Formation of Communicative Intercultural Foreign Language

Professional Competence with the Help of the Business Educational

Game "World Congress on Intelligent Systems"

E. G. Liakhova

, E. V. Fedotkina

, M. I. Mikheeva

and N. L. Filippova

Russian University of Transport, Moscow, Russia

Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia

Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia

Keywords: Educational Business Game, Learning Experiment, Intelligent Transport Systems, International Congress,

Professionally Oriented Foreign Language Teaching, Increasing Motivation.

Abstract: In this research, the authors study the possibility of increasing the effectiveness of teaching a foreign

language to future specialists in the field of transport by using the business game "International Congress on

Intelligent Transport Systems" in the classroom. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that

the proposed topic of the lesson corresponds to the principle of specialization of teaching foreign languages

in non-linguistic universities to ensure the successful formation of communicative intercultural foreign

language professional competence among students. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that previously a

business game based on the materials of the congress, which is popular all over the world, has not been

developed and the effectiveness of this teaching method has not been studied. At the same time, for students

at a transport university, there is a need to include a business game on this topic in the foreign language

curriculum program. The results of the educational experiment showed that conducting such a business

game contributes to a better assimilation of the topic, compared with traditional learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

The requirements for specialists in the field of

transport are high, due to the reason that they must

have knowledge of a foreign language sufficient for

free communication among foreign colleagues. In

the professional activity of a specialist in the field of

transport, the role of such communication is

extremely important. The success of business

meetings and negotiations directly depends on how

the specialist is able to communicate with foreign

partners, adhere to the planned strategic line, and use

the correct speech behavior. Therefore, when hiring,

young specialists must demonstrate that they are

communicative both in their native and foreign

languages, able to work in a team, able to coordinate

their decisions with other employees, including

foreign colleagues. The formation of the above skills

and abilities requires a foreign language teacher to

use non-standard techniques and teaching methods

that would contribute to a more effective formation

of professional communicative foreign language

competencies through the active introduction of a

professionally oriented context into training

(Perfilova, 2011).

At the same time, the educational process at the

university is characterized by the following features

that must be taken into account when choosing tools

and methods for teaching a foreign language:

1. The number of hours is limited by the training

program.

2. The requirements for the qualifications that

students must develop are high.

3. Applicants to a non-linguistic university have

different levels of language proficiency, which

can be extremely low.

4. Graduates should be able not only to speak a

foreign language at the everyday level, but

also to freely navigate professional topics.

5. In the learning process, the skills and abilities

of both written and oral speech should be

formed.

Traditional forms of teaching a foreign language

in the form of lectures and seminars do not always

Liakhova, E., Fedotkina, E., Mikheeva, M. and Filippova, N.

Formation of Communicative Intercultural Foreign Language Professional Competence With the Help of the Business Educational Game "World Congress on Intelligent Systems".

DOI: 10.5220/0011601900003577

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Actual Issues of Linguistics, Linguodidactics and Intercultural Communication (TLLIC 2022), pages 38-41

ISBN: 978-989-758-655-2

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

fully meet these requirements, while such forms of

learning as business games help the teacher to

imitate fragments of students' professional activities

and activate the learning process (Liakhova, 2020;

Liakhova, 2021; Liakhova, 2020; Quan, 2014;

Riyanti, 2019).

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

In a business game, learning a professional foreign

language takes place in the process of joint activity,

which imitates the real situation of communication

typical for specialists in this field. Each participant

in the business game has its own role and function,

in accordance with which they solve their separate

communicative tasks. The educational component of

the business game is determined by the ability to set

the subject, social and communicative contexts of

the future professional activities of students

participating in the business game (Liakhova, 2020).

It is advisable to use business games when the

educational goals set are difficult to achieve by other

teaching methods, for example, to learn some

aspects of professional activity that need visual

representation, to practice the knowledge and skills

already acquired by students, to master stable

professional forms and methods of communication

in a foreign language in conditions of separation

from a foreign language environment, the formation

of professional competencies at the level of a

professional picture of the world of future specialists

(Liakhova, 2020).

The business game "World Congress on

Intelligent Transport Systems" is advisable to be

carried out with RUT students in order to acquaint

them with a significant event in the field of

intelligent transport systems at the international level

and give students the opportunity to use the already

formed early communication skills and speech skills

in a foreign language in a situation that imitates their

future professional activity. In addition, the chosen

topic makes it possible to conduct a business game

both in English and in German and French, which

are the working languages of the ITS World

Congress (ITS World Congress, 2021).

