Axiological Approach to the Development of Students’ Intercultural Competences by Foreign Language Means Academic research paper on "Civil engineering"

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Procedía - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 361 - 365

WCES 2014

Axiological Approach to the Development of Students' Intercultural Competences by Foreign Language Means

Agzam A. Valeev a *, Irina G. Kondrat'eva a

a Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Kremlevskaya str. 18, Kazan 420008, Russia

Abstract

Implementation of axiological approach to the development of university students' intercultural competences can be successfully carried out if their valuable attitude to learning a foreign language is formed. The author suggests that teaching productivity may be realized by means of intercultural communication and providing the realities of the cultural, ethical and moral values of native speakers. The paper presents the technological and pedagogical bases, the main structural elements and stages of the process connected with the dialogic form of education and rational combination of classroom and extracurricular activities of students in teaching a foreign language. The purpose of the research was to study and diagnose university students' intercultural competences, to ground theoretically and test experimentally pedagogical conditions of axiological approach to their development realization. 78 students of Kazan federal university were recruited for the test-experimental work. The complex of diagnostic methods to diagnose the level of students' intercultural knowledge, communication setting and the capacity for empathy, the dynamics of personal growth, ranking place of tolerance in the hierarchy of life values were used in the research. On the basis of the obtained results there were worked out and realized pedagogical conditions of axiological approach to the students' intercultural competences development realization..

© 2015 TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014

Keywords: axiological approach, intercultural communication, intercultural competence, dialogue, classroom and extracurricular activities

1. Introduction

Axiological approach involves the transfer of young people value standards in the educational process. It leads to the accumulation and growth of axiological potential of a young person and it can take place only on the basis of cultural values. The meaning of the axiological approach, according to Slastenin , Isayev, Mischenko and Shiyanov (1997) may be disclosed through various axiological principles in particular such as equality of values while preserving the diversity of their cultural and ethnic origin; equivalence of tradition and creativity, recognizing the need for a mutually enriching dialogue between traditionalists and innovators, etc.

* Agzam A. Valeev Tel.: +7-909-308-6220 E-mail address: valeev.jset@yandex.ru

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014 doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.377

The problem of personality's value orientations is the focus of many Russian researchers (Archangelski , 1974; Drobnitsky, 2002; Zdravomyslov, 1986; Kagan, 1997; Mironova, 1989; Podolskaya, 1991; Kharcheva , 1983; Yadov, 1991). In recent years serious attention is paid to the development of intercultural communication competence. In linguistics this problem is studied in the context of identifying units, reflecting the cultural identity of language, problems of verbal and non-verbal communication in the dialogue of cultures and language interference (Shamne, 1999; Klyukanov, 1998; Goodenough, 1970 ). In teaching, the problem is considered from the standpoint of general intellectual competence of students and their foreign language competence (Grigorieva, 2004; Megalova, 2000; Mureeva, 2004; Safina, 2005; Yakushkina, 1997). Great importance in the implementation of axiological approach when forming intercultural competence has the factors of culture and language of the country being studied. Methodology of the considered competence development comprises three interrelated levels: verbal and semantic level (lexical and grammatical possession of material), cognitive level (general outlook of the individual), and motivational level (system of goals, motives and attitudes that reflect the active communicative needs of the individual). When students begin to learn a foreign language, they perceive outlook of different nations through empathy. As Leontev (1969) notes while connecting at the lesson with a foreign environment a new image of the world is built . Hence, learning a foreign language - it is not a formal standard training system of rules, but sharing with students during constructing an image of world culture. Mastering a foreign language, young people begin to experience and understand how the world is differently structured and conceptualized in different cultures and language groups. In studying the phenomenology of intercultural competence, we came to this definition of "intercultural competence": it is an integrated education system of humanistic worldview, including high culture of interpersonal and cultural level, knowledge and skills, as well as ways of working that allow to the individual to carry out activities in contemporary multicultural space, the ability to show tolerance, friendliness and other positive feelings and emotions and the ability to action on the basis of values of self-determination in accordance with the social demands and expectations. In the context of intercultural competence it is revealed that the axiological approach makes it possible to carry out such educational activities, which would be aimed at developing the students of certain properties, qualities and dimensions of personality focused on the formation of values of intercultural interaction. Among these parameters we would have carried to the main ones the following:

• A sense of community with others, along with one's own self-determination in a multicultural environment;

• The desire to know people of other cultures and to establish productive relationships with them;

• Willingness to learn from others;

• Ability to display intercultural communication at the individual level in the normal course of business;

• The desire to set all sorts of cultural problems;

• Commitment to the effective implementation of the acquired knowledge and skills with the aim of understanding the world.

