Keyword: «professional skills»

The relevance of the research is due to the fact that most of the university courses today are aimed at developing hard skills of prospective specialists without taking in consideration soft skills formation in training. Even if there are some courses to improve students’ soft skills, they are planned, as a rule, without taking into account the current employers’ demands. It is worth noting that soft skills development today is very important in the professional field in general, and in the IT area in particular. The purpose of the study is to identify an optimal combination of soft skills that are required of the candidates for IT positions and make the applicants competitive in the labor market. The paper is based on a theoretical review and analysis of national and foreign scientific works on the subject of research. A questionnaire was chosen as an empirical research method. The scientific novelty of the results, in contrast to the results of foreign and domestic researches on the issue, is the following: 1) technical knowledge does not always contribute to professional success in the IT area because it largely depends on how well a specialist is able to work, listen and interact with others to promote a project or solve a problem in a team, 2) soft skills are additional values of IT specialists but only on condition that they realize what kinds of specific soft skills will be required and will be able to develop them, 3) university can become a suitable area for developing a currently important set of graduates’ soft skills. The theoretical significance of the research lies in advancing knowledge on the students’ soft skills development in higher educational institutions in order to improve their professional ways. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the authors identified and described an up-to-date combination of soft skills based on the results of interviews in Russian IT companies: curiosity and willingness to learn, interpersonal communication, customer-oriented mentality, collaboration, problem-solving ability, adaptability, prioritization and mentoring. The reliability and validity of the results were ensured by a comprehensive analysis of national and foreign academic literature on the research issue taking into account the fundamental methodological principles and the use of methods appropriate to the study.

The article is devoted to the development of teacher’s voice among first-year students - future teachers. The author presents the results of self-diagnosis of the level of voice development by students of pedagogical specialties, as well as the results of diagnostics of the level of development of the voice function of students in order to assess the relevance of the problem.

The article examines the role of language applications in the process of training future translators and presents an analysis of current trends in this direction. The importance of using modern digital technologies to improve the language skills of future translators, expand their vocabulary and develop professional competencies is em-phasized. Arguments are made in favor of various educational platforms that students can use to familiarize themselves with professional tools, popular applications and websites to improve their level of foreign language proficiency and optimize further translation practice for a future successful translation career.