The principle of integration in professional English language teaching and its role in training of future lawyers

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The principle of integration in professional English language teaching and its role in training of future lawyers

Oksana Dyndarenko,

Senior Lecturer at the English Language Department Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (Mykolayiv, Ukraine)

The article is devoted to studying the peculiarities ofthe principle ofintegrational technologies in teaching professional English to the students-lawyers. The research involves the use of the modern approaches in foreign-language teaching in higher educational establishments to the non-philological students. In the modern system of higher education foreinlanguage competency includes the ability of a student-graduate not only to put to use their acquired knowledge and skills in the native country but abroad as well. The proposed approach of integral principle of learning English as a professional language of the future lawyers will enable them to successfully pass their international certificate exam ILEC (The International Legal English Certificate). This certificate highly identifies the knowledge of a professional English language in the sphere of law. This guarantees employment of the lawyers-graduates even in foreign European English-speaking countries and gets them ready for the future successful professional legal activity and intercultural communication. The principle of use of integration technologies involves the combination of the knowledge of a number of disciplines in studying English for law. These subjects include country-studies, culture, religion, history, traditions and customs of different countries while teaching English for Law. This could be achieved on the block, credit-module basis in studying system, while the levels of competency in English, Law and Country-Studies should be correlated. During their lessons-periods the students participate in role-plays, make dialogues and organize brainstorms on the topics from their professional sphere of activity which will further help them get easily adjusted to the similar real-life situations and get rid of the foreign language fear in communication, get a higher level of competency in unexpected situations both on the social and legal issues. This principle gives students a strong stimulus and motivation in learning English as their professional foreign one. The effectiveness ofstudying could be reached through the use of different tables, block-schemes and projects ' approach. Making presentations gets students more professionally involved and educated in the sphere of the proposed topic, inspires them to express their knowledge and ideas more clearly and directly, without the fear of taking a speech in public, perfects and improves their oratory skills.

Key words: integration, optimization, professional English language, English for Special Purposes (ESP), law, inter-subject correlation, cross-cultural communicative competency, future lawyers.

ІНТЕГРОВАНЕ НАВЧАННЯ ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ ТА ЙОГО РОЛЬ У ПІДГОТОВЦІ МАЙБУТНІХ ЮРИСТІВ

Оксана ДИНДАРЕНКО,

старший викладач кафедри англійської мови Чорноморського національного університету імені Петра Могили (Миколаїв, Україна)

Стаття присвячена вивченню особливостей інтегрованого навчання як одного із засобів ефективного викла-дання англійської мови за професійним спрямуванням студентам нефілологічних факультетів, в особливості юристам, у контексті сучасних змін у системі вищої освіти. Внаслідок цього мовна компетенція включає не тільки здатність студента, випускника ВЗО, практично застосовувати отримані знання з іноземної мови (англійської) у рідній країні, але й за кордоном. Запропонований принцип інтегрованого навчання у викладанні професійної англійської мови для майбутніх юристів дасть їм можливість, наприклад, успішно скласти іспит для отримання міжнародного сертифіката ILEC. Сертифікат визначає високий професійний рівень володіння англійською мовою у сфері права, стає гарантією успішного працевлаштування в країнах Європи та англомовних країнах, є запорукою досконалої підготовки до діяльності в галузі міжнародного права та міжкультурної комунікації. Принцип інтегрованого навчання включає поєднання знань серії дисциплін, що вивчаються комплексно в курсі іноземної мови (англійської) за професійним спрямуванням для юристів. Курс включає набуті знання з країнознавства, культури, релігії, історії, порівняння традицій і звичаїв народів різних країн. Навчання може здійснюватись як аудиторно (офлайн), так і дистанційно (онлайн) за допомогою кредитно-модульної системи, а для досягнення високого рівня компетенції у вивченні англійської мови, права та країнознавства треба комплексне знання цих дисциплін. На заняттях студенти задіяні у ситуативно-ролеву гру, складають діалоги, організують мозкову атаку (штурм) для дискусії за запропонованою темою, що допомагає майбутнім юристам успішно інтегруватись в іноземне мовне середовище, позбавитись мовного бар'єру і досягти високого рівня мовної компетенції як у сфері соціальної комунікації, так і права. Принцип інтегрованого навчання дає студентам більший стимул і мотивацію у вивченні професійної англійської мови. Ефективність навчання англійської мови для спеціальних цілей досягається за допомогою залучення різних блок-схем, порівняльних таблиць, методу про- єктів, складання презентацій. Все це стимулює студентів до професійної діяльності та поглиблює знання за вибраною темою, надихає на більш відкрите висловлювання думок, позбавляє страху публічного виступу, вдосконалює ораторські здібності студентів, майбутніх юристів.