We put forward a hypothesis that a business

game as a learning tool on the topic "Participation in

the International Congress on Intelligent Transport

Systems" will improve the efficiency of teaching a

foreign language to students - future specialists in

the field of transport.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To test the hypothesis of the study, a training

experiment was conducted with the participation of

the control and experimental groups. Both the

control and experimental groups wrote a pre-

experimental lexico-grammar control test, which

allowed to determine the level of foreign language

proficiency of the participants before the start of the

experiment. The theme of the training is

“Participation in the International Congress on

Intelligent Transport Systems”. The experimental

group went through this topic while participating in

a business game, while the control group was trained

according to the curriculum program. The final

control event was a report on this topic, which

students had to submit twice - in writing (in the form

of an essay) and in the form of an oral presentation

at the conference.

To conduct training for the experimental group,

we chose the participation of specialists from

different countries in the field of transport in the

international congress on intelligent transport

systems - ITS World Congress as an object of

imitation. We believe that this event is the most

typical fragment of professional reality, participation

in which requires a modern specialist to possess the

skills that make up intercultural foreign language

communicative professional competence. These

skills and abilities were practiced in the classroom,

and during the business game, students had a unique

opportunity to apply these skills in practice in a

quasi-real situation, thus completing the process of

forming elements of intercultural foreign language

communicative professional competence (ITS World

Congress, 2021).

All students were assigned roles. The five

students with the highest scores on the pre-test

served as committee members. Their function in the

game was to listen to the reports of the participants,

draw up criteria for evaluating the speakers,

organize and conduct a discussion of the reports, and

announce the winners. The remaining students

represented various transport companies and their

function was to present the most interesting

innovative proposal in the field of transport systems

at the congress.

The business game scenario consisted of the

following steps:

1. Participants study the materials of the

Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems for

2020 and 2021 (ScienceDirect,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/), choose the

most interesting proposal from their point of

Formation of Communicative Intercultural Foreign Language Professional Competence With the Help of the Business Educational Game

"World Congress on Intelligent Systems"

view and prepare their report using this

proposal as a basis. At the same time, they can

change it, add something, so that as a result

they present their unique project on transport

systems.

2. Each team of participants prepares an essay,

which is checked by the teacher. After that,

the participants correct their errors making the

necessary adjustments.

3. Each team prepares an oral report and presents

its proposal at the congress.

4. The committee listens to the report, asks

questions.

5. The committee deliberates and decides who is

the winner based on the criteria developed by

the members of the committee.

6. All participants in the business game gather at

a round table and discuss the results of the

game.

An example of a task in English and Russian:

We hope for the better situation after the world

recovers from the pandemic. People will travel

everywhere and become mobile, but the mobility

should be greener and more innovative. That is why

today you are supposed to surprise us with your

ideas for the world's major metropolitan areas

supported by intelligent transportation systems.

Мы надеемся, что после того, как

коронавирусная пандемия утихнет, люди опять

захотят быть мобильными, но, возможно, они

захотят другую мобильность – более

экологичную и более удобную. Поэтому целью

конгресса в этом году является рассмотреть

всевозможные

варианты по изменению

транспортной инфраструктуры крупных городов

мира и выбрать наиболее полно

удовлетворяющие следующим требованиям:

мобильность должна быть простой, быстро

доступной, безопасной для здоровья людей и

окружающей среды и удобной для всех, с

активной опорой на развитие инновационных

интеллектуальных транспортных систем.

An example of a fragment of the report in

English and Russian:

We are inventing an immediate access to a

mobility service that is no longer than three minutes

away. Our aim is unparalleled electromobility,

motor scooters, scooters, bicycles, ride-sharing and

vehicle-sharing for cars. Public will be

complemented with transport on the last mile and

that is new on-demand services.

We are massively developing the ITS-strategy

and our goals for 2035, and our intention is to take

advantage of the opportunities offered by

digitalization which will protect the climate and

contribute to the mobility transition.

This is how we will make our city a model city

for the smart mobility of the future. This is already

proving true in many successful ITS-projects in our

city, which we would like to present to our citizens

and the guests of the ITS World Congress.

