DEVELOPING CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCE OF FUTURE SPECIALISTS IN ECONOMICS

15 лютого 2017 Останнє оновлення: 15 лютого 2017

Yeva Khachatryan (Kharkiv, Ukraine)

The pace of globalization has been increasing significantly in recent years, which has given added impetus to flows of global trade and investment. At present stage of social development the need for training professionals who are fluent in foreign language as well as competent in cross-cultural communication, understand and know how to act and behave in verbal and non-verbal communication has risen. In this regard, a great attention has to be paid to the formation of cross-cultural competence of future specialists in economics in the process of learning foreign languages, since they are going to communicate with their business partners from other countries on the phone, participate in discussions and negotiations, attend business meetings, make presentations, etc.

Cross-cultural competence of future specialists in economics is their ability to function effectively with representatives of other cultures and it implies such factors as skills, attitude and knowledge. Therefore in international business affairs, cross cultural competence of a professional is their effectiveness in drawing upon identified set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes so as to provide the capability of working together with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Taking into consideration scientific studies the competence future specialists in economics are asked to have mastery of, in order to communicate effectively in cross-cultural interaction, is a multifaceted system of knowledge and skills which can be named as grammatical, socio-linguistic, discourse, and strategic competence [3]. Grammatical competence may be identified with the knowledge of linguistic code (verbal or non-verbal), and includes the knowledge of morphological, syntactic, semantic, phonetic, and orthographic rules. The competence described above allows the future specialists in economics to understand and perform meaningful speech within business encounters. Socio-linguistic competence corresponds to the knowledge and use of the linguistic code of rules and conventions in different socio-linguistic and socio-cultural contexts. Discourse competence is described as the ability to combine language structures and meanings in order to achieve a structurally cohesive and a meaningfully coherent unit of spoken and written business texts. Strategic competence reveals the mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies (paraphrasing, guessing, repetition, circumlocution, etc.) which may be called into play to compensate for failure in cross-cultural communication when grammatical competence is insufficient, thus allowing future specialists in economics to conduct efficient and effective business deals.

In this regard the following pedagogical conditions for training students of economic profile for cross-cultural interaction, during which students acquire cross-cultural knowledge and skills of cross-cultural communication, need to be highlighted:

the organization of educational process on the basis of the concept of "dialogue of cultures", which provides self-development of the student's personality, their integration into the global and national culture system, the knowledge of their own identity and understanding people from other cultures;
creation of foreign language environment, which forms a certain system of behaviour among students, as well as affects language competence, manners, values and judgments that facilitate students’ involvement into the atmosphere of foreign language culture;
formation of the content of foreign language teaching for future specialists in economics on the basis of the integrity of professional and cross-cultural training, including not only fluent foreign language skills of the students but also cultural identity, cultural studies and knowledge of the peculiarities of cross-cultural communications, which will allow future professionals to use the correct language means, to adequately interpret the behaviour of the interlocutor;
use of interactive forms and methods of teaching (culture oriented role plays, discussions, etc.), which stimulate the development of students' speaking skills, perceptivity of other values, observation, particularities of cross-cultural communication.

An effective way to develop adequate cross-cultural and professional speaking skills is discussion. Discussion involves consideration of conflict situations in business cases of cross-cultural misunderstanding and ways to resolve them. First, students are introduced to an episode of cross-cultural business communication containing situation of misunderstanding or conflict. At the same time they are encouraged to consider the situation from the perspectives of two or more individuals. Then there are several options out of the conflict. Students choose one of them; discuss it, thereby stimulating further discussions. Thus, the discussion related to the decision of situational problems, is a collective work, in comparison of different opinions as to its resolution.

In terms of the formation of cross-cultural communicative competence discussion allows students to activate the previously obtained professional foreign-language and cross-cultural skills. Discussion of problems in the process of group communication forms such skills as expressing one’s thoughts accurately and adequately; demonstrating their point of view; supporting their opinion in foreign language; building verbal and non-verbal behaviour according to social norms of behavioural attitude in a team. During discussion, which aims at resolving the situation of cross-cultural misunderstandings, socio-psychological competence of cross-cultural communication is being developed.

Role-play is another option from the standpoint of developing cross-cultural and socio-psychological competence of future specialists in economics. It provides students an opportunity to feel and express themselves in any business situation typical of representatives from different cultures. Role-play is a powerful means of developing and practicing students’ cross-cultural skills in simulated cross-cultural encounters. It enables them to demonstrate skills of cross-cultural awareness. Once students have practiced role-play simulations and have fully mastered them, they can approach the corresponding real-world situation with greater confidence.

Thus, this method contributes to the development of empathic perception of actions of interlocutor with another cultural background; adoption of different value orientations determining the cultural variations in behaviour; perception of cultural differences as equivalent and unique. Professionally-oriented role-play combines professional foreign language and cross-cultural skills into a coherent whole, and thus contributes to their generalization.

It should be noted that the role of motivation in promoting cross-cultural competence of the future specialists in economics is very important. In order to engage the students into the learning process thoroughly and get the maximum of it they should be motivated and familiarized. Motivation involves the general introduction of the objectives of learning cross-cultural communication skills. Its implementation is aimed at the formation of valuable relations in professional foreign language communication, as well as set of values to master the cultural aspects of such communication. The following methods and ways of influencing the motivational sphere of students can be used to achieve the objectives: speaking about the possibilities of their professional activity at international level; bringing examples of misunderstandings between different cultures speaking the same language; demonstrating that the ability to speak a foreign language is not equivalent to an adequate perception of cultural values inherent; etc.

Thus, the foregoing organization of learning process will be useful in developing cross-cultural communicative competence of future specialists in economics in the process of teaching professional foreign language communication. The experience students get by learning cross-cultural communication skills in the process of foreign language acquisition is a major source of developing professional competence.

Literature

1. Adler N. J. (1983). Organizational development in multicultural environment. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 19, 249-365.

2. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon, Engl.: Multilingual Matters.

3. Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980).“Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing”, in: Applied Linguistics, 1, pp.1-47.

4. Gudykunst, W.B., Wiseman, R.L., & Hammer, M.R. (1977). An analysis of an integrated approach to cross-cultural training. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, pp, 99-110

5. Hymes, Dell. (1987). “Communicative Competence”. In Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, and Klaus J. Mattheier, eds., Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, pp. 219-229.