Ключові слова: інтеграція, оптимізація, професійна англійська мова, англійська для спеціальних цілей, право, міжпредметні зв'язки, міжкультурна комунікативна компетентність, майбутні юристи.

Stating the problem

integration english language teaching

Teaching English for Special Purposes (ESP) in the higher educational estab-lishments and other vocational training educational institutions has gone far beyond the boundaries of general comprehensive disciplines. Nowadays it is considered an inseparable part of professional training course together with the other special subjects. In modern societies the perfect knowledge of English as an international foreign language is a means of successful career opportunities, foreign educational training and experience and prolific scientific research work. The level of your command of foreign language demonstrates the development of your personal professional culture in communication. The new concept in teaching ESP demands the new concentration of ideas, goals, principles, content, methodologies, evaluation and assessment of the acquired knowledge, according to the set educational qualificational characteristics of the expert in this sphere, the typical tasks and skills and their practical use in the profes-sional activity. Quite adequate and methodologically grounded and proved is the professional, communica-tive approach in teaching ESP, the final goal of which corresponds to the students-lawyers' requirements about their future professional activity (subjectivity of activity), stimulates with the appropriate means the importance of learning the English language as a foreign one (motivation of activity), correlates the learn-ing process of the foreign language with the personal aim (purposefulness of activity), and also favours the actualization of the necessity of the foreign language learning as a means of becoming a highly educated, well-bred, professionally trained, competitive and successful personality (awareness of the activity).

Analysis of the latest researches and publications

The question of organization of the teaching and learning process based on the principle of integration models use in the sphere of professionally oriented communication has been long attracting the attention of the researchers. The prospectus of this direction is well-grounded, which has been proved by the array of scientific research works that werew devoted to different aspects of integration (V.N. Maksymova, N.S. Antonov, I.D. Zverev, G.F. Fedorets, H.Y. Vyshnevska, T. V. Kuskunova, I. L. Bim and others). As a rule, the potential of integration principle in teaching ESP has been considered solely from the point of view of inter-subject correlation, but we propose the approach focused on the specification of the integrated education in teaching ESP at different stages of it. The notion of “inter-subject correlation” was prior to the appearance of the principle of integration. The most grounded psycho-pedagogical explanation to this notion from the didactical point of view is proposed by K. D. Ushinskiy. According to his theory, “inter-subject correlation” has the world-view value and promotes the formation of accurate and integral perception of the real surrounding world. He drives the notion of the “inter-subject correlation” from the three different associate lines, reflecting the objective correlation of things and events (Ushinskiy, 1948-1952? V. 8: 70). According to the definition by T. B. Vepreva, integration is a natural correlation between sciences, curriculum subjects, paragraphs and topics from different subjects based on the fundamental ideas and fundamental priciples, followed by the deep, subsequent diverse revelation of the processes and events, which are studied (Vepreva, 2012: 102).

