Development of foreign language strategic competence of non-linguistic students

A graduate of a modern Russian university must have a wide range of competencies within the chosen major as well as a large set of universal or key competencies. One of the universal competencies in each field of Bachelor’s degree courses is a foreign language communicative competence. In this paper the author considers the features of non-linguistic students’ oral communication, as well as the views of specialists on the difficulties impeding communication. The data of psychological and pedagogical research (Cattell questionnaire, language testing, and teacher’s observations) of freshmen at the Faculty of Economics are given in order to find out whether there is a relationship between the students’ personal structure, level of knowledge of the language and the desire to start oral communication in English. On the basis of the obtained data, the views of specialists are summarized and recommendations on the regulation of students’ emotional state in the process of communication are formulated. Based on the results of the research and analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, techniques are defined that can be used by the teacher in order to minimize the fear of mistakes, and bring the state of the students to the optimum working (learning) state. The author emphasizes the importance of applying the techniques of reflection and self-regulation to change the emotional state of students in the English classroom.