Abstract:

Today, Russian society as part of the global system is experiencing an urgent need for professionals who speak one or more foreign languages, both in the framework of everyday communication and in the professional sphere due to the rapid process of globalization and informatization.

Current changes in the higher education system aimed at intensifying educational activities and implementing, among other things, the learner-centred paradigm and the communicative approach, involve the development of independent learning. This is all the more true for master's programs, which require the regular engagement of the student in professional and research activities. Simultaneously, much less time is allocated to traditional forms of organizing the educational process that require classroom presence formats, such as lectures and seminars; and information contained in textbooks on technical disciplines quickly becomes outdated and irrelevant.

This means that in order to reach the industry-specific educational goals a master's program student of a technical university constantly faces the need to listen to authentic specialized lectures in a foreign language, both in the form of audio and video recordings and in the course of classroom work, to a series of lectures is given by an English speaking professor as is the case, for instance, in double degree programs.

In view of all the above, the research presented in this paper is aimed at looking into the core, the structure, and the level of the listening comprehension competence which is expected to be achieved by a master’s degree student of a technical university learning the English language as part of their curriculum.

With that end in view, the paper discusses the guidelines outlined in the latest State Educational Standard and the requirements set forth in the State Professional Standard for general foreign language competencies of a high-tech student. They are further aligned with the industry-specific and labour market-specific demands and compared with the listening component of the English language program of the National Research University of Electronic Technology MIET to find out the gaps, inconsistencies and misalignments in the curriculum offered for students to prepare them for the reality of their future work. The findings are given in a chart that demonstrates the revealed correlation among the four abovementioned frameworks. The chart is complemented with a proposed model of academic listening comprehension competence for high-tech university programs.

Particular attention is paid to the academic lecture comprehension which causes the authors to pose a question of principles according to which the linguistic disciplines of the humanitarian cycle should be designed to ensure the development of cross-disciplinary research, professional and personal skills and competencies on the basis of meta-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary courses. A hypothesis is made that the language course at a technical university possesses a high meta-disciplinary potential.

It is concluded that the goals and content of academic listening instruction within a foreign language course at a technical university could be defined in the context of interdisciplinary language integration. The findings of the research have important implications for redesigning the academic listening component of the language course for high-tech master’s degree students at technical universities.

Keywords:

Academic listening comprehension, listening comprehension competence, technical university, state educational standards, inter-disciplinary language course.