Technologies for the formation of flexible business communication skills in electronic communication

• Борзова Татьяна Александровна

  Tatyana A. Borzova. Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. Vladivostok. Russia

Distance learning has set the universities a task of virtualizing all disciplines, includeing social and humanitarian, that are aimed at effective professional communication training. In this regard, studies of e-Learning technologies are of both practical and theoretical value, especially in the aspect of shaping flexible communication skills among undergraduate students of social and humanitarian studies. As part of this urgent task, the article discusses results of the
online adaptation of the "Professional Speech and Business Correspondence" course, originally developed using mixed technology in LMS Moodle. In the theoretical part, the author clarifies the concepts of communicative competence, business communication competence; shows the features of electronic communication in comparison with interpersonal interactions in a classroom; presents the results of a survey among undergraduate students on their readiness for interactive online classes and on the factors affecting their effectiveness. The e-Learning potential for training professional communication skills is shown on the example of project games in webquest technology, aimed at creating electronic educational products on the subject of the course (practical novelty). Short-term and long-term role-playing games are carried out in the form of project activities aimed at solving course-related professional problems, for example: organizing an online meeting in a conflict situation; preparing an audio conference on a specific problem; creating and launching a webinar on the topic of the course; developing a scenario for an educational game on business etiquette and business protocol. By creating digital educational products, undergraduate students actively participate in virtualization of the theoretical part of the course. The survey has shown that educational training communications organized on free services Google Hangouts Meet, Adobe Connect, Webinar.ru, as well as Google Meet, Voov Meetings (for Chinese students) make it possible to fully implement the principle of cooperation in learning, increase motivation and interest in the subject, which in general has a
positive effect on the results of e-Learning.
Keywords: Electronic (digital) communications, e-Learning, course virtualization (digitalization), business communication competence, professional speech, soft skills, educational design and game technologies, role-playing (business) game, webquest, webinar.