Applying the multilingual approach to inclusive higher education

The article addresses the issues of inclusive education at higher educational establishments. It considers the conditions necessary for organising the process of inclusive education and highlights the difficulties faced by university teachers in working with students with limited health capacities. The authors see the solution to the problems outlined in the article in the logic of applying the multilingual approach aimed at forming specialists of a new level, proficient in several foreign languages and capable of providing multicultural services and consultations, able to develop services for intercultural communication, to search and exchange relevant information, etc. Multilingual competence can become a “hallmark” of a future specialist with limited health capacities, providing him/her with obvious advantages in the Russian and international labour markets. The employees who possess this characteristic and are able to integrate it in the structure of their own professional activity are in demand in all sectors of the national economy. Being ready and able to successfully solve professional tasks both in the native and foreign languages, these individuals will constitute a new human resource - multilingual human capital. Acting as linguistic and cultural mediators, multilingual professionals can function not only as interpreters in the field of professional communication, but also as mediators who are needed in the resolution of professional disputes and disagreements, in the establishment of business contacts, in technical and lin-linguistic support. In this regard, the authors identify the basic postulates of the multilingual approach to inclusive education; identify the component-specific composition of multilingual communicative competence formed in students, where social interaction is a complementary component. The results of the research carried out at one of the technical universities of Russia show that the level of social interaction increases significantly in the conditions of: a) regular socio-psychological, linguo-cultural and technical support, b) transformation of educational environment not only from the position of accessibility, but also from the perspective of harmonisation of academic and social conditions favouring interpersonal intercultural communication. The authors conclude that the use of the multilingual approach in inclusive education leads to a new type of educational process and supposes active interaction between a multilingual teacher and a student with limited health capacities; dialogue and assistance; equitable cooperation against the background of joint activity of all participants of the student body; delicate immersion in a multilingual environment, comfortable for students, to be created in a technical university.

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