Discourse approach in teaching foreign language professional communication

Don State Technical University, 1, Gagarin Square, Rostov-on-Don, 344000, Russia

^* Corresponding author: asten.tamara@mail.ru

Abstract

This study presents the most important conceptual foundations of the organization of teaching a foreign language to university students regarding the improvement of the quality, efficacy of the content and the basic components of the system used for its implementation in order to form and develop the necessary level of competency. The purpose of the research is to develop and verify the educational system of organizing foreign language teaching for specific purposes of university students using a discourse approach that includes the use of features of professional, academic, official-business and pragmatic discourses. To achieve the aim, the following objectives were set up and solved: 1) to analyze the types of discourse and present a descriptive model of the discursive approach in teaching a foreign language to students of a technical university for specific purposes; 2) to conduct an aspect analysis of the educational discourse on a foreign language for specific purposes of students of a technical university; 3) to organize experimental work related to obtaining an evidence base regarding the effectiveness of the proposed comprehensive system of organizing foreign language teaching for special specific purposes of students of a technical university on the basis of a discourse approach. The methodology of the research covers the pedagogical foundations of the technological approach to the educational process and its organization; the concept of professional competence and intercultural communication; the provisions of discursive discourse linguistics; scientific works in the field of continuing education. The study presents didactic units for inclusion in the content of training, educational programs, teaching aids and textbooks on a foreign language for specific purposes. The results of theoretical research made it possible to develop and apply in the experimental part of the study the authors’ course, a training program and an educational and methodological manual for students.