One of the main types of independent work in a foreign language is independent foreign language reading, which serves as a form of communicative activity that allows for the accumulation of positive linguistic experience. This process occurs without the reader’s conscious focus or deliberate repetition of language units (such as collocations, grammatical structures, etc.).

The role of reading in independent learning activities cannot be overestimated. Reading is one of the primary forms of foreign language communication in independent work and serves multiple functions: as a means of studying the language and culture of the country, as well as a tool for informational, educational, and professionally oriented activities for the student, and as a resource for self-education and recreational activities. In addition, practice in reading supports and enhances not only reading skills, which ensure comprehension and interpretation of the text, but also basic logical and semantic skills related to processing the content of the text, thereby supporting cognitive abilities. In this sense, reading practice promotes the development of other forms of communicative activity, that is, text-based activity as a whole.

In methodology, two types of independent reading are distinguished: philological and linguistic. The purpose of philological reading is to understand a people’s culture through understanding their language, as represented in a text as a product of linguistic culture. Linguistic reading is aimed at studying the language itself through in-depth examination of texts in that language. The most suitable texts for this type of reading are journalistic, popular scientific, and scientific texts. In this case, the object of analysis and interpretation is the text as a communicative product—a product of spoken communication and the specifics of using linguistic means to solve communicative tasks. This type of independent learning activity is aimed at selecting linguistic tools and includes such activities as identifying them in the text, selecting and recording primary information about linguistic units, processing information obtained from the text, and making one’s own reference notes (Goodmacher & Kajiura, 2010).

In turn, independent foreign language professionally oriented reading holds particular significance in the educational process of higher education institutions, as today’s students turn to foreign language texts not only in preparation for language classes but also while studying specialized disciplines when there is a need for information from journals, patents, instructions, monographs, and other printed sources in a foreign language, as well as text materials on the internet. Furthermore, considering the limited time allocated to foreign language study in non-linguistic institutions, as well as the role of independent work in the educational process due to reforms in university education, independent reading can be seen as one of the main means of mastering a foreign language.

The primary characteristic of reading as independent self-educational activity is the flexible and efficient use of various reading types and learning strategies in accordance with the goals and conditions of the activity.

Learning strategies are one of the main components of the content for teaching independent foreign language professionally oriented reading. The success of each student’s learning is largely determined by how well they can independently conduct their learning activities and which learning strategies they choose to fulfill various communicative tasks.

The choice of strategies and methods for mastering the studied language and foreign culture in accordance with the nature of the learning task and the expected result is key to this activity of foreign language independent professionally oriented reading. The learner undertakes these actions to accelerate the learning process, make it easier, more engaging, and overall more effective.

Several learning strategies can be incorporated into the content of foreign language independent professionally oriented reading in non-linguistic faculties:

1) Informational strategies: searching for and identifying information; organizing information; predicting meaningful information; summarizing information; evaluating and interpreting information; reporting information;

2) Learning-informational strategies: creating a plan (general, detailed) of the read/listened or self-written text; drafting a logical and semantic outline of the text read; creating a conceptual-thematic, logical, and imaginative series of key facts, phrases, and words from the read text; compiling theses of the text; creating a brief summary; making an evaluative commentary; compiling a summary of the read text; drafting a short synopsis; expanding the text; editing the text; drafting an annotation; note-taking (complete or brief); taking notes, citing; filling out tables, charts, graphs;

3) Compensatory strategies: strategies for compensating for linguistic tools; use of the native language;

4) Strategies for self-monitoring and self-evaluation of language skills and communicative abilities: monitoring the adequacy and correctness of one’s spoken/written language, relating and reflectively evaluating the reading outcome with informational expectations and goals in a specific situation (Zare, 2012);

5) Resource strategies: selecting and compiling a bank of learning materials and didactic aids, keeping various kinds of reference notes, including using computer resources for monitoring and self-assessment of language mastery; compiling vocabulary comments; making reference comments on the text; creating various types of supporting charts, tables, maps, etc.

The above are the most typical learning strategies and skills that form the technological basis for teaching foreign language independent professionally oriented reading. In the process of developing language learning activity and acquiring effective linguistic, communicative, and learning experience, the student selects the most effective and suitable strategies for themselves.

References

1. Goodmacher, G. & Kajiura, A. (2010). Communicative Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.,44-58.
2. Zare, P. (2012). Language learning strategies among EFL/ESL learners: A review of literature. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(5), 162-169.