In this regard, the implementation of axiological approach to higher education in the context of the formation of students' intercultural competence in the process of learning a foreign language involves a number of tasks aimed at changing the activity of lectures:

• Providing language, speech, educational, social and cross-cultural activities of students, integration and interaction of natural and studied languages, the implementation of linguistic self-identity through the inclusion of developing situations;

• Enlargement of vocabulary of students, increase the proportion of dialogue in addressing the problematic nature of educational problems, creating a situation semantic search student - life orientation in the study of Linguistics;

• The transition from the informative level to developing of communicative level;

• Focus on interpersonal interaction and cooperation of educational process;

• Flexibility in the selection of means to overcome various barriers in interpersonal interaction polyglot space. The practice is that the formation of intercultural competence of students needs to consider the content and

features of their psycholinguistic foreign language teaching and speech activity, which involves the use of the following teaching methods:

• A set of traditional methods (verbal, visual, practical);

• The complex of methods of problem-creative nature (dramatizing, acting out plays, essay on any subject, the method of projects, etc.);

• The methods of intensive training (role and language methods, dramatic plays; discussions; various educational

games, etc.);

• Research methods (independent study, comparison of various linguistic phenomena in different languages, etc.).

Based on the structural components of intercultural competence (culturological, attitudinal (moral and ethical)

and activity (communicative-pragmatic), we felt it necessary to highlight the three criteria of formation of intercultural competence: Cognitive criteria: depth and stability of culturological interest, level and breadth of knowledge of students and the general cultural awareness, holistic view of the cultural worldview and culture of the people of studied foreign languages, the level of cognitive activity, the need for new knowledge, the ability to reason, to draw an analogy, to compare and analyze. Emotional and value criteria: the ability of empathy, which is expressed in the understanding and empathy feelings, thoughts, expectations and aspirations of the other person, the ability to put yourself in his place, tolerance, awareness of common cultural specificity of human behavior. Equally, respectful tolerant attitude towards the system of value orientations characteristic of native and foreign language culture, to manifestations of cultural identity of other community representatives, freedom from prejudice and negative stereotypes about members of other nations. Communicative and behavior criteria: the ability to listen and hear the other party, to possess techniques of active listening, showing interest and respect, constructive criticism, possession of an effective exit strategy from conflict situations, the ability to control own emotions, manage, correct choice of verbal and non-verbal communication, knowledge of practical abilities and skills needed to solve communication problems in intercultural situations in accordance adopted behavioral etiquette in the language is spoken, the correct use of language and speech tools, possession of speech communication skills (accuracy, richness, diversity, expressiveness). In this regard, the purpose of the present study is to investigate and diagnosis of intercultural competence of future specialists, as well as a theoretical basis and experimental verification of pedagogical conditions of formation of their intercultural competence.

2. Methods

In accordance with the purpose diagnosis of intercultural competence assumes certain levels of development of it in students: sufficient, medium and low. The first level deals with value-orientation. A student understands cultural differences, able to control his behavior adequately the cultural specifics of the situation, shows the correct behavior during the communication with a partner. He is familiar with substantial features of other cultures, which contrast with the native culture. He understands and accepts the difference between behavior and perception of the world from different cultures with the lack of a pronounced positive or negative assessment. The second level reflects the permissible criteria. The student recognizes the existence of some differences in behavior and perception of other cultures, but he does not see the differences in their value systems. His knowledge and cultural studies are not of a systemic nature, they are superficial and piecemeal. The third level is the lowest. A student finds values and norms adopted in the native culture the only correct, he actively rejects values and behavioral systems of other cultures, he is not aware of the differences between cultures. He has the stereotypical perception of national and cultural peculiarities of other people due to the fact that he is familiar with only superficial, eye-catching features of other cultures. Based on the analysis presented above criteria and levels of intercultural competence diagnosis was made using the following methods: assessment of the level of knowledge and cultural studies according to our questionnaire, diagnosis of dynamics of personal growth by Grigorev, Kuleshova and Stepanov, ranking place in the hierarchy of tolerance values; a questionnaire for the diagnosis of the capacity for empathy by Mehrabien & Epshteyn; diagnostic technique communicative installation by Boyko. We believe that the achievement of a young man state "ideal" development of his intercultural competence occurs when there's a clear focus on the self-diagnosis of his vital needs, motives of life, value orientations. That is why the first stage of the experimental work was the value-installation, where students set their attitudes and values, in particular the value of another person, a different culture, a different system of values.

