FORMING ARGUMENTATION SKILLS OF STUDENTS MAJORING IN TECHNICAL SPECIALTY (FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE (FOR PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES))

Abstract

The article presents a system of activities (non-communicative, conditional-communicative, situationalcommunicative) designed by the author for the formation of argumentation skills. The activities are aimed to be performed by students of technical specialties in oral and written form. The focus is on the effectiveness of activities as a didactic tool, which is used in Ukrainian language classes (for professional purposes) for the formation of students’ argumentation skills, which contributes to the situationally conditioned dialogic communication of future specialists (mechanics / electromechanics) with customers of wheel maintenance and repair services for vehicles / their components (systems), colleagues, suppliers, head of a car service / motor vehicle enterprise, employer. Activities are supplemented with instructions / charts / models / schemes / algorithms / «word clouds» / communicative situations / patterns / theoretical material. It has been found out that mastering argumentation skills by future specialists is grounded on the available profound knowledge at the level of professional communication, in particular professional technical terminology (interdisciplinary / highly specialized), theoretical knowledge about structural elements / types / kinds / methods of argumentation and communicatively significant regularities of argumentative dialogue, namely: 1) semantic (the content of arguments / statements determines the attitude of argumentation acts to the subject of conversation); 2) syntactic (statements, arguments / counterarguments have a certain sequence; it is essential to place a specific argumentation act among other argumentative acts; the modality and structure of the argumentation affects its sequence); 3) pragmatic (following the rules that contribute to effective/appropriate argumentation). Moreover, a significant role is played by the acquired communicative and speech experience during practical training at car service / motor transport enterprises, as well as the following skills: 1) to correctly and logically combine speech units / to intone phrases according to the purpose of utterance; 2) to coordinate one’s own expression with a given topic / professionally focused situation; 3) to utilize professional knowledge within the dialogue; 4) to perceive / critically analyze / interpret information in accordance with the interlocutor’s behavioural strategies; 5) to justify one’s own position; 6) to determine the grounds of other points of view; 7) to predict / direct your opponent’s perspective intentions to solve professional tasks / perform official functions. The educational and methodological support (conditional-communicative, situational-communicative activities) presented in the article promotes the conscious use of professional vocabulary in argumentative dialogue of various functional types according to the following models: «service provider ⟷ service customer», «specialist ⟷ specialist», «mechanic / electromechanic ⟷ supplier», «mechanic / electromechanic ⟷ head of a car service / motor vehicle enterprise», «mechanic / electromechanic ⟷ employer». The methodological studies described involve work on awareness of the need to master argumentation skills for effective dialogic communication of technical industry specialists with customers of services / colleagues / suppliers / head of an enterprise / employer.