Ways to improve foreign language teaching in police officers training

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Kharkiv national university of internal affairs

Ways to improve foreign language teaching in police officers training

Oleksandr Semenovych Levashov,

candidate of pedagogic sciences, associate professor

Olena Oleksandrivna Orlova,

candidate of pedagogic sciences

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the peculiarities of teaching foreign languages in higher education institutions with special conditions of study, first of all, in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The main factors related to the goals, conditions and content of training are analyzed. The aim is to determine the specific impact of these factors on the learning process and to justify the main areas of work to eliminate the negative factors that limit the effectiveness of learning. The thesis regarding the need to improve independent work as a powerful reserve for learning intensification significantly is put forward. The most effective forms of organization of such work on the basis of wide use of information technologies are offered.

Keywords: goals, conditions and content of education, intercultural communicative competence, balanced approach to teaching, readiness to learn, computerization of independent work, legal terminology, departmental education.

Аннотация

Левашов А.С., Орлова Е.А.

Пути совершенствования преподавания иностранных языков в ходе обучения полицейских

Анотація

Левашов О.С., Орлова О.О.

Шляхи вдосконалення навчання іноземних мов у процесі підготовки поліцейських

Main part

Setting the problem

Analysing the current state of foreign language teaching, it is impossible not to notice a significant increase in interest in learning foreign languages and at the same time increasing opportunities for teaching this discipline at non - linguistic higher education institutions, including those with special learning conditions. The management of universities is interested in expanding and strengthening the material base, creative teachers seek to expand the use of innovative technologies, authentic teaching materials, and effective teaching methods. Thus, the improvement of material support of classes coincides with the enthusiasm of a significant part of the teaching staff. If we add to this a significant increase in the interest of those who study a foreign language, there are all the prerequisites for a significant increase in the level of teaching and learning. However, the specific features of higher education institutions with special learning conditions, on the one hand, impose certain restrictions on the effectiveness of the organization of the educational process, and on the other, - require additional attention to its individual aspects. The specific nature of education at higher educational institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is manifested in its goals, conditions and content. These three areas and their connection with the teaching process organization and the success of learning are analyzed in the present paper.

The state of the problem research

The issues on organization of students' independent educational activity become the subject of special researches of such scientists and teachers as Yu. Babansky, O. Yaroshenko, O. Nilsson, I. Lerner, A. Aleksyuk. The role of the teacher as the organizer of students' independent educational work is analyzed by L. Kondrashova, M. Skatkin, L. Zorina; and S. Zaskale - ta, F. Rabinovich, N. Koryakovtsev conducted research on this problem in the field of methods of teaching foreign languages. The role of independent work and the formation of student learning autonomy skills in the process of mastering a foreign language is widely discussed by scientists Zorenko, V. Kozakov, I. Khomyuk and P. Pod - kasistyi. Analysis of the research to identify effective ways to organize independent work shows that, despite the great theoretical and practical significance of the research, in the scientific literature there are no comprehensive studies on improving foreign language teaching during police training in higher education institutions with special learning conditions.

The objective and tasks of the research

The general purpose of the present article is to identify individual factors that might have a negative impact on the state of teaching, and to find ways to neutralize or limit them. Taking into account the fact that in our analysis we deal with the state of teaching at higher education institutions with special conditions of learning we chose those features of teaching which are characteristic of them. Among those features we selected those which in our view can potentially have a negative impact on the teaching process and acquisition of the target language. They include the structure of the teaching goals which at present lack such important aspect as intercultural component of communicative competence while due to the specifics of the future police work it should be paid special attention to. Another important area of work concerns the attempt to somehow compensate the negative influence of those factors which result from the necessity for police cadets to combine their duty service with the process of studies. A primary pathway here should be improvement of the independent work, first of all in its organization and wider use of IT technologies. The third direction of work is connected with the content of teaching, notably with legal texts and the role of law terminology. This aspect is being underestimated and needs greater attention to both the methods of teaching and the qualification of the teaching staff.

The main part

The basis for determining the aim of training is the analysis of possible areas of use of a foreign language and the dominant types of future professional activity. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the most important target is the formation of intercultural communicative competence of future law enforcers. Although teaching a foreign language in the context of the culture of the country is an established direction of the educational process in higher education, regardless of its professional orientation, for cadets of higher education institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this approach is particularly important. It is clear that knowledge of foreign languages is a powerful weapon of the national police in the face of various manifestations of international crime and terrorism, which were brought about by the processes of globalization and the escalation of international social contradictions. But the police profession provides the use of a foreign language in its daily activities with an additional and rather specific dimension, which is associated with the law enforcement officer's constant willingness to communicate directly with a wide range of foreigners on many issues, including those not directly related to law enforcement.

