Developing future Еnglish teachers’ soft skills while mastering educational components of the linguistic-didactic block (theoretical grammar, theoretical and practical phonetics)

Abstract

The research paper highlights the development of future English teachers’ soft skills while studying the educational components of the linguodidactic block, particularly Theoretical Grammar, Theoretical and Practical Phonetics. The article aims to analyze the possibilities of developing future English teachers’ soft skills while studying the abovementioned educational components, as well as to substantiate the feasibility of their targeted formation in distance learning. The authors emphasize the importance of integrating the development of communicative, creative, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills into professional training and prove that the formation of soft skills contributes not only to improving the quality of professional knowledge but also to the professional readiness of future teachers to teach in the conditions of modern education. The article emphasizes that mastering such theoretical disciplines as theoretical grammar and theoretical and practical phonetics is usually associated with a high level of abstractness and academics, while these educational components can contribute to the development of soft skills if they are taught taking into account modern educational technologies, interactive methods, group work, project activities, and reflection. The authors emphasize that such an approach to teaching simultaneously deepens professional knowledge and forms skills that are necessary in the professional environment of the 21st century. The authors present the experience of teaching the educational components Theoretical Grammar, Theoretical and Practical Phonetics at Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University in a distance format and provide the most effective, from their point of view, methods of developing future foreign language teachers’ soft skills.

Key words: soft skills; teachers’ education; future foreign language teachers; theoretical grammar; theoretical and practical phonetics.