Development of Professional Intercultural Strategic Competency of Non-Linguistic Students

Аuthors

Kuznetsov A. N.

Chair of Foreign Languages and Culture Studies, Academy of Professional Development and Re-Training of Educators, 8, Golovinskoye shosse, Moscow, 125212, Russia

e-mail: andremos@inbox.ru

Abstract

Introduction

The current situation in the Russian and international job markets — with their business internationalization challenges — requires certain revision of both the content and methods of tertiary non-linguistic education. Thus, there is the progressing issue of the development of what the author termed to be ‘the professional intercultural strategic competency of non-linguistic students’ (PISCoNoLiS) which is scrutinized in the present paper.

Research Questions

The research work was based on a sequence of research questions:

1. What are the rationale and the research background of PISCoNoLiS?

2. What should be the components of PISCoNoLiS?

3. What should be the efficient methods, environments and resources for the development of PISCoNoLiS?

Theoretical Background

The research is backgrounded a number the previous research projects and the relevant publications of Russian and international academics in the theory and practice of intercultural communication (Deniels, Herskovits, Hofstede, Faerch, Kasper, Kluckhohn, Kostomarov, Leont’ev, etc.), the paradigm of the competency approach in education (Zimniya, Kuznetsov, etc.), intercultural training (Alipichev, Herskovits, Kostomarov, Kuznetsov, etc.), scripting for didactic purposes (Lim, Kuznetsov, Popov, Rummel, Weinberger, etc.).

Methods

Among the principle research methods of the present study there were the following: the SWOT analysis of the intercultural communication in the professional field, the SWOT analysis of intercultural training, expert evaluation, trial teaching, student sampling and dyading, contrasting and comparing of speech patterns across languages, material sampling, and the content analysis of the training manuals.

Results

The professional intercultural strategic competency of non-linguistic students has been researched in the context of the emerging novel requirements of the present-day job market, the paradigm of the competency approach in education, reality of the Russian and international education, and the outcomes of the previous research in the field. The author presents the rationale and the theoretical background of PISCoNoLiS research, its components, as well as the most efficient methods, environments and resources for the development of PISCoNoLiS. Special focus is being given to the development of the PISCoNoLiS relevant training methodology and tools (strategy layout, a series of manuals, multimedia training kit, etc). Though, further research in the field the development of PISCoNoLiS has proved to be required.

Keywords:

intercultural communication, professional communication, scripting, scaffolding, technical universities

References

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