Cultural Environment Establishment in Language Education in Non-linguistic Universities

The present work is the result of the study in the design of the author's model of establishing and maintaining a cultural environment in the implementation of the language education in nonlinguistic universities, is aimed at the study of a foreign culture and value determination of students, to preserve and maintain its uniqueness in cultural sphere. The methodological basis of the study was the main provisions of the cultural, competence and communication approaches. Authors analyze the interpretation, scope and content of the concept of cultural environment within the context of language education in not language higher school, appearing in a set as an academic subject and cultural and moral components that are constantly interacting with all the participants of the educational process. The principle of selecting the content of language education is presented (interaction of cultural, moral and professional aspects of language education, learning the culture, norms and etiquette of the studied language within the conceptualization of the content of education, etc.). To create and sustain a cultural environment in part of the content of language education we have identified and tested three its phases, including: the interaction of cultural, moral and professional aspects of language education in the course of conceptualization of the content of education; the implementation stage involved the active involvement and immersion of students in the study of culture; at the final stage, there was a summing up of the studied topics and an analysis of the results achieved. The optimal methods of language teaching (critical thinking development, communicative and immersion methods) are specified, which are aimed at improving the level of students' knowledge of culture and language, as well as their self-identification. The experience of implementing the developed model is presented on the example of MGIMO Odintsovo Branch and Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in 2018-2020. Part of the pilot study fell on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed us to make sure that its application is possible in both traditional, distance and mixed types of education, which was achieved due to the flexibility of its components (the content of education and teaching methods). The given pilot study confirms the effectiveness of the developed model. In conclusion, the authors outline promising areas of the research.

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