Professional Language Training of Students of International Relations: DidacticsîÁÚÁÄ
Professional Language Training of Students of International Relations: Didactics
By å.V. Voevoda
This article addresses the theory of professional language training of students majoring in international relations. Showing the essence of competence-based professional education as a new educational paradigm, the author offers definitions of content and purpose of language training and analyses its specific functions and trends.
Over the recent decade, the issues of education and training of robust human resources for national economies have been a point of strong focus. The overall computerization and increasingly international nature of education in the settings of global competition raise the question of "How to teach?" rather than "What to teach?" in order to increase performance of higher educational institutions and make their graduates more prepared to professional career by avoiding or maximally reducing post-university on-the-job "maturing" stage. These circumstances increasingly highlight the social, economic, and political role of universities that cannot be even thought today without support of research activities and implementation of innovative achievements in educational process[1]. To this end, teachers and professors should be robustly trained in and capable of timely employing the results of such research in the educational process.
To make gifted young people more interested in professional research and teaching career, the MGIMO University has opened a post-graduation program of Theory and Methods of Professional Education in 2012. This step was based on objective needs both in theoretic grasping and practical analysis of professional training opportunities offered by the rapidly changing world to students of international relations.
Elena Dmitrievna Voevoda is Doctor of Education, Professor of English Language Division No. 2 of MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. E-mail: elenavoevoda@yandex.ru
Fast development and modifications of the system of international relations, Russia`s integration in the global postindustrial society, the expansion of international contacts at governmental and local levels, Russia`s accession to the Bologna Process, and adoption of revised Federal Educational Standard for higher professional education alter the requirements imposed on quality and levels of professional training opportunities for students of international relations. In these changing environment the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other agents dealing with foreign issues including diplomats, lawyers, economists, and financiers show an increasing demand for young professional workforce with abilities to successfully perform at the interface of domestic and external economic spaces, such as international journalists or translators and interpreters for expert communities.
Specialists in international relations are expected to professionally deal with world`s political, economic, and cultural community and face all nuances and socio-cultural implications caused to them by globalization. This is why our domestic pedagogy emphasizes the competence-based approach and synergetic pattern of education. At the background of globalization, the pedagogy with its historic functions of education, upbringing, professional development, and axiology is what effectively helps to develop professional competencies, skills of intercultural communication within expert discourses, provides the framework for professional identities of students in international relations, and the national system of values and tolerance principles.
The education of experts in international relations is somewhat unique by reason that these groups require training not only in professional skills and competences but in being committed to making decisions and assuming responsibility for them accordingly, and prepared to conduct their professional affairs in English taking into account: Á) relevancy of so doing in the circumstances then existing, b) peculiarities of the linguistic world-image common for the country in question, c) impact of various linguistic and extralinguistic factors on discussions they may be involved in. Therefore, the professional language training of specialists in international relations represents a fundamental scientific and practical issue and should be focused as a separate area both in theory and practice of this professional education which distinguishes it from other industries.
As regards professional education, we should note that both Russian language and pedagogic science use the term and notion of "education" in its original underlying meaning of making-up, generation, and development that has been adopted since the late XVIII century[2]. Earlier, this term had referred to upbringing and training of youngsters. Typically, in XIX century young students of lyceums, gymnasia, and Educational Unit of Oriental Languages under Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the first university of this Russia`s foreign policy institution) were referred to as "fosterlings", while the word "student" was used to denote not so much the pupils of elementary educational institutions who more often were called "schoolchildren" as anybody who studied or learnt any skills. For instance, offices of "studentship" existed even within the Board (later the Ministry) of Foreign Affairs in the Russian Empire. Discussions of the system of education as such - and the content of studies it should provide - started as late as in the XIX century.
The term "education" is multivalent and has a large number of definitions directly approaching the tasks and goals of education. On the one hand, education can be seen as a process (of educating a student, providing him/her with certain system of knowledge, skills and techniques) and as a result (possession of such system of knowledge). On the other hand, education may be approached as a system of various educational institutions (public, private, secondary, special etc.). B. S. Gershunsky in his book Philosophy of Education for the XXI Century defines it as value, system, process and result, the axiological property of education being regarded by him as the value of state, social and personal nature[3].
