Practitioner of Efl for Non-English Major Undergraduates: Specific Professional Needs

Abstract

The paper deals with the problem of forming the methodological competence of a prospective practitioner of EFL for non-English major undergraduates. Foreign language learning environments training English and non-English majors have been comparatively analysed from the point of view of the teaching objective, result, content, process and resources. On the basis of the analysis, specific professional needs of a practitioner of EFL for non-English majors have been singled out. They encompass such components of the practitioner’s professional activity as research, designing, organizing, self-education, and collaboration. Research and designing include students’ educational and job-related needs investigation, academic and professional discourse analysis, teaching objective specification, teaching content selection, course syllabus development, teaching materials selection, adaptation and development. Organizing focuses on the application of the functional approach to EFL acquisition, computer-assisted learning, distance learning, blended learning, content and language integrated learning (CLIL), role plays, business games, simulations, differentiation strategies in the groups with the heterogeneous input level of the students’ intercultural communicative competence and low level of motivation to foreign language learning. Self-education presupposes developing a positive attitude to the students’ field, monitoring the latest news and achievements in it, mastering the basics of the students’ major, its terminology, genre and discourse peculiarities. Collaboration includes cooperation with students, readiness to be corrected by them when a solecism in the subject is made by the practitioner and collaboration with a teacher of the students’ major while selecting the teaching content, designing the course and in team teaching. The singled out peculiarities are to be taken into consideration while designing the structure of the methodological competence of a practitioner of EFL for non-English major undergraduates.

The Multidimensional Role of the English for Specific Purposes Practitioner in Today’s Changing Societies: Voices From Around the Globe

“…In her own general overview of where ESP is heading, Belcher (2004), suggests that ESP pedagogy is developing towards three directions; the sociodiscoursal (research done in the area of situated genre analysis and its implications for the teaching of ESP), sociocultural (relates to cases of immersion in the target situation or simulation in the teaching of ESP), and sociopolitical (the development of social awareness and other skills which learners may transfer in their broader social context). Belcher (2004, p. 177) also stresses the changes that technological developments have brought about in relation to genre studies, since new "cyber-genres" have been created.…”

Postmodern Principles in Integrated Teaching of Foreign Languages and Fine Arts to Primary Learners in the New Ukrainian School

“…Also, it is essential to briefly consider methodological principles of teaching foreign languages and fine arts and highlight some relevant views. Bihych (2018) interprets a methodical competence of foreign language teachers as "a set of methodical knowledge, skills and abilities, subjective and personal qualities, which acts as the ability to design, adapt, organize, motivate, and monitor instructional, cognitive, moral, and developmental aspects of foreign language education for primary learners during both classroom and extracurricular hours in a foreign language through and during communication with pupils" (Bihych, 2018, pp. 1213).…”

“…Ukrainian researchers (Bihych, 2018;Martynova, 2019) believe that the principle of awareness should be implemented from the first foreign language lessons. In this case, this principle is transformed from intuitivelinguistic learning to conscious-linguistic activity, which involves the gradual complication of connections.…”

Prospective Practitioner of Efl as a Non-Major: Constituents and Content of the Methodological Competence

“…To specify the structure and content of the competence we also made a comparative analysis of the learning environments training English and non-English major undergraduates from the point of view of the objective, content, process, resources, and outcome and on its basis singled out the peculiarities of the professional activity of a practitioner of EFL as a non-major (Matsnieva, 2018). The latter encompass  students' academic and professional needs analysis;  specification of job-related spheres and types of communication, functions, psychological and speech situations and roles, non-verbal means of communication;…”