On One Study of Modern Students’ Communicatin Skills
This paper continues the research traditions established by Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor I.A. Sternin and is devoted to the results of the study of communicative skills of modern first-year students. As a theoretical introduction to the description of the conducted research, it postulates the need to differentiate a number of concepts that are actively used in communication theory and are often mixed in scientific and everyday consciousness: communicative competence, communicative competency, communicative skill, communicative literacy. In particular, communicative competence is proposed to be understood as a degree of experience of interaction between an individual and others, and communicative competency as a system of internal resources necessary to build effective communication. In turn, communicative competency is considered as a set of specific communicative skills that allow the individual to implement adequate models of communication in a particular communicative situation. The distinction of these concepts allowed to further focus on such an object of research as communication skills. The research was based on the questionnaire method, its purpose being to identify the specific communication difficulties experienced by the respondents (i.e., modern students), as well as the origins of these difficulties. The communication situations that are most difficult for interviewees have been captured and further quantified and analysed. The result of the study was, on the one hand, a list of real communication difficulties experienced by students and the causes of these difficulties, and on the other hand, the confirmation of the thesis that the lack of communication skills can and should be eliminated during the study of the disciplines of the communication cycle.