Innovation in Language Learning

At present, growing degree of information density in contemporary scientific and technical texts and the influence of ICT require reconsidering the existing and proposing new methods relevant to language teaching, in general, and new approaches to text analysis, in particular. To investigate how new methods of encoding, transferring and decoding of meaning at different levels affect contemporary professional communication, different types of analyses (including rhetorical, pragmatic, cognitive and semiotic) and rich empirical material have been introduced within the framework of the research. The main aim of the paper is to investigate the most successful methods and techniques required to develop students’ ability to efficiently communicate in the changing professional setting.

The new paradigm of teaching is aimed at adopting the combination of student-centered, problem-based instruction and digitally-enriched learning environments. The shift towards this paradigm has been motivated by the development of information technology and the increasing use of multimedia. These factors consequently determine the changes in contemporary text structure and content promoting its multimodality and expressivity. Verbal mode is no longer the only mode of communication as the application of visual mode has become extremely popular and widespread in the texts under discussion. The adequate interpretation of meanings appeared as a result of the interaction between verbal and visual modes makes the communication successful and effective.

Communication may take different forms, which depend on its purpose and context. Establishing a conceptual model for communication, the author also takes into account the mutual cognitive environment and, thus, conveys as much information as needed in any given context. A significant amount of relevant information might be implicit, and a considerable background knowledge is needed to infer the meaning conveyed by a message.

Nowadays teaching of communicative competence within professional discourse is based on the improvement of the existing teaching strategies and constant search for novel approaches to textual analysis necessary to develop students’ ability to effectively decode and convey meaning within a required context. Information encoded in a professional text may be processed at multiple levels simultaneously.

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