Мы

разрабатываем систему быстрой

мобильности, когда в любом месте города его

житель может воспользоваться доступом к

нужному ему виду транспорта и потратить на это

на более 3 минут. С этой целью развиваются

транспортные сети и вместимость автобусов,

метро и поездов. Мы поддерживаем

электромобильность, райдшеринг и совместное

использование транспортных средств для

автомобилей, мотороллеров,

скутеров и

велосипедов, а также новые услуги по

требованию пассажира, которые дополняют

общественный транспорт на последней миле.

Мы продолжаем развивать ИТС-стратегию и

формулировать наши цели на 2035 год, и мы

хотим использовать возможности, предлагаемые

цифровизацией, для защиты климата и

содействия переходу на систему мобильности

транспорта. Тогда мы сможем сделать наш город

образцовым городом с умным транспортом. Мы

уже доказали свою состоятельность в этом

вопросе и хотим представить вашему вниманию

несколько успешных проектов

интеллектуальных транспортных систем.

Examples of winning projects:

1. HYPERPORT CARGO SOLUTIONS.

Развитие и маркетинг гиперпорта.

One of the teams opted for a proposal to use an

innovative transport system for standard ship

containers for cargo transportation in order to reduce

the load on traffic. Students were attracted by the

original design of containers, the organization of

cargo delivery and the developed infrastructure. The

hyperport operates on the principle of a light metro

and delivers goods throughout the city almost

instantly. This team represented Hamburger Hafen,

Logistik AG (HHLA) and Hyperloop Transportation

Technologies (HTT) (ITS World Congress, 2021).

2. DRONES FOR URBAN

IMPLEMENTATION. Дроны для

городского транспорта.

In this project of partner companies HSU, BWI,

DLR, WPS GmbH, NXP, HHLA Sky GmbH, Third

Element Aviation GmbH, consider it GmbH (ITS

World Congress, 2021), students were attracted by

the concept of further development of the drone

TLLIC 2022 - I INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "ACTUAL ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS, LINGUODIDACTICS AND

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION"

system for both cargo delivery and passenger

transportation.

The results of the final control of the training

experiment reflected the effectiveness of passing the

topic "Participation in the Congress on Intelligent

Transport Systems" in the form of a business game,

which was confirmed by a higher level of

knowledge and skills of the students of the

experimental group. According to the test results, the

difference between the level of knowledge and skills

in the experimental and control groups is 35-42%.

We believe that such an increase in skills and

knowledge when teaching students using a business

game was caused not only by the presence of a real

professional learning context, but also by the

creation of a favorable psycho-emotional

background during the business game, which

reduced stress, increased the participants' interest in

the final result of the educational process. and, in

general, significantly increased the learning

motivation of students. To confirm this assumption,

we determined the level of stress resistance of the

participants in the experiment before and after the

experiment.

For this purpose, students answered the questions

of the stress resistance self-assessment test

(ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/).

The students were given statements about their well-

being and feeling of comfort. For example, how well

do they control their irritation if something gets out

of their control; whether they believe they are

confident in self-control and able to solve their

personal problems; how they evaluate their success

in studies and in personal affairs, etc. Respondents

rated their answers with points from zero to four.

The points obtained were summed up and divided by

10. If the stress resistance is excellent, the indicator

is 0.5; if stress resistance is good - 6.8; if stress

resistance is satisfactory - 14.2; if stress resistance is

weak - 24.2; if stress resistance is very weak - 34.2

(ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/).

4 CONCLUSIONS

As a result of participation in the business game, the

majority of students increased stress resistance,

which confirms that the participants in the business

game felt themselves in a favorable stimulating

atmosphere during training.

We also conducted a survey to find out whether

students liked learning in the form of a business

game. The students stated that learning in the form

of a business game motivated them to be more active

in preparing for classes and found it more interesting

than traditional forms of learning.

In conclusion, it can be stated that the

participants in the business game were better

motivated than the students who studied according

to the traditional method and showed better

assimilation of the material on the topic being

studied. At the same time, the preparation and

conduct of the business game required a lot of effort

from the teachers. Based on the results of the

training experiment and the survey, we came to the

conclusion that teaching a foreign language using

business games increases the effectiveness of

learning but should be used primarily to study topics

that require imitation and modeling of professional

communication situations for their assimilation.

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Formation of Communicative Intercultural Foreign Language Professional Competence With the Help of the Business Educational Game

"World Congress on Intelligent Systems"