ESSENCE AND SPECIFICS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OF A TEACHER OF TECHNICAL DISCIPLINES

Abstract

The article defines the essence of the concepts “foreign language professional competence of a teacher
of technical disciplines” as his/her ability to use a foreign language while performing teaching, educational,
research, technical and technological functions of their professional activity: when obtaining, processing and
creating materials of subject-information (scientific-technical, scientific-pedagogical and educationalmethodological) nature, while exchanging information with others with the aim of developing and improving
his/her own professional performance; “foreign language training of future teachers of technical disciplines”
as a comprehensive and systematic specially organized process of an active use of foreign languages by
students as a means of mastering and assimilating information relevant to their professional functions while
implementing various directions in the training process. The author clarifies the structure and content of the
components of foreign language professional competence of teachers of technical disciplines; the
clarification was about limiting the list of components and specifying the content of linguistic (related to
language and speech); professional-communicative (communicative-pedagogical and communicativetechnical); pragmatic (scientific-pedagogical and scientific-technical) competences in accordance with the
professional functions of teachers of technical disciplines.
The conclusions of the article highlight the important place of language competence in developing
professionally important competences of a higher education student. It was defined as an obligatory key
competence of a future specialist, having an interdisciplinary character and serving as the basis for
developing professional (general and subject-related) competences. Along with the growing role of a foreign
language in language competence, its foreign-language component has been defined. Foreign-language
professional competence involves the ability of a specialist in a particular field to use the capabilities of
another (foreign) language when performing professional functions: in obtaining and elaborating
information, exchanging opinions and information with others for the sake of their own development and
improvement of the results of their professional activity. This competence acquires its own specificity
regarding the role and importance in the performance of professional functions of pedagogical staff.