The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Pedagogy states that by receiving education people master the system of values, knowledge, skills, and competences that meet both private interests of learner and expectations of wide public. The Dictionary stresses that education forms a part and is at the same time the product of socialization and, as such, supposes a purposeful and accelerated development of "certain human abilities through pedagogic organization of inheriting the established culture including rules of conduct, thought, knowledge and techniques (meaning methods and tools of activity) by each succeeding generation. <...> Education serves both public and personal interests while preserving the culture and enabling new generations to improve it"[4].
The value of this definition is that it considers culture in its variety as a subject of transfer, mastering and improvement by each succeeding generation that is as educational content. Culture is transferred primarily via language that forms its integral part. Perception of language as the culture`s integral part and, in case of foreign language, conductor of foreign culture represents a new framework of language education. Accordingly, we have every ground at hand to ascertain that definitions of "education" offered by B. S. Gershunsky and authors of Encyclopedic Dictionary of Pedagogy are applicable to language training as well.
Professional language training of students of international relations is different from professional linguistic education, since the IR students apply their foreign language skills in their work. They need these skills for their core profession, that is why universities providing education in international relations do not include theoretic courses of linguistic cycle (general and sectional language science) in their programs as linguistic institutions do. Although universities producing experts in international relations place considerable importance on languages as their key disciplines, these educational institutions are not directionally linguistic. Given the difference between language training of future linguists and non-linguists, the latter would be more appropriately treated as trainees in language skills rather than in linguistic science.
In recent years, both educational and business environments were undergoing further changes as regards perception of content and purposes of education, with key emphasis being made not merely on acquisition of certain set of knowledge and techniques but rather on a skill to use them in addressing various issues of life and profession and thus developing a systemic package of competences. This approach is based upon objective requirements imposed by today`s "knowledge economy" supposing that it is not just knowledge but a skill to utilize them in a daily life and work that makes success in one`s business or profession. Competences are among the most important things constituting the content of education. They provide us with capacity to apply available knowledge, skills, techniques and practical experience, whether in daily life or professionally relevant situations. As regards the training in language skills, competences are what indicate the level of such skills developed by a trainee.
Training in foreign language should include development of competences that enable a graduate to show good performance in specific areas of professional language-related behavior. With strong competences important for their career, students become able to develop a personal language expertise that facilitates perception, understanding, and reproduction of communications (texts) including professional information expressed by means of natural language, retention of such information in memory and processing it for various mental purposes.
Training in language skills includes the development of at least three interrelated competences: linguistic, speech and communication skills. As regards however the language training of IR students, this list of competences should be extended to include socio-cultural, analytic, strategic, professional, social, and other competences. Therefore, the training in language skills is a purposeful process of developing competences for communications in foreign languages through studies of related foreign culture.
Globalization and especially integration trends that increasingly unroll as we move from industrial to information-oriented society are fuelling the demand for plenty of professionals with ability to provide their service in or using foreign languages. Thus, priority is to be given not so much to education generally as specifically professional education, being a regulated process of mastering certain professional skills and ensuring the development of personal qualities of social and professional importance, as well as the result of this process[5]. Professional education may therefore be seen as process, system and result. At its current stage of development, the Russian society expects professional education to produce high-skilled competitive workforce with excellent expertise in their professional areas and abilities to perform at the level of world`s benchmarks[6]. Article 10.5 of new Law on Education in the Russian Federation introduced from on January1, 2013 extends both to postsecondary vocational and higher education thus stressing that Russian universities provide not general classical learning, but higher education with strong professional focus[7].
During professional training of students for their future work in the area of international relations, courses of foreign languages play an important role as one of the key professional disciplines that shape both the focus of training and qualification of potential workforce. Language skills training includes the development of competences required for graduates to successfully address their professional assignments in future and as imposed by state educational standards.