In the process of integrated teaching of the professional English (ESP) at different non-philolog- ical faculties provision of the adequate pedagogical conditions is compulsory, the combination of which results in the harmonious synthesis between the linguistic and the professional components. The methodological component is connected with the acquisition by the students of the rational didactical approaches, the development of the skill of independent personal interpretation of the authentic texts. The level of the formation of the skills and abilities, acquired in the process of integral teaching of ESP, is defined by the ability to understand all the meanings of the foreign professional terms, to relate the notions to their Ukrainian equivalents. According to the acute observation of N. P. Khomiakova, the idea of the pro-fessional training of specialists with the highly developed foreign language intercultural communicative competency - one of the most important components of the general professional competency - enforces the appearance of the new notion, which correlates with the notion of the secondary language personality for the graduates of the higher educational establishments - the secondary communicative professional personality (Khomiakova, 2017: 98). The actuality of the development and formation of such a personality is evident within the process of hlobalization. The number of the components in the integration course can be defined quite differently. The most optimal variant is the approach proposed by O. N. Shchukin (Shchukin, 2016: 321), according to which the integrated course includes the following components: language material, speaking skills and habits, the knowledge of language facilities and the rules of their use, learning and compensational skills, the culture of the foreign language you study, the spheres, topics, situations of communication, authentic texts. The foreign language authentic texts, promoting acquisition of knowledge of the professional terms, are used for the realization of the contextual aspect of the pro-cesses of integration. While the activity aspect of integration is revealed in mastering the foreign pro-fessionally oriented language with the aim of solving certain professional tasks. Besides the principle of novelty, another leading didactical principle is the principle of practicality, proposed by Y. A. Komens- kiy in the seventeenth century.

The aim of the research

The aim of our research is to prove that the principle of integration in teach-ing ESP to future lawyers is based on overcoming the disadvantages of the traditional higher education system of subjects, integration, inerrelation and interconnection of disciplines. Thus, as Pestalotstsy I. G. wrote, it is vital “to combine in our memory similar and related items or subjects, to clarify our portraying them, and after their final and complete dentifition, give them the upgraded status of the clear and accu-rate notions. (Pestalotstsy, 1983: 98). M. S. Bagari- adtseva has objectively remarked, that the peculiarity of the professional foreign (English) language is connected with the existence of the inter-subject correla-tion basis for the integration (foreign language+spe- cial(professional) disciplines), but through time, due to the natural interconnection between the foreign (English) language and the professional aspect of the problemof studying, transformation into the inner inter-subject correlated discipline (Bagariadtseva, 2014: 202). Such a gradual transformation promotes effective formation intercultural communicative com-petency of the future specialists in this professional field of activity, in our case - future lawyers.

Representation of the main points of the research. The effectiveness of the use of the principle of clarity of learning when teaching professional

