Teaching a second foreign language in transport higher education institution
Authors:   Ural state university of railway transport (USURT), Drutsko N. A. 
Published: May 2022

The article discusses the issue of teaching a second foreign language in a transport university on the example of the experience of teaching students English after German. Comprehensive integration processes, the formation of a common information space between countries, the movement towards a single world economy - all this formulates a new request to a modern specialist in any field of activity. He should not only have knowledge, skills and abilities in his field, but also be able to apply them in multilingual communication. In a situation where the number of contacts between different ethnic groups is steadily increasing, the need for knowledge of foreign languages increases in direct proportion. Currently, students are already aware that foreign languages significantly increase the level of their competence not only in professional activities, but also in personal life, and open up a huge range of new opportunities. Speaking of railway specialists, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of knowledge of foreign languages. Firstly, thanks to globalization, the number of foreigners who are not afraid to travel independently and often use railway in their routes has increased greatly. If a few decades ago such a choice was rather an exception, now with the level of technology development, tourists increasingly prefer independent acquaintance with another country to package comfortable tours. In this situation, railway workers without knowledge of a foreign language will not be able to use their competence to perform work. Secondly, the expansion of professional cooperation also involves close contacts with specialists from other countries. Exchange of experience, international competitions and conferences, scientific activities - all this requires multilingual communication. In addition, having a high level of knowledge of a foreign language increases the value of an employee for large international companies. Speaking about the epidemiological situation of recent years, lockdown and the transition to remote work, we tend to emphasize even more the importance of foreign language proficiency. After all, while communicating by phone and online with clients and partners from other countries, we are much more limited in nonverbal communication, and therefore we rely even more on our level of a foreign language. Over the past few decades, the issues of teaching a second foreign language have become the subject of research by many domestic and foreign specialists. The theoretical foundations and the concept of multilingual education at school and university have been developed. The Department of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communications of the Ural State University of Railways Transport is actively engaged in the issues of scientific and methodological support of a multilingual approach to learning. The teachers of the department developed a «Practical course of a second foreign language» and published a manual «English after German: theory and practice of English as a second foreign language after German». The article substantiates the expediency of using foreign teaching materials on the one hand and the need to create manuals that prepare students for the perception of the educational material of authentic textbooks. The author focuses on the theoretical analysis of the fundamental principles of FL2 learning: communicative-cognitive, the principle of intensification, the principle of thoroughness, comparative (contrastive) principle, the principle of independence, the principle of self-efficacy.