Topical issues of methodology of developing mentor’s communication competence through teaching foreign languages

Mentoring as a type of professional activity is an important tool for helping young professionals in various fields to adapt to a new place of work. In the information field of mastering the profession, the mentor, as a guide, controls the process of adaptation and mastering professional experience, gives feedback and motivates, creates an atmosphere of employee engagement, in other words “inspires his ward” [1].

The introduction of mentoring programs in education is justified by two points: the implementation of the national project “Education”, within the framework of which by 2024 at least 70% of students and teaching staff of educational organizations should be involved in various forms of support and mentoring, as well as changes to the list of qualification categories of teaching staff, which include now two new ones – “teacher-methodologist” and “teacher-mentor”.

The relevance of mentoring to fulfill the tasks of professional growth of teachers is primarily due to the fact that the field of problems of teaching staff is very wide, covering issues of content and teaching methods; control and evaluation of the quality of education; the introduction of innovative pedagogical technologies; the organization of educational, cognitive and design research activities of students and many others. The decisive role in solving these problematic issues belongs to teachers-mentors, since many researchers claim that “modeling scenarios of pedagogical activity reduces the feeling of insecurity of teachers and gives positive changes in teacher training” [2].

The study of theoretical sources and materials for diagnosing the mentor's functionality convinces that mentoring today is impossible without mastery of the communicative elements of the pedagogical component, such as mutual learning, building partnerships, friendly, trusting relationships, generalization and promotion of practical experience in organizing mentoring, etc. The formed communicative competence promotes effective cooperation between the mentor and his students, helps them to adapt to rapidly changing conditions in their professional activities, motivates them to search for new forms of learning, and ensures the development of critical and independent thinking [3].

There are also a number of publications emphasizing the importance of developing a mentor’s motivational and value readiness [4]. The reasons for unwillingness to participate in the mentoring program are very different – from the elementary fear of carrying out a new type of activity to the lack of mastery of the ways and methods of carrying out this type of activity.

The revealed contradiction between the high professionalism of experienced employees in various fields of activity and their unwillingness to teach others, transfer experience, due to their low communicative readiness to perform pedagogical functions concurrently with their main professional activity determined the topic of this study.

The purpose of the study is to substantiate the model of formation of the communicative competence of teachers-mentors in teaching foreign languages, taking into account the multicultural specifics of the region.

The article presents the results of the semantic analysis of the term “mentor”, the analysis of the functional list of mentor’s activities, the structural components of the organization of the mentoring system; the methodology for diagnosing readiness for mentoring is presented; a model for the formation of the communicative readiness of a mentor teacher is proposed.