English for the future lawyers at law faculties is fundamental, though the peculiarity of the discipline influences the organization of the studying process in the universities. In the professionally oriented com-munication of the lawyers such means of the clarity of the clarity of learning process are schemes, tables, which form the basis for the comparison and relation between processes from one side and events from the other side. It has already been proved that these means develop skills, which are defined by the psychologists as the leading ones for the comprehension and reproduction. The habit of working with the tables and schemes as the additional means of the integral educating principle in the foreign professional English language teaching in a parallel way develops the skill of the use of the graphical clarity when reading the authentic professional legal texts in Ukrainian and finding and revealing the important legal information. Among the most popular schemes are the branched multilevel scemes-classifications, in which one can easily classify the spheres of law and legacy and other aspects of the field. If there are no graphic clarity means in the authentic law-oriented texts, there is a point in creating them with the didac-tical aims. The organization of the studying process with the necessary required teaching material related to the aims and conditions of integral learning and teaching is fundamental in forming and developing the lexical abilities and skills, which are vital in acquiring the knowledge of the professionally oriented lexics (vocabulary) and its fluent use in the situations of intercultural communication. As most of the researches show, the most important and influen- cial factor of the optimization of integral teaching and learning is the module principle, which includes the specially selected exercises and tasks for the practical use of the professional vocabulary. O. O. Verbitskiy introduces the notion of the “activity module” as an item, that tranforms the process from the professional to the learning one. According to his theory, module is not only a conglomerate of knowledge, abilities and skills, but a certain systematic characteristic of the specialist, which gives everyone an opportunity to fulfil their professional tasks (Verbitskiy, 2017: 198). For the integrated teaching and learning of the ESP of the students of the non-philological departmens, the value of the module approach is in the intencification of the individual students work, taking into consideration the individual abilities, skills and general characteristics of the students, the opportunity to choose a definite set of modules and the process of their learning, depending on the level of formation and development of the lexical abilities and skills. Thematical modules can be easily devided into blocks, which are combined with the foreign language lexics and the corresponding exercises. In particular, the modules of the integrated course of ESP for the students-lawyers, consist of the law-based vocabulary authentic texts and the complex of exercises. Besides, each of the modules is occompanied with the vocabulary of the new legal terms for the revision and practicing on the learned material of the period. All the selected exercises and tasks are based on the principle of availability, accessability, comprehension and novelty, interactivity, motivation, gradual growth of complicatedness, consideration of the students' individual characteristics, the level of formation of their individual professional English thesaurus, communicative skills and creative potential. According to the results of polls, students of the law faculties have difficulty understanding the iplied cultural pretext in communication with the foreigners, identifying the words- realia in the texts and specific cultural connotations through the lack of live communication in the fiejld of professional activity in the multi-cultural environment. Getting rid of these drawbacks will become one of the leading tasks of the integral principle of learning and teaching ESP by way of facilitating studying the linguistic and country-studying component, which implies comparing and deep insight not only into the linguistic, philological component, but also the national and cultural component. The students of Petro-Mohyla Blacksea National University, of the faculty of Law, follow the principle of integral learning of the professional English language from the first to the graduate course. The amout of the individual student work grows gradually each year, corresponding to the number of auditorial hours of periods. Students combine the knowledge of the ESP, special vocabulary of the field and grammar, with the practical insight into the culture, customs, traditions and norms and peculiarities of all the English-speak-ing countries and learn to compare them with the Ukrainian ones. Such a syllabus helps them to integrate easily into the new cultural environment and be confident in their future career perspectives and ambitions in foreign countries, using the acquired abilities, knowledge of the field and practical skills in both general and professional English use.

Conclusions

English language materials, providing the basis for the integral principle of teaching and learning ESP, ought to motivate students due to the availability of up-to-date professional and cultural, country-studies' information from and correlated to the field of Law and Legacy. We strongly recommend correlating the work of the lecturers of both subjects (professional and culture-related disciplines) for the sake of the successful coordination of the studying process. In the ideal variant, the materials of the inte-gral course can be used both for the preparation of the English language periods in the university and for the legal complex of disciplines. The formation of the language abilities and skills in the integrated course of learning and teaching ESP takes place in the conditions of inter- and correlated learning the coplex of language activities: reading, speaking, auding and writing. All the required aims are subject to the same goal - formation of the English-language professional lexical competency, as an assential part in the structure of the general multi- and inter-cultural communicative competency. Linguistic-didactical model, based on the integral course of professionaly oriented foreign (English) language helps define the levels of the practical use of the acquired knowledge while participating in the professional communication process of the experts from the varied linguistic legal background. One of the main methodological approaches in teaching ESP in the integral course is the principle of live communication of the two or more students-lawyers in English in the process of sharing professional and culturally-based information and knowledge, common, group creative work, similar to the role-play. Modelling of the situations of communication with the professional background, reproduction of the foreign language environ with the help of the didactical means, positively influence the activizationof the perception and acquisition of the ESP language material, which strongly stimulates students to develop in this direction and helps get rid of the language barrier in the real, live situation of professional communication. It's worth mentioning that the integral course: “English Language, Law, Linguistic Country-studies”, which is based on the block-module system, can be considered the primary stage for the preparation to the international exam in the sphere ESP for Legacy/Law students - ILEC (The International Legal English Certificate). The acquisition of the certificate ILEC is the stable guarantee of the perfect command of the professional English, the knowledge of the peculiarities of the national-legal systems of the English-speaking countries and readiness of a student for the effective inter-cultural communication on the modern urgent professional issues.

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