Possible areas of use of a foreign language may include not only a wide range of issues that may require communication, but also a wide range of people who will take part in it. These may be representatives of different ethnic groups and cultures who use a foreign language, mainly English, as a means of intercultural communication. Since English is not their native language, the nationalspecific norms of Anglo-Saxon culture lose their importance. At the same time, their norms, standards, beliefs, ideas, values, traditions and attitudes (invisible part of the iceberg according to W. Brembeck [1] or culture with a small «k» according to R. Halverson [2]) are national-specific and can differ sharply from each other. This determines one of the goals of learning as the formation of the ability to quickly change the strategy and tactics of the speech behavior, taking into account the cultural norms of the participants, showing tolerance and understanding of the culture of foreign communities.

The need to combine training and service is a factor that determines the specific conditions of training in educational institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Long working days, numerous service assignments, strict time regulation of all types of service and educational activities, frequent distractions to perform law enforcement tasks - all these are known factors that complicate the process of acquiring knowledge and require additional efforts from both teaching staff and cadets.

It should also be noted that the very nature of teaching in education institutions with special conditions of learning, which is traditionally characterized by strict discipline, teacher authoritarianism, high level of formalization of the educational process and strict regulation of classes is in some contradiction with communicative nature of teaching which envisages mostly free, relaxed atmosphere of the lesson, high level of creative activity of students, and sometimes informal nature of their interaction with the teacher. Therefore, the extremely important task of the teaching staff is to find a balanced approach to teaching that combines discipline and demand with the most effective methods and techniques inherent in the communicative nature of foreign language teaching, combining considerable freedom with a sense of responsibility for learning tasks.

The general low level of school proficiency in a foreign language and the extremely heterogeneous levels of individual cadets who have entered the higher education institutions with special conditions of learning, are additional and quite significant factors that complicate the organization of teaching and the success of learning the study material. The solution to this problem, which is typical of most non-linguistic universities, will be facilitated only by conducting external examinations or other forms of entrance control of the degree of readiness of entrants to study in higher education and master a professionally oriented foreign language.

The reduction of time allocated to study a foreign language and the constant changes in curricula due to their obvious inconsistency with the declared goals of the formation of foreign language communicative competence have a negative impact on the final learning outcomes. An additional complicating factor is that the difficult process of adaptation to the specific conditions of study and service at higher education institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs largely coincides with the period of learning a foreign language.

Some of these problems can be solved simply by a more careful approach to the organization of the education process, while others involve long and painstaking work.

The need to reduce the negative impact of the above factors makes it important to rationally organize such a component of the learning process as independent work, mainly due to the limited time that, given the need to combine training and performance of duties, can be allocated to it. Independent work should be given special attention to as a powerful means of intensifying learning in order to eliminate gaps that have arisen in secondary education or formed due to distractions from the learning process, and at least partially compensate for those restrictions that impose specific learning conditions on cadets. This can be achieved through the most effective organization of independent work and careful use of appropriate resources. It should be noted that the transfer of the established stereotypes of educational activities (including independent ones), which were formed in the previous period, to work in higher education often have a negative impact on the effectiveness of work with educational material. In the conditions of a busy study schedule and limited time for independent work at a higher education institution with special learning conditions, previously learned learning methods are not only ineffective, but also hinder the rational organization of the education process.

The emphasis on independent work is fully consistent with modern requirements to increase its share in the education process and can be considered in line with modern pedagogical strategy of autonomous learning to provide students with opportunities to self-regulate their educational activities. It is clear that this approach requires teachers to use such teaching technologies that would provide opportunities to master the most convenient and effective learning strategies for independent work [3].

It is generally accepted that the most promising types of self-study are computerized forms of work under the computer program-mediated guidance of the teacher. They are performed individually, at a convenient time, at a pace adapted to the capabilities of the cadet, with independent search and maximum use of reference and other information resources, to which cadets and students must have wide independent access. Modern information technologies allow to maximally individualize the independent work of students, with the maximum use of all the advantages of computer technology [4].

Rationally formed skills of independent work will promote mastering of methods of search and processing of educational and scientific information in foreign languages, development of creative thinking and expansion of world outlook. Systematic independent work not only increases the interest in learning foreign languages, but also educates cadets in the need for continuous acquisition of knowledge in general and special subjects within the framework of improving their training in the chosen profession, including through foreign sources.

It is necessary to provide cadets with the opportunity not only to freely choose and use information resources in a particular discipline, but also (at least in part) to independently manage their educational activities. This form of organization of the education process promotes the development of independent strategies for acquiring knowledge, skills and abilities in the discipline. Cadets have the opportunity to choose the time, sequence and pace of learning, sometimes they can choose the level and content of educational material, receiving advice on language issues and teaching methods. Organizationally, this approach can be implemented by creating specialized language centers (laboratories) with independent access of students to educational information. The cadet can use such a center either on his own initiative or to perform specific tasks of the teacher. The advantage of the center is its flexibility, the ability to adapt the training course to the needs and work style, which increases the motivation and effectiveness of training. Independent work organized in this way complements the limited time of study in the classroom and reduces the burden on the teacher, promotes the development of his pedagogical potential through the release of his time to develop methodological support for the educational process and creative work with cadets. Fostering responsibility and promoting the activity of cadets is an additional argument in favor of organizing independent work in this way.

