Improving the Lexical and Grammatical Skills of Students Specializing in Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources by Means of Writing

Introduction

Writing plays a very important role in the life of every technical sphere specialist. Writing is recognized as the most complex type of speech activity, which involves all speech analyzers. The material base of writing consists of spelling and graphic skills. Writing is an expressive productive type of speech communication. The process of written speech, as we know, begins with internal speech. Such kind of it is that a program of utterance is prepared by the selection of lexical units, the grammatical design of sentences, and their logical combination in paragraphs. The whole process of writing consists of internal speaking and recording of the prepared material on paper, which requires the automated operation of sound-graphic associations. In terms of the number of operations, a written message is more complicated than an oral one. However, in oral spontaneous expression, the generation of speech and its sound design is synchronous and therefore requires full automation in the operation of lexical and grammatical material. The process of learning to write is facilitated by the fact that the writer does not feel the lack of time, and this allows him to consider the content and form of future statements more thoroughly, and more clearly carry out both preliminary synthesis and retrospective analysis of the writing. The ability to find in memory the necessary language tools for an accurate and clearer expression of thought, and the ability to use a dictionary and other reference books give the writer more confidence. The lexical and grammatical skills of students within the boundaries of a specialized subject will improve the culture of professional communication. They develop through practical writing exercises, in particular, translation from a foreign language into a native language and vice versa.

The purpose of this chapter is to describe organizational and methodical writing bases and improving the lexical and grammatical skills of students specializing in hydraulic engineering and water resources by their means.

Achieving this goal involves the following tasks to solve:

• 1.

  Consider the main methods and techniques of teaching a foreign language to students of the speciality “Hydraulic Engineering (Water Resources)”.

• 2.

  Outline the linguo didactic foundations of teaching English-language written communication in hydraulic engineering.

• 3.

  Determine the content of teaching English-language writing and determine the criteria for selecting educational material for the formation of competence in English-language written communication on Hydraulic Engineering (Water Resources).

The object of research is the process of teaching professionally oriented English-language written communication on hydraulic engineering and water resources in agricultural institutions of Higher Education in Ukraine.

The research subject is the methodology of teaching professionally oriented English – language written communication on hydraulic engineering and water resources.

The research hypothesis is that the effectiveness of teaching professionally oriented foreign language written communication with hydraulic engineering and water resources can be improved by increasing the lexical and grammatical skills of students specializing in hydraulic engineering and water resources by means of writing, which provide an expansion of the communicative and linguistic components of professional competence in foreign language written communication through the step-by-step use of the appropriate exercises and tasks system.