Functional approach to teaching a foreign language for specific purposes

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of teaching a foreign language for specific purposes. The paper emphasizes the need to develop functional communication skills in a foreign-language professional environment as well as an intercultural communicative competence. The functional approach to teaching a foreign language is usually associated with a peculiar way of teaching foreign language grammar, but at present it seems appealing to consider functionality in teaching a professional discourse from a cognitive perspective, taking into account such phenomena as functional literacy, functional reading, functional language, which are necessary to create a holistic system for teaching a foreign language. The author describes a cognitive-interactive model of communication, which contributes to students’ understanding of the peculiarities of the functioning of a foreign language and encourages its use as an efficient tool to carry out professional communications.