Professional foreign language training is offered to cultivate the ability to master cross-cultural communication in the sphere of future professional activity. By means of intercultural competence of foreign language we are raising professional competence, too. In countries where English is the native language, it is taught to speakers of other languages as an additional language to enable them to participate in all spheres of life of that country. In many countries where it is an official language and language of instruction, as most communication outside school is in the local languages it is taught as language to learn other disciplines. These are two contrasting contexts for enhancing the English language skills. In both settings there are concerns about students’ difficulties in developing adequate English proficiency to successfully learn content through that language. This paper analyzes the influence of sociocultural factors on the students’ motivation to learn English in different countries, reveals main problems and difficulties in oral English teaching practice, illustrates the relationship between oral English teaching and cross-cultural communication competence. On the one hand, cross-cultural communication plays an essential role in oral English teaching; besides, oral English teaching promotes cross-cultural communication competence. On the other hand, in some countries English is not the prerequisite of future successful career. But anyway the author insists on consistency of English teaching concept with that of the world. Improving the students’ cross-cultural oral communication ability is impossible without laying equal stress on cross-cultural communication competence and oral English teaching.
The article is devoted to the question of improvement of quality and efficiency of professional training of future technicians in aviation industry in the American educational establishments. Main attention is paid to the studies of pedagogical technologies, which are used for the sake of qualitative and efficient training of specialists of aviation industry. The main purpose of vocational education and training is to help students to develop a way of thinking that would enable them in understanding the technical systems and master learning at the conceptual level. It is a well known fact that researches of pedagogical technologies are aimed at the development of mental models. They are important because: first - they make possible a reduction of time for training.That is rather essential taking into account the fact how much time the “transformation” of a student’s level of knowledge from a novice to an experienced worker takes. The researches of pedagogical technologies help to find a optimum ways for acquisition of expert type of thinking. Secondly, pedagogical technologies help to cut down expenses on training. This is especially topical during professional training of technicians, who are to better understand structural, functional, behavioral aspects of technical systems. In addition, they must effectively operate in troubleshooting in the system which also shortens financial expenses on the maintenance of equipment.
The issue of the “identity” of comparative education as a field of study or a discipline has been discussed for decades. Yet a kind of systematic structure that provides the basic principles for a coherent exposition of the field remains open. “Comparative education” is no longer conceived as an imaginary field’s coherence but, rather in terms of distinct branches of comparative and international studies in education and their underlying issues. Such an understanding is fostered through a deepened awareness of the basic problems, and successive solutions, constitutive of the emergence and further conformations of the comparative approach in education and the social sciences. Thus, academic journal publications of the past decade to shape education policy research within an Asia-Pacific context have been analyzed. Facts of increasing research collaboration, growing policy evaluation research, and growing attention to higher education have been presented. Significant difference in research impact and diffusion between Asia-Pacific and American education policy studies has been shown. Perspectives for future research directions in education policy research in an Asia-Pacific context have been suggested.
The article reveals the prerequisites of appearance of alternative ways to train teachers in the USA at the end of the XX century as main mechanisms to increase qualitative and quantitative characteristics of teaching staff. The author concentrates the attention on the advantages and disadvantages of non-traditional ways to acquire teaching profession. The peculiarities of the development in different states of the country, main characteristics of the training with the help of alternative programs have been found as well as the target groups have been described. Such research is clearly needed, both by policymakers and by practitioners, to determine the appropriateness of alternative certification training models in training educators to deliver quality educational programming to students, as well as their effectiveness in addressing the critical teacher shortages by increasing the pool of available teachers and reducing the turnover and retention problems. Proponents of alternative certification have asserted that such models encourage talented people from other fields to enter teaching and increase the potential supply of teachers available to reduce shortages, and that traditional teacher education programs have little substance or value in training teachers while alternative models provide intensive training and supervision focused on critical skills needed for successful teaching.
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