned the significance of such qualities, as knowledge of history and culture of the region, where professional activities will take place (was 21%, and became 53%), and work experience in polycultural society (was 27%, became 55%). Such changes in understanding of the priorities of future professional engagement and specialist’s preferential qualities are explained by the increase of level of formedness of culture-universal competence and the vision of a future profession as a culturally expedient activity.

Figure 1 explains changes in students’ priorities regarding their subsequent professional engagement.

Figure 1
Changes in students’ priorities regarding
their subsequent professional engagement

Thuswise the results of the final assessment and their comparison with the results of the search assessment afforded ground for assertion that the proposed technique of teaching the English language, enriched with cultural content proved its effectiveness. The discipline cultural orientation facilitated the development of positive motivation to form culture-universal competence, set the stage for value-based, tolerant treatment of the representatives of other nationalities, increased insight into cultural-reasonable focusing on future profession.

During the diagnosis of a cognitive component of culture-universal competence of the students the diagnostic assessment checklists (for self-assessment and expert assessment) made by the authors were used. The following criteria were measured:  ability to search, process and analyse information; self-education and self-development abilities; to use information creatively; to understand the importance of cultural knowledge for mastering a foreign language. According to the results of the final assessment, the skills of research, processing, analysis of information from various sources are approximately similar for all the students (ЕG – 86 scores, CG – 84 scores, searching stage – 88 scores), which indicates working experience with electronic search resources. The students have no essential discrepancies upon the parameter “capability to self-education and self-development” (ЕG – 83 scores, CG – 78 scores, searching stage – 79 scores), which points out that the students, having everyday necessity for self-guided work on the subject mastered this type of activity at a sufficient level.

The significant discrepancies of the survey findings are observed upon the parameters “creative use of information with regard for cultural aspect of professional situation” and “understanding of the value of professional and cultural knowledge for acquiring the English language”. In particular, the CG students scored on average 46 for the shaped skills of creative use of information, taking into account its cultural value and expedience in certain scenarios. Besides, the CG students and those, who took part in searching experiment, did not understand to the full how a person can apply cultural knowledge while building up a dialogical statement, at which point this parameter of cognitive competence scored 32 and 48 respectively.

The final assessment results provided evidence of positive dynamics in formation of cognitive competence of prospective specialists. In the aftermath of the teaching experiment the number of students who reached the sufficient level of cognitive competence (80.9% in EG compared to 3.6% in searching experiment and 2.70% in CG) increased. Neither of the EG students was at the insufficient level at the end of teaching, compared to the CG students (56.3%) and during the searching stage (55.4%).

During the final assessment there were compared the results of the diagnosis of a moral component of culture-universal competence of the students who study at control and experimental groups with those ones, obtained in the process of searching experiment.

To evaluate the culture of social management and regulation and the culture of interpersonal interaction (moral component) the techniques developed by Cameron K. and Quinn R. (Cameron, Quinn, 2011) and Leary T. (Leary, 2004) were used respectively. Thus, the culture of social management and regulation was assessed in low scores both within control (15 scores) and experimental (23 scores) groups during the searching experiment, instead, by this criterion of culture-universal competence the average score of the EG students was 76. Significant changes are observed in EG by other criteria of moral competence. Thus, the culture of interpersonal interaction in experimental groups was scored 83 on average, while in control group – only 44, and during the searching experiment – 45. Such discrepancies in parameters of moral competence demonstrate that it cannot be formed spontaneously and demands elaborate working out.

In view of this, the experimental technique positively influenced the formation of students’ moral competence: its high level was reached by 74.5% of EG students compared to 3.6% of CG students and 1.8% of respondents during the searching stage. Instead, 63.6 % of CG students appeared at the insufficient level of moral competence, which demonstrates insignificant changes compared to a searching stage (67.3%).

The level of formedness of communicative component of culture-universal competence was assessed according to Boiko’s method (Boiko, 2008). The results showed that this component of EG students is rather well-developed. They received 88 scores for culture of communication and communicative tolerance, whereas the students of the control group received 50 scores and during the searching experiment – 43 scores. The capability to improve the level of language proficiency, language and speaking skills of students of experimental groups was assessed in 90 scores, in the control group – 88 scores and during the searching experiment – 48 scores. The situation is explained by the fact that the modern educational process in the institutions of higher education is impossible without application of information and communication technologies and Internet resources. The experimental teaching technique is rich in creative professionally-oriented and culturally-centered tasks. It requires constant use of information and communication technologies by the students of experimental groups that resulted in a high level of capability to accumulate professional sociocultural experience to exchange cultural information and professional skills.

