REORGANIZING THE SYLLABUS AS ONE OF THE MAIN COMPONENTS IN CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATIVE TRAINING WITHING THE FRAME OF LIFELONG LEARNING

Abstract

The article reveals the issue of increasing the efficiency of professionally oriented communicative competence acquired by future seafarers. As the main task of professional education is to provide employers with highly qualified and well-trained, competent personnel, able to carry out the duties effectively and in compliance with international standards, the development of professionally oriented communicative competency is deemed an integral part of professional training. Especially so it is for the future seafarers who are going to carry out their professional tasks in multilingual crews. That’s why teachers of Maritime English face the need of searching for new more effective means, methods and forms of communicative teaching.

Having studied this issue in different aspects and taking into consideration our teaching experience at Kherson State Maritime Academy we came to the conclusion that there is a pressing need for a more modern and flexible syllabus for English at university level, taking into account a focus on English as a means of international communication, the academic and professional needs of undergraduate and graduate students. It means that the current format of syllabus for Maritime English requires to be brought into compliance with both STCW, IMO Model Course 3.17 and national educational requirements stipulated by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and IMO. So, our article is aimed at suggesting the way of reorganizing the syllabus for Maritime English in accordance with the modern educational needs and the key aspects of lifelong learning.

Having realized the fact that any type of human activity, including educational one, becomes more efficient when starts with defining the aim or objective we suggest to formulate and state not only the basic aim of the course syllabus to be defined at the explanatory note section, but also to formulate and specify the key skills and abilities the cadets must be able to demonstrate by the end of each lesson.

Our practical teaching experience proves that such approach gives the possibility to teachers plan their lessons more effectively as they know beforehand what communicative skills to develop and thus enables them to select and arrange appropriate tasks and activities for the lesson. On the other hand, precisely defined and formulated objective of the lesson gives cadets the possibility to realize the final outcome of the educational process, shows the importance of it for their future professional performance and in such a way motivates them to study better at each stage of their education.