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STAGES OF MODERNIZATION OF LANGUAGE TRAINING AT TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ON BASE OF TOMSK POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY // Pedagogical Review. 2021. Issue 3 (37). P. 28-39

The article addresses the relevance of language training in the system of engineering education due to the change of modern educational paradigm towards the necessity of training a competitive specialist with a high degree of readiness to interact in the international professional environment. The analysis of the peculiarities and problems of language training in a technical university is the subject of a great number of scientific papers; however, this issue remains topical due to the permanent modernization of higher education and the improvement of training models and technologies. The aim of the article is to conduct scientific and methodological analysis of the processes of organization and management of language training, which had a unique format of experimental training at Tomsk Polytechnic University. The beginning of the “language boom” reforms can be considered as 1998, when the Comprehensive Program for Intensification of Foreign Language Training of Engineering Students was launched. By now this program can be the subject to analysis, as it has a 20- year history of evolution and by now there is no comprehensive description of the dynamics of language development in the scientific literature. The scientific and methodological analysis, including authors’ own pedagogical observations, is aimed at describing the five stages of language training development, identifying the causes that were the catalysts of change, evaluating measures to eliminate problems and contradictions, and measures that contribute to a more comfortable and effective environment for further development and formation. The authors describe and characterize in more detail the processes that are relatively innovative for the university system of language training. Adaptive language training instructional practices for undergraduates and elective courses of individual student choice have been considered as such processes. The authors conclude with their arguments regarding potential measures that could bring the situation to the level of qualitative changes and improvement of language training in other technical higher education institutions.

Keywords: language training in a technical university, language competence, adaptation training, elective course, ESP, CLIL, interdisciplinary pedagogical tandems

The component composition of the modern engineer’s soft skills // Pedagogical Review. 2023. Issue 4 (50). P. 7-16

The concept of professional competence as well as the elements included in it were considered which made it possible to develop a visualization called «Components of professional competence». The roles and functions of an engineer in modern society were outlined and this served as the basis for the statement about the need to develop soft skills for successful professional activity in engineering environment. An analysis of scientific research, as well as a survey of students and graduates of technical university was conducted in order to clarify and update the list of soft skills demanded in the intellectual labor market in the field of engineering professions. The results of the analysis allowed to build a conditional hierarchy of the priority of soft skills for engineers today. The obtained data formed the basis for updating the competency model of an engineer (technical university graduate). The results of the survey made it possible to present a linear prioritization of soft skills for representatives of engineering specialties. The developed matrix of correlation between universal competences and soft skills clearly confirms the correlation of these phenomena and, as a consequence, proves the necessity of including (and developing) soft skills in university education programs at the theoretical level.

Keywords: engineering education, soft skills, professional competence of an engineer, technical university, FSES HE+++