In the process of developing effective professional communication skills of future
experts in tourism and economics it is important to focus on personality-oriented and
socio-cultural approaches to teaching foreign languages. The personality-oriented
approach involves personal formation and professional self-actualization of future
specialists in the tourism and economic spheres, and socio-cultural approach enables
the study of foreign languages through the prism of national values and peculiar
features of the culture of the people, whose language is studied.
Man is formed, acting as a subject of various activities. Being active during the
performance of these activities, he is developing as an active person. To show activity
is to interfere with the course of events, influence their development, and have impact
on their participants.
These are the opportunities offered by students’ group work, which is highly
recommended in terms of developing the skills of effective communication. Under the
conditions of group work, the practical study of a foreign language is closer to real
interaction in society. Interaction in a group "involves" the student in such
communicative situations, when he is forced to act as a subject of activity, its initiator
and organizer in the process of interaction with other participants of the activity.
Communication in a group meets the requirements of the personality-oriented
communication of students, which greatly enhances their motivation for acquiring a
new knowledge and developing new skills; because it is well-known, that what is
needed and interesting is learnt faster and easier.
In fact, one can hardly imagine an effective communication beyond the group.
Joint group activity encourages independence and initiative of participants in any joint
undertaking. Serving common activities, group communication provides the
opportunity to realize its main functions: informative, assessing, and regulatory.
However, for successful communication it is necessary to have the desire to
communicate (willingness to cooperate); the lack of such cooperation causes a conflict
communicative behavior. According to American scholar G. P. Grice, successful
communication is possible provided that the four maxims are observed:
informativeness (the statement must be meaningful), truthfulness (the statement must
be truthful), relevance (to speak to the point), clarity and accuracy (to speak briefly and
clearly) [Grice, 1975].
There is a variety of course books and materials to ensure that the subject “Foreign
language for professional purposes” is taught with the most up-to-date material
available. These course books contain a lot of interesting tasks for group and pair work
in class.
Undoubtedly, group work in professionally oriented foreign language classes
creates the natural conditions for learning the world from the perspective of
multicultural dialogue. In the process of group interaction it is possible to simulate the
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