To effectively cope with their professional challenges, bachelors and masters of international relations are to receive professional language training which:
- ensures purposeful acquisition of knowledge, skills and proficiency in foreign languages;
- develops, on the basis of foregoing, necessary professional competences through studies of related foreign culture in all of its aspects including language culture, lifestyle, food, wear, technologies, value system, behavior, thought, beliefs etc.
Historically, origination and development of professional language training for IR students has been influenced by, in addition to geopolitical and socio-cultural changes, a consistent evolution of goals, objectives and content of education that were shaping both the development of multi-level professional language training system for employees of foreign policy departments and functional modification of graduate`s status from interpreter/ translator towards that of diplomat. Today, its purpose is to produce specialists in international relations, who are able to provide professional services in foreign languages. In terms of competence-based approach, professional language training of IR experts aims at development of comprehensive package of relevant competences meeting the qualification requirements that are imposed on university graduates in areas of international relations within the limits of Foreign Language discipline. In this regard, the content of professional language training can be seen as development of specific competences important for specialists in international relations based on relevant knowledge, skills, and techniques, as well as training of students in professional communication. Well-developed competences (in variety of verbal and other professional communications) provide a quality assessment criterion for professional language training of IR specialists. The content of such education is subject to the Federal State Standard of Higher Professional Education and educational program as well as specific purposes and stages of education.
Professional language training of specialists in international relations is considered as a process and result of development of professionally relevant competences that enable a person to conduct his or her business or profession in international community using foreign languages. Development of competences is what determines the purpose and content of professional language training which provides unique functions irreducible to education (as development of a system of relevant competences and language skills), upbringing and enlightenment (mastering of foreign culture; shaping of linguo-socio-cultural knowledge) but includes change of one`s social status through receipt of higher professional education, and axiological aspects (develops the system of values consistent with ideology, morals and culture of one`s native state, and provides framework of axiological attitudes to share within multicultural world expert community).
To summarize, we can define the theory of professional language training as a system of principles, functions, regularities, and approaches within the competence-based approach as new model of language education. The theory of language training also includes specific methods and techniques of language training. The modern theory of training in language skills is based on the concept of cultural coherency and arranges the language training so that to provide future IR experts with proper tools for successful intercultural communication. One of key challenges for universities educating students in various sectors of international relations is to ensure that the language training they provide will help their graduates excellently perform in their profession.
E. Voevoda Professional Language Training of Students of International Relations: Didactics.
Summary: This article addresses the theory of professional language training of students majoring in international relations. Showing the essence of competence-based professional education, the author offers definitions of content and purpose of language training and analyses its specific functions and properties.
Keywords
Didactics; professional language training; professional education; competence-based approach; content; purpose; function; criterion
Notes
[1] A. V. Torkunov. Education as Soft Force Tool of Russian Foreign Policy // MGIMO Newsletter. 2012. Vol. 4(25), p. 87.
[2] A. P. Bulkin. Sociocultural Trends in Education: Russian Historic Experience. Dubna: Fenix +, 2005, p. 150.
[3] B. S. Gershunsky. Philosophy of Education for the XXI Century. í.: Pedagogic Society of Russia, 2002, pp. 42, 45.
[4] Encyclopedic Dictionary of Pedagogy / Chief Editor B.í. Bim-Bad; editors: í.í. Bezrukikh, V.á. Bolotov, L.S. Glebova and others. // í.: Big Russian Encyclopedia, 2008, pp. 172-173.
[5] Reference Dictionary of Modern Russian Professional Education / writers and drafters: V. I. Blinov, I. A. Voloshina, E. Yu. Esenina, A. N. Leibovich, P. N. Novikov. Release 1. í.: FIRO, 2010, p. 11.
[6] Modernization Concept of Russian Education up to 2010. Annex to Decree No. 393 of the RF Ministry of Education dated 11.02.2002. URL: http://www.edu.ru/db/mo/Data/d_02/393.html
[7] Federal Law No. 273-FZ "On Education in the Russian Federation" of 29 December 2012/ URL: http://ÍÉÎÏÂÒÎÁÕËÉ.ÒÆ
