MASTERING DIALOGUE SKILLS OF STUDENTS BY MEANS OF COMPUTER GAMES AT A NON-LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY

Any profession requires effective communication skills. This paper describes methodologies aimed at improvement of students’ dialogue skills by means of computer games in the practical course of the foreign language at a non-language university. The importance of this issue is directly associated with the current reforms in higher education, particularly – with IT penetration. Exceptional use of traditional forms and methods of teaching cannot solve the task to educate specialists entirely meeting the requirements of the time. The foreign language teaching practice at a non-language university proves that organization of classes does not always imply active interaction of the participants of the educational process; therefore, the students do not acquire any motivation and skills in communication. There is the necessity to create communicative situations that would most closely approximate the real ones. The author shows how game peculiarities allow organizing effective training of the non-linguistic students in oral communication in a foreign language: a game makes it possible to use dialogue units in situations, repeat them multiple times; it has a multimedia and interactive character. These features of the game facilitate high motivation of the students. Special emphasis is made on the indissoluble connection between the educational process at a non-language university, and formation and development of professional skills of the graduates. In author’s view, in terms of information technology implementation in the educational process, the use of gaming techniques based on information and communication technologies provides great opportunities to develop communication culture of the students through immersion in artificial situations through which their professional individuality is developed.