Elena Stolyarova

Soft skills are acknowledged to be the most significant 21st century skills according to experts in the sphere of education. Soft skills involve assertive skills in particular. The authors deal with the notion assertiveness, since interpretation of this term in different studies is ambiguous and is reasoned by specific research objectives, complicacy of the phenomenon and its correlation with other behavioral and communication skills. The article considers the notion assertiveness and describes the techniques and the system of activities aimed to develop economics student's assertive skill in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom. Based on literature review of the issue, the authors consider assertiveness concept in terms of linguistic, socio-psychological, cultural and pragmatic aspects. They advance a hypothesis that linguistic aspect is a means of not only reflection of communicative situation but structuring and managing communication. Since the language structures and manages interaction it is considered relevant and possible to develop assertive skills through teaching verbal interaction assertive techniques at the English language classes. Teaching assertive skills was tested at English classes in undergraduate economics student groups (60 2nd-year students, Faculty of Economics and Law) in Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. The researchers' aim was to increase undergraduate awareness of assertiveness, improve assertive skills by means of using the system of the described activities, implement the practiced student skills in the foreign language interaction, correlate the foreign language entities with assertive techniques and learning technologies, ensuring the skills reinforcement. The teaching included certain techniques and relevant verbal interaction acquisition, insight into cultural specifics, role plays and simulations of real life business situations. The system of techniques and communicative activities is demonstrated within consequent stages of teaching and learning. The practice of teaching and interviewing students at the end of the learning sessions integrated into the course "Foreign Language" proved boosting students' motivation through undergraduates' interest to self-awareness and personal development, improvement of their assertive skills, language and intercultural competences. The research findings might be useful for Business and Professional English teaching and learning.

The paper aims to consider theoretical and practical issues of creating e-textbooks as a model of foreign language teaching for special purposes. The authors review e-textbook specific features, key learners’ competences, the system of exercises and assignments aimed at developing the competences. The authors describe their own experience of crafting -textbook for Master students studying Economics.