Pedagogical conditions for forming positive motivation to learn a foreign language in college students of non-linguistic specialties

Abstract

The mandatory status of a foreign language in the general education cycle of secondary vocational education coexists with a persistently low subjective significance of the subject for students of non-linguistic specialties, which creates a practical contradiction between the normative requirement and the internal acceptance of the discipline. The rapid growth of the college student population intensifies the effect of this contradiction on the results of training. The aim of the work is to systematize the pedagogical conditions under which college students of non-linguistic specialties develop positive motivation to learn a foreign language, and to combine these conditions into a coherent model. Systematization, conceptual and categorical analysis, a structural-functional approach, classification, modelling, and content analysis of the current regulatory framework of secondary vocational education were applied. The differentiation of types of motivation by source, orientation, and stability revealed a shift of the motivational profile of the non-linguistic student population toward the external-instrumental pole, which determines the choice of points of pedagogical influence. The pedagogical conditions for forming positive motivation are combined into a three-component model: the content-professional component establishes the professional significance of the language, the organizational-technological component sustains productive activity, and the subject-environmental component provides autonomy and the experience of success. Correlating the model with the requirements of the federal educational standards and the professional standard of the teacher confirmed the normative validity of each component. The stability of positive motivation in a student of a non-linguistic specialty is achieved through the coordinated action of all three components, in which the weakening of a single link reduces the effectiveness of the others, while the professional significance of the language is confirmed on a regular basis.