Improving the efficiency of developing students’ foreign language written competence at technical universities

Abstract

The article discusses the issues of increasing the effectiveness of developing students’ foreign language
written competence at higher technical education institutions. Taking into account the growing requirements for
students’ writing skills in a foreign language, the great potential of creative writing for increasing the level of
foreign language proficiency and the lack of developed systems of exercises for its teaching, the authors offer a
staged approach to the formation of written communicative competence. The specific features of each
subsequent stage consist in increasing the volume of narrative writing, expanding topics and communication
problems, increasing the information content of the texts as well as the degree of students' independence in the
process of their own writing. Much attention is paid to combining writing and reading as types of speech
activity. In particular, the authors offer foreign language teachers a number of techniques that can enhance
teaching creative writing. The article considers in detail the principles of working with exemplar texts, which
clearly illustrate specific features of effective writing, and assignments that can help students develop the ability
to formulate their thoughts and write argumentative pieces. The authors also emphasise the effectiveness of
using strategies like RAFT to develop critical thinking for writing original texts. It is noted that the main
problem that may arise during the implementation of the offered techniques and principles is that students have
trouble understanding texts for reading, let alone create their own pieces of writing. This problem can be solved
by the staged approach to the implementation of these principles in the educational process. The issues of
developing students’ foreign language writing skills require further consideration, since writing has an
enormous developmental potential, which, unfortunately, has not yet been properly used in teaching foreign
languages, especially with regard to teaching foreign creative writing at a technical university.