When considering the content of education, it should be remembered that cadets of higher education institutions face difficulties in learning not just a foreign language, but its special variety, namely the language of law. Legal English, informally known as legalese (first used according to the Cambridge Dictionary in 1911), is so specific and difficult to understand even for native speakers that some authors find its use derogatory because of its contrived complexity for both legal writers and those who have to read them [5]. It is clear that for a foreigner such specificity is a difficult obstacle to mastering the legal language. The most important feature and at the same time a specific difficulty for teaching, is the special professional vocabulary, in particular, narrow legal terminology, which accounts for more than a third of all keywords in legal texts.

While concepts in other fields of knowledge, such as exact sciences, are common property, the legal system of each country is unique and inextricably linked to its culture. This legal system operates in a complex socio-cultural context, which always has national specifics. Legal concepts that describe or regulate certain areas of social relations and historically grow from moral values, norms, regulations, customs and traditions, go their own and special path of formation and development. Complete or partial divergence of concepts and relations of legal systems of different societies and cultures necessarily leads to the formation of national-specific terminological systems. In this case, the determining factor will be the legal system, because even with the presence of the same language in a number of countries, their systems of legal terminology will differ. The language of law is so ingrained in national legal thinking and culture that, working with the legal text, we translate not just words but the legal system behind them [6].

Thus, the main obstacle when working with legal texts is the national-specific terminology in the field of law, which differs in nature from the terminology in other subject areas. This leads to the conclusion that the necessary prerequisite for understanding and, if necessary, correct translation of legal texts by cadets is at least limited mastery of professionally-oriented socio-cultural background knowledge in the field of law of both their own and foreign countries. Obviously, cadets in the first or second year do not have such knowledge. The period of learning a foreign language and the time of formation of special knowledge about their future profession do not coincide, which prevents the understanding and assimilation of the content of professional texts. In the initial period of study there is no professional experience, the idea of one's specialty is quite general, diffuse in nature, and theoretical disciplines, which are currently taught, only lay the foundation for further understanding of specific tasks of future professional activity. The content of specialized legal or police texts, which are usually used in textbooks and manuals, often precedes the actual knowledge of cadets. Against this background, it is almost impossible to ensure the professional orientation of teaching a foreign language and the formation of full-fledged foreign language professional communicative competence. When cadets in senior courses get acquainted with the professional tasks that they will have to solve, a foreign language, as a rule, is not studied anymore and much of it has already been forgotten.

Thus, the specific nature of legal terminology and the lack of background knowledge of the specialty at the initial stage of training pose particularly difficult obstacles for cadets on the way to understanding texts in the specialty. This requires additional work on the methodological support of the educational process and makes higher demands on the professional level of the teaching staff. The teacher's task is not only to help cadets to correctly understand and translate certain terms, but also to explain their meaning, to comment on their origin [7]. It should be explained that due to the cultural and historical features of different countries and the specific differences of their legal systems, legal terminology is characterized by incomplete conceptual equivalence. The heterogeneity of interpretations of even seemingly identical terms by speakers of different languages stems from the divergence of concepts that these terms represent. It is expedient to speak only about this or that degree of correspondence between concepts and only on the basis of the analysis of their volume, characteristics and relations it is possible to judge about a level of equivalence of those terms which represent them in various languages. Not only the content but also the function of concepts should be analyzed, which can be done only on the basis of context.

Teaching foreign language legal terminology requires purposeful efforts and is part of a more general task of forming professionally oriented socio-cultural competence of cadets. In addition to improving the methodological support, it requires from the teacher some additional, albeit limited, knowledge that can be attributed to the field of comparative law [8]. The acquisition of such knowledge and, accordingly, the improvement of the professional level of the teacher can be provided through professional selfimprovement or purposeful professional development. Changing the emphasis in the professional retraining of teaching staff will require not only changes in training programs, but also the involvement of legal professionals in this work.

The analysed specific nature of education is an additional argument in favour of preservation of departmental education of the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Only within its framework it is possible to carefully take into account all the features of cadet training, which will ensure the rational organization of the educational process and the use of the most effective methods and technologies.

The results of the research presented in the article show that teaching at higher education institutions with special learning conditions is characterized by some specific features which might produce an adverse effect on the process of teaching and hamper the success of learning. These features are especially pronounced in teaching foreign languages, and should be taken into account when defining the goal of education, organizing the teaching process, selecting the methodology, and training the teaching staff. Evidently, these aspects should be adjusted to all the peculiarities of teaching at the educational establishment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

These peculiarities which turn into factors, detrimental both in teaching and learning terms, are related to the goals, conditions and content of education. They not only determine the specific nature of learning, but also indicate the main areas of work to eliminate the limitations that these factors might impose on the effectiveness of the educational process. Within this work, a set of measures is needed, which will include the redistribution of the main emphasis in determining learning objectives, the most balanced adaptation of the educational process to special learning conditions, rational organization of independent work, taking into account the specifics of teaching the language of law and improving the teaching staff qualification.

List of references

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