Multilingual websites as a means for formation and development of mediative skills in technical university students

The article dwells on the issues of formation and development of foreign language mediative skills in technical profile students by means of using multilingual professionally oriented websites. One of the key notions in the Russian methodological science is the "type of verbal activity", whereas foreign methodological research practices the notion of "communicative types of activity" (reception, production, interaction and mediation). Mediation in modern foreign language teaching methodology is understood as a process in which the learner acts as a linguistic and cultural mediator or agent. He/she transmits to another person the content of a verbal/written text which is inaccessible to the latter because of linguistic, cultural, semantic or technical barriers. The analysis of modern methodological literature on the problem of mediation has led the authors of this article to a fresh look on the cross-lingual communication procedure and the participants of this process. When planning communication in a foreign language (languages), a participant of the communicative act should be prepared for situations where he/she will act as a communicant (communication participant), communicator (communication specialist) and mediator (intermediary between communicants and communicators; intercultural facilitator), who makes interaction between two or more parties possible, provides linguistic support. The practice of realisation of all types of mediative skills is extremely relevant for students - future engineers who are oriented towards the prospects of professional activity in transnational and multinational companies where the collective body of employees is represented by an international team. In this case, not only one's professional skills is the guarantee of success, but also the ability to be tolerant of linguistic and cultural differences, to foresee and eliminate situations of misunderstanding, disagreement and conflict, the ability to provide timely explanation and comments. Considering the peculiarities of this category of learners, the authors conclude that it is the multilingual professionally oriented websites that serve as an efficient means of developing foreign-language mediative skills in technical profile students. These include authentic websites of organisations or companies operating in a particular professional field and providing information on their past and current activities in English and other languages. In this regard, a special complex of exercises is offered, developed with the use of professionally oriented multilingual websites: Siemens.com (major manufacturer of electrical equipment and technologies), Alpiq.com (leading Swiss energy provider and power producer), Inno.com (well-known developer of high-tech units for production of electricity and gas compressors). This complex is aimed at forming mediative competence of higher technical university students. The assignments are developed for students - future engineers in the field of power engineering. The mentioned websites are characterised by versatile content: texts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc. The set of exercises in the English and German languages enables the students to practice different roles (communicant, communicator and mediator). The students learn to switch from one foreign language to another technically and appropriately, taking into account the situation of communication, its conditions as well as the specificity of cross-lingual communication. The authors conclude that this complex of cross-lingual exercises simulates real-life communication situations and stimulates practical acquisition of foreign languages; in addition, it helps every student to develop adequate professional behaviour based on independence, activity and creativity. The use of multilingual websites in teaching foreign languages allows for maximum consideration of needs and interests of future representatives of technical intellectuals, as well as their level of proficiency. Working with the websites can take place both in the classroom and in the course of independent work. The role of multilingual teacher is to select due materials competently (manageable, relevant, interesting, useful) as well as to develop explicit assignments commensurate with the learners' level.

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