Means of formation socio-cultural competence in teaching English

In recent decades, the vector in the formation of students’ competencies while studying a foreign language (in particular, English) has shifted in Russian linguodidactics. Due to the intensity of intercultural contacts of Russian citizens, the most demanded competence while studying foreign languages has become the communicative one, which consists of skills of effective oral and written communication with representatives of other cultures. Under contemporary circumstances, effective intercultural communication requires not only well-formed grammatical and lexical skills, but also socio-cultural competence, which means knowledge of various cultural facts and phenomena, as well as knowledge of the norms of polite dialogue in a different culture and the ability to conduct it. The issue of effective formation of students’ socio-cultural competence when teaching a foreign language (in particular, English) is absolutely new in Russian linguodidactics and is poorly covered, which determines the relevance and novelty of the research, the results of which are presented in this article. The purpose of this article is to describe two tools for the formation of socio-cultural competence that can be used in English classes. As the theoretical base of the study, the authors identified three key components of socio-cultural competence that need to be formed while teaching a foreign language. Further, using the method of continuous sampling in two English manuals, the authors found one tool for the formation of socio-cultural competence – hedging, which was analyzed for its use for the formation of the components of socio-cultural competence. The article presents various lexico-grammatical means of implementing hedging in English and shows how they can be used in the formation of various components of socio-cultural competence. In addition to the tool for the formation of socio-cultural competence (hedging) available in the English manuals, the authors proposed another contemporary tool for the formation of various components of socio-cultural competence, which is currently not included in English manuals, - namely, web-quests. The authors give examples of several designed web-quests that contain various linguistic and cultural facts, and clearly illustrate how such web-quests contribute to the formation of all components of socio-cultural competence.