Keyword: «soft skills»

The relevance of this research is due to the fact that, despite the active discussion of the students’ soft skills development problem in domestic and foreign literature, the level of their development is very low. Modern graduates quickly lose their value on labor market, because a certain set of skills (hard skills) acquired during the years of education becomes out of date and soft skills are underdeveloped and, as a result, they become incompetent on the modern labor market. The term «soft skills» is one of the hits of the dynamically changing world. The purpose of the article is to study the main determinants of the students’ soft skills development. The article presents a content analysis of the «soft skills» concept that ensures the integrity of the term perception and its content, and its possible use in the communication sphere. Today, in the world of «clip-making opportunities» and integration in the system of psychological and pedagogical assessments of the individual abilities, «soft» skills are divided into four groups: basic communication skills or communicative literacy, self-management skills, effective thinking or intellectual thinking skills, management skills or foresight management. The soft-skills development is considered to be a constructive cooperation in the communication sphere, in which the so called co-existent identification of the internal potential appears. Co-knowledge, co-experience and co-creation represent a three-sided model of such cooperative form of interaction. The article describes these forms, the key rules of the selected determinants, the technology of making an individual development plan in the communication sphere (the program of goals, steps and activities needed for this), the main methods of the soft skills development. The development of soft skills is a personal motive of every person and it depends only on him to what extent his personal qualities would help him to make a successful professional career, to determine his efficiency in the professional competitive environment. Studies of this kind contribute to the development of new educational approaches aimed at the students’ soft skills development at any level of education. In addition, they make it possible to comprehend the possibility of applying the described theoretical issues to practice.

The article presents the experience of using different methods of teaching English in terms of soft skills formation. The authors demonstrate various approaches to the use of the term. They come to the conclusion that that the effective management of group and pair work, guided discovery activities during English lessons can develop and improve communicative skills, skills of team work, critical thinking skills, which are important for graduates’ future professional activity.

The article considers the ways of organizing project-technological practice for students of Master’s programme “Teacher Education”. The requirements in the sphere of education demand the development of the so called soft skills of graduates: teamwork, cooperation, leadership, flexibility, motivation.

Currently, the predictable, calm world has been replaced by a dynamic and complex VUCA world, in which it is important for the digital generation of young people to use soft skills. Many of these skills are based on the appropriate level of development of certain types of thinking and its qualities. The purpose of our research was to study different types of thinking among high school students, which could contribute to their personal self-knowledge, timely correction of the characteristics, developed at an insufficient level, and more conscious further professional self-determination. The sample was made up of regular groups of high school students. The work used a set of complementary methods: organizational, theoretical, empirical, data processing methods, methods of research results presentation. To study the types of thinking at the ascertaining and control stages of the study, the following diagnostic tools were used that were consistent with the indicators of validity, reliability, standardization, and representativeness of test norms: the questionnaire «Determination of thinking types and the level of creativity» (Bruner), the test «Logical patterns» (Lippman), the method «comparison of concepts» (Vygotsky, et al.), the method «Exclusion of excess» (Rubinstein), the test for the assessment of logical thinking, the test «Meaning of words». In the course of the formative experiment, a specially worked out program was used, which included a set of lessons, divided into several blocks. Its implementation was accompanied by the introduction of a number of experimental conditions. The results obtained made it possible to identify a tendency for the prevailing development of thinking in images among modern high school students (which is characteristic of clip thinking) and a fall in the indicators of logical thinking, which is reflected in the uncritical perception of information, illogicality of the choices being made, the lack of desire to find the most rational method of solving the problem and the ability to generalize large databases, etc. With purposeful systematic work on the development of different types of thinking of high school students, the most mobile in terms of change are symbolic and creative types of thinking. Other types can be developed as well with appropriate work, but at a slower pace.

Изучающие иностранные языки могут найти чтение аутентичных текстов весьма полезным, поэтому чтение играет важную роль на любом уроке иностранного языка. Чтение помогает преподавателям иностранных языков в достижении разнообразных целей, так как оно совершествует общие навыки чтения студентов, развивает их гибкие навыки, расширяет мировозрение, и, конечно, улучшает их языковые навыки и умения. Так как пособия по иностранным языкам имеют тенденцию использовать одни и те же задания от раздела к разделу, очень важно по возможности разнообразить задания в секциях, посвящённых чтению, чтобы повысить уровень мотивированности студентов к чтению. Данная статья описывает примеры разнообразных заданий, которые повысят уровень мотивации студентов, и предлагает советы, которые позволят успешно организовать данные задания на уроке иностранного языка.