Formation of soft- and meta-skills among the students majoring in International Relations when learning English in the institutions of higher education in conditions of distance education

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the acquisition of communicative interpersonal skills when studying foreign languages by the students majoring in «International Relations», which will contribute to effective professional advancement. A detailed analysis of the concepts of «soft skills» and «meta-skills» was carried out, as well as a comparison of the characteristics of soft skills and the ability to create appropriate opportunities for training students in the field of «International Relations». Attention is focused on the combination of theory with practical activity, which is a powerful tool for the formation of basic life-necessary competences and effective promotion on the international arena. The major «International Relations» organically combines various aspects of specialist training. It is for this purpose that practitioners in the field of international relations are involved into the educational process, namely extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassadors of Ukraine in various countries of the world, consuls, representatives of ministries, professional translators, political scientists, lawyers, etc., who form soft skills using real examples. The priority in the article is given to foreign languages, since they play a significant role in successful advancement in this field. After all, it is no secret that multilingual education of a specialist contributes to more effective communication, understanding of cross-cultural communications and intercultural relations, it is a priority in matters of cooperation, negotiations and during the resolution of possible international conflicts, etc. The development and mastery of soft- and meta-skills help to establish effective foreign language communication with the participants of the communicative process and are considered important professional skills. The task of the institutions of higher education is to find ways of forming soft- and meta-skills among the students majoring in «International Relations» while studying foreign languages in conditions of force majeure, which became the cause of the forced transition to distance learning, as well as to teach future specialists to achieve the highest results in their further career through skilful application of such skills.