Visualization as an integral aspect of English language teaching to students of non-linguistic specialties

Abstract

In the context of education globalization, the importance of a foreign language communicative competence for a specialist and potential employee is indisputable. For effective work in the future, the current student should master the skills of analyzing, working out and creation of visual content, hence one of the preconditions for a specialist’s success (first of all, in technical specialty) is the ability to quickly process and present large information volumes in the most accessible and compressed form. The fundamentals of productive skills mentioned above are the skills of visualized content analysis and representing in different formats trained in university courses, especially in a foreign language course. This article is devoted to the study of the characteristics of modern visualization means and their potential in the educational process of the foreign language students of non-linguistic specialties of the bachelor program. The reasons for motivation increase necessity in class activities are presented; the importance of training students for self-directed production of independent analytical message in their future professional activity is emphasized. The advantages of working out visualized foreign data over the data in text format based on a student survey were determined. The students’ perception of the visualized content which is integrated into English textbooks and typical of the world’s leading educational publishing houses, in the view of necessity, self-descriptiveness and aesthetics was analyzed. In the article, a strategy for linguistic aspect training for graphic information processing by students and for creation of their own oral or written discourse in accordance with the certain learning objectives or speech intentions is drawn up. The preconditions for successful visualization tools’ integration into class activities under the teacher guidance are presented.