Innovation Strategies Of Profession-Oriented Foreign Language Education

The paper deals with the major changes in the professional activities of technical specialists caused by the development of information society, which makes new demands for their professional competences and particularly for their foreign language communicative skills. The new aims of foreign language education require new approaches to all aspects of the language teaching and learning process, including its methodology and instruments. As professional communication between the members of the professional societies generally occurs in the English language, in order to be active participants of this communication, engineers must possess communicative skills allowing them to be engaged to the socio-cultural context of their profession. The author argues that this context should be used as a resource for the English language learning curriculum and considers virtual professional communities as an element of professional socio-cultural environment. The concept of “a virtual socio-cultural professional context” is introduced which gives grounds to the concept of “a foreign language professional socio-cultural competence”. Foreign language skills of technical students in information society are revealed. Learner autonomy and autonomy development are viewed as a permanent and dynamic process. Particular attention is given to the methodology and strategies of the ICT-based foreign language education. The most appropriate strategies for developing learner autonomy in ICT-based language teaching and learning environment are proposed. Three strategies of applying ICT in profession-oriented foreign language teaching and learning are introduced, each of them corresponding to different ICT-based language teaching and learning materials and different levels of learner autonomy.