The Teacher\u27s Role in Developing Foreign Language Communicative Competence in English: a Case of Business Meeting Simulations

Namen raziskave je bil prispevati k izboljšanju učinkovitosti poučevanja poslovnega angleškega jezika na visokošolski stopnji izobraževanja z učinkovitim razvijanjem tujejezikovne sporazumevalne zmožnosti s simulacijami poslovnega sestanka v angleškem jeziku za nadaljnje avtonomno in vseživljenjsko učenje tujih jezikov in lažje vključevanje v mednarodno poslovno okolje. Korpusna analiza simulacij poslovnih sestankov študentov Ekonomske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani je pokazala, kako se razvijajo nabor, struktura in nadzor nad jezikovnimi, sociolingvističnimi in pragmatičnimi prvinami tujejezikovne sporazumevalne zmožnosti ob prisotnosti in odsotnosti učitelja in ugotovila, da je vloga učitelja ključna predvsem pri razvijanju sociolingvističnih in pragmatičnih prvin. Primerjava korpusa simulacij poslovnih sestankov študentov in korpusa poslovnih sestankov poslovnežev je poleg podobnosti in razlik v pojavnicah, različnicah, sopojavnicah, pozitivnih in negativnih ključnih besedah pokazala, da se korpusa razlikujeta predvsem po sociolingvističnih in pragmatičnih prvinah, kar skupaj s kvalitativno analizo pričevanj učiteljev in študentov omogoča vpogled v specifiko in vlogo učitelja pri razvijanja in ozaveščanju celostnega razvoja tujejezikovne sporazumevalne zmožnosti, da bodo ta spoznanja lahko postala del širše izobraževalne in poslovne skupnosti in posledično omogočila boljšo učinkovitost.The purpose of the research was to contribute to the effectiveness of teaching Business English at the tertiary level. By developing foreign language communicative competence using business meeting simulations in English the aims were to ensure further autonomous and lifelong learning of foreign languages and to facilitate students\u27 integration into the international business environment. Corpus analysis of the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana students’ simulations of business meetings showed how the range, structure and control of linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of foreign language communicative competence were developed with or without the presence of a teacher. The role of the teacher was established as crucial, particularly, for the development of sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of foreign language communicative competence. The comparison of students and business people’s meetings corpora showed that in addition to the similarities and differences in: tokenstypesn-gramspositive and negative keywords the corpora differ primarily in sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of foreign language communicative competence. This, together with a qualitative analysis of teachers and students’ interviews has provided an insight into the specifics of the role of the teacher in developing and raising awareness of foreign language communicative competence development using business meeting simulations in order to ensure that these findings can become an integral part of the educational and business community resulting in better efficiency