Linguodidactic fundamentals of developing idiomatic competence of master’s degree students majoring in Linguisctics

Abstract

Today the need to teach a foreign language in the context of a dialogue of cultures and civilizations is obvious. Therefore, a deep linguodidactic study of culture-specific aspects of a studied language is necessary. Idioms, as a storage of a culture’s memory and means of increasing expressiveness of a statement, are an important part of a student’s linguistic repertoire on the level of communicative proficiency C1-C1+. That level generally corresponds to the level of Master’s degree students majoring in ‘Linguistics’. 

This paper gives an insight into developing Master’s degree students’ idiomatic competence, as well as clarifies the term ‘idiomatic competence’ for the field of higher education. Linguodidactic analysis of 10 student books on idioms shows a lack of problem-solving tasks. In addition, the necessity of implementing communicative training for contextually acceptable use of idiomatic expressions in professional oral and written foreign language speech is substantiated. In the end, the author presents methodological fundamentals for idiomatic enrichment of Master’s degree students’ public speech, and describes the principles of organizing a system of interconnected cultural and linguocultural problem-solving tasks and assignments.

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