Future Economists’ Cultural Competence and Business English Speech Etiquette Formation

Abstract

The article deals with the process of future economists’ cultural competence and business English speech etiquette formation. It makes an analysis of domestic and foreign scientific literature devoted to the research topic. The paper describes an experiment divided into two stages in which 450 economic students of Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies took part. The authors give their own definition of the concepts “general cultural competence” and “business English speech etiquette”. The authors claim that the successful culture competence and business English speech etiquette development is possible under the following pedagogical conditions: gradual cultural competence components formation, interactive teaching methods, a system and model of professionally-oriented exercises based on speech etiquette formulae implementation, independent students’ work.  They showed the successful use of innovative class activities and information technologies in understanding and accepting foreign culture principles. During the research, the authors provided the students with authentic lexical and socio-cultural materials on different topics of business communication inherent to their future profession. The authors proposed an experimental model that contained a system of oral communicative exercises aimed at formal English speech etiquette development. They also worked out a handbook and a dictionary guide for business English speech etiquette acquisition. The article defines the essence, structure and methodological recommendations that can be introduced into the process of business English teaching at a technical university. The results of the study proved the efficiency of the proposed teaching model.