Abstract:

In recent years, a rhetoric course has been introduced at many universities in Russia, both for students in the humanities, as well as technical and natural sciences.

The main objectives of this subject are as follows:
1. To teach students the norms of the modern Russian literary language, which is necessary for effective communication in the framework of social and professional activities;
2. to teach students to create coherent, logically grounded texts, structured under the communicative task and the communication situation;
3. to teach students to actively participate in the discussion and polemical dialogue, substantiating their own point of view;
4. to form students' skills of conducting the discussion, polemics, and argumentation of their own position in accordance with the norms of the Russian literary language and speech etiquette;
5. to teach students to predict the consequences of their speech, and to use rhetorical techniques as a means of resolving conflict situations in the event of a communicative failure.

The introduction of this course was received ambiguously in technical universities. If the need for this course for students of humanitarian specialties does not cause objections, then the study of this subject by future engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and other representatives of the natural sciences is often at the center of controversy.

At the same time, disputes are being conducted in the following directions:
1) is it worth introducing such a course at all, taking into account that further (in their 3rd year) students will study the subject "Scientific Discussion";
2) what the content of the course should be, in particular, is it necessary for technical students to know the norms of the Russian literary language or is it enough to limit themselves only to the formation of rhetorical skills,
3) when is it more expedient to study this course - in the first year of study or closer to graduation, and
4) how many hours can and should be devoted to studying this subject.

Note that in real life, the time allotted for the study of this subject is constantly being cut - if earlier this course was studied for one semester, today students study it only for one module, which, in our opinion, is clearly not enough for the formation of sustainable knowledge.

The authors carried out a study, the purpose of which was to prove that:
1) this course for technically oriented specialties is a necessary subject,
2) it does not in any way duplicate the course "Scientific Discussion", and also
3) that the content of the course needs some modernization.

The authors developed a questionnaire, which was supposed to identify and summarize the views of the students about the content of the studied course, about those sections that were especially difficult, especially useful or especially interesting for them, about which of the proposed topics for discussion seemed to them the most interesting. The questionnaire also included questions about how the study of this course influenced the students in terms of creating team spirit in the group, attitudes towards their fellow students, etc. The results of a survey conducted on the MOODLE platform of 127 first-year students who attended this course allowed make a conclusion about the need for this course, as such, as well as understand how you can improve it and modernize its content.

Keywords:

Education, rhetoric course, technically oriented specialties, communication.