Abstract:

The article discusses the relevance and difficulties of forming the linguistic personality of engineering students. In our view, the main goal of higher education is to develop a creative personality who is prepared for innovation-driven activities and open to dialogue at a global level. A graduate of a technical university must possess theoretical and practical knowledge, master interpersonal communication skills in order to become a member of the international scientific and technical societies.

Modern technologies of foreign language teaching involve a wide variety of effective interactive means and forms, partly as a result of information and communication technologies. To develop students' potential it is important to create a special educational environment that is determined by the nature of engineering activity, a technical style of thinking and communication strategies of an engineering graduate.

The paper reveals a characteristic set of thinking styles of engineering students, their verbal communication problems and approaches to overcoming them. It is shown that productive foreign language learning activities aimed at designing a physical or ideal product contribute to the language and personality development at technical universities. The experience of participation in the annual regional creative competition is described, in which students develop a prototype of a completely new product or existing one with improvements and present it in a foreign language. The aspects of preparing students for the competition are enlightened in the paper.

A longitudinal survey of engineering graduates showed that participation in productive interactive activities helped them to overcome the communicative barrier and develop readiness to use foreign language knowledge for social and professional purposes.

Keywords:

Linguistic personality, foreign language, product design process, communicative competence, technical university.