The results showed that 77.2 % of EG students have a high level of formedness of communicative competence, whereas the CG students demonstrated 4.5% and the participants of the research experiment – 5.5% as well. The EG students are not at the insufficient level of communicative competence, although this level was peculiar to 74.5% of respondents of the searching stage. The CG students (71.8%) are at the insufficient level of formedness of communicative competence (Zhumbei, 2016).

The diagnosis of intercultural component was performed on the basis of the method developed by Solodka A (Solodka, 2015). It allows identifying the respondents’ motivation and interest to use knowledge about culture of other nations to communicate effectively. Without getting into specifics, we presented the results of the formation of the intercultural component of culture-universal competence. According to the results of the final assessment by the parameter “capability to use the expressive potential of the English language during intercultural communication” 12.7% of EG students and 28.7% of CG students showed the insufficient level of formedness, 58.2% of EG students and 59.3% of CG students – the sufficient level, 29.1% of EG students and 12.0% of CG students – the high level.

The capability to use knowledge about culture and values of other peoples to achieve results in the process of intercultural communication was estimated as follows: 15.8% of EG students showed the insufficient level of formedness, 55.7% – the sufficient level, 28.5% – the high level. The CG students demonstrated the following results: 31.3 % are at the insufficient level of formedness, 60.0 % – at the sufficient level, and 8.7 % – at the high level.

Substantial changes took place by the parameter “positive perception of differences of other peoples”. The test results showed that 15.8% of EG students demonstrated the insufficient level of formedness, 58.9% – the sufficient level, and 25.3% – the high level. In the control group the insufficient level of formedness was shown by 36.7% of students, the sufficient level – by 52.7%, the high one – by 10.6%.

The capability to assess own activities in compliance with universal values and moral standards was estimated as follows: the insufficient level was demonstrated by 20.3% of EG students and by 38.0% of CG students. The sufficient level was shown by 47.5% of EG students and by 45.3% of CG students. The high level was displayed by 32.2% of EG students and 16.7% of CG students.

The application of the proposed technique resulted in the improvement of the level of intercultural competence. The high level was demonstrated by 28.7% of EG students and 12.0% of CG students; the participants of the searching experiment showed 12.3%. The parameters of the sufficient level of EG and CG students were 55.1% and 54.3%. The insufficient level was shown by 16.2% of EG students and by 33.7% of CG students, the participants at the searching stage showed 26.2%.

Table 1 explains the distribution of the students according to their levels of formedness of culture-universal competence after the introduction of proposed technique.

Table 1
Culture-universal competence of non-linguistic specialties students
(comparative data of search and final assessment, %)

Based on the analysis of the components of culture-universal competence the levels of its formedness were determined. The high level of culture-universal competence was shown by the students with high parameters of cognitive, moral, communicative and intercultural competences. The students who had three in four competences formed at the high level were also referred to this level. To the sufficient level of formedness of culture-universal competence refer those students who had sufficient level of formedness of four components. To the insufficient level belonged those students who had the insufficient level of formedness of three components of culture-universal competence.

The results of the final stage of the experiment showed positive changes in personal and professional qualities of non-linguistic specialties students. Among 200 students who took part in the teaching experiment, the high level of culture-universal competence was shown by 149 students (74.5%), the sufficient level was demonstrated by 51 students (25.5%), in terms of cognitive, moral and communicative competences the insufficient level was not determined. However, 16.2% of EG students and 33.7% of CG students are at the insufficient level of formedness of intercultural competence.

Modern technique of teaching foreign languages is focused on the necessity for including cultural material in syllabus. Thus, the development of culture-universal competence is crucial in the process of mastering foreign languages by an individual. The process involves the comparison of value, normative, moral, language and cultural systems, within which similar and distinguishing features are examined. Therefore, the main aim of education is to get the personality involved in the culture.

Nowadays a person cannot develop himself / herself within national borders only as a large number of countries collaborate in the context of economic integration. Hence, the cultural exchange increases and makes it possible to understand the cultural peculiarities of one nationality by another, prevent problems and conflicts of understanding between people and states.

The development of culture-universal competence in the process of teaching English non-linguistic specialties students which focuses on values of civil society and a free, creative person is the key factor of higher education modernization since the cultural component of education is aimed at a personality, development of his / her feelings, interests, and abilities.

1. Department of Foreign Languages and Country Studies, Faculty of Tourism, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, E-mail:  marja-iva@ukr.net

2. Department of foreign languages. Kryvyi Rih National University. E-mail: skostyukss@gmail.com

3. Department of English Philology. Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University. E-mail: apalchykova@ukr.net