3. Results

On ascertaining step, resulting in state-level studies of intercultural competence of students, it was found that the development of intercultural competence requires special conditions conducive to the effective learning of a foreign

language. In this regard, during the study, we developed and conducted a survey that revealed the problems of the development of intercultural competence of students. Analyzing the dynamics of the changes taking place in the course of the experiment, we focused specifically on changing students' attitudes towards a foreign language, which is reflected in increased interest and cognitive activity in the classroom. Transforming during experimental work process of learning a foreign language in the direction of greater consistency problems of formation of intercultural competence, we sought to implement the most effective transformation. Evaluate the effectiveness of innovations possible only by means of diagnostic procedures. In this regard, we actively resorted to the so-called rapid diagnosis - surveys, interviews, questioning students. However, determining the level of competence of different personalities is a rather lengthy process. Therefore, in fixing it in its entirety it requires longitudinal diagnostics. The final diagnosis for all methods discussed above showed a significant positive trend. Changes in the level of students' knowledge and cultural studies (in%): High level of the control group: before the experiment - 0, after experiment -13; Medium level of the control group: before the experiment - 15,6, after experiment - 20,8; Low level of the control group: before the experiment - 84,4, after experiment - 66,2. High level of the group participated in the experiment: before the experiment - 0, after experiment - 25; Medium level of the group participated in the experiment: before the experiment - 15, after experiment - 52,5; Low level of the group participated in the experiment: before the experiment - 85, after experiment - 22,5. Based on the structure of intercultural competence, we define and justify the following set of educational environment conducive to the effective formation of intercultural competence as future professionals: Formation of students' valuable attitude to learning a foreign language as a means of intercultural communication (development of young people humanistic outlook, willingness to work in a changing world and the skills to successfully implement various forms of communication and partnership with representatives of other culture); Mastering the process of learning a foreign language realities of culture, ethical and moral values of life of native speakers (linguistic-cultural orientation of learning a foreign language , mastering complex knowledge associated with foreign language culture); Saturation content of foreign language teaching information reflecting the cultural diversity of the world (cultural assimilation of knowledge (facts of culture), revealing a wealth of world culture); Comparison of the learning process elements of culture of another country with elements of native culture (valid comparison of similarities and peculiarities of national cultures); The use of the system of multicultural education dialogical forms of teaching (not formal, direct and active part in the speech situations in the foreign-language speech activity); Rational combination of classroom and extracurricular activities of students in the process of learning a foreign language. Given the conditions outlined above, we have developed a scientific and methodological support of the formation of students' intercultural competence. In evaluating the effectiveness of our experiment we paid a generalized dynamics of the indicators of intercultural competence of students in all its components. Assessing each student at the initial, intermediate and final stage of the experiment, we obtained the following data on their distribution in the three groups in terms of development of intercultural competence in the final stage of the experiment. Dynamics of formation of intercultural competence levels after the experimental work: Value-orientation of the control group: before the experimental work - 2,6, after the experimental work - 5,2; Allowable level of the control group: before the experimental work -26, after the experimental work - 31,2; Critical level of the control group: before the experimental work - 71,4, after the experimental work - 63,6; Value-orientation of the group participated in the experiment: before the experimental work - 2,5, after the experimental work - 27,5; Allowable level of the group participated in the experiment: before the experimental work - 15, after the experimental work - 55; Critical level of the group participated in the experiment: before the experimental work - 85, after the experimental work - 17,5.

4. Conclusions

Thus, according to the results of diagnostics we observe that the dynamics of intercultural competence of students who participated in the experiment, significantly higher than the control group similar dynamics. This, in our opinion, quite convincingly demonstrates the effectiveness of undertaken by us during the experimental work transforms the learning process.

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