Foreign Language Training in the Process of Engineering Education Reform: Prospects and Risks

At present, one of the strategic goals of our country’s development is to achieve technological leadership and sovereignty. To solve this problem, it is necessary to train appropriate engineering personnel, for which the reform of the engineering education system is being carried out. However, at the moment, the role and place of foreign language training in it are not entirely clear.

Historically, foreign language training in Russian technical universities has always been of great importance, as it prepared students for its real use in the professional activities of engineers. The article provides a justification for increasing the role of foreign language training in modern conditions, primarily global English, in order to achieve the technological sovereignty of the country, which involves international cooperation, as well as to carry out more significant information activities of an engineer in a foreign language due to the global nature of fundamental and applied knowledge, the unprecedented availability of foreign language information through the Internet and the need for rapid decision-making.

There has been revealed a contradiction has been between the real demand for the use of a foreign language in the professional activity of an engineer and its insufficient reflection in professional standards and Federal State Educational Standards of Higher Education, which may lead in the process of the reform to an incorrect definition of the goals and content of foreign language educational programs and underestimation of their importance.

The emerging trend of reducing the number of contact hours devoted to studying the basic compulsory foreign language course in accordance with the developing concept of a single core of engineering education contradicts the need to preserve the fundamental nature of education as one of the main advantages of domestic higher education and calls into question the possibility of ensuring continuity, professionalism and diversification of modern foreign language training in engineering education.

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