Advancement of Communicative Skills through Pre-Text, Text Exercises (on the Example of the Teaching English Manual “Personal Management”)

Currently, two categories of English language manuals are available to Russian students for learning a foreign language. The first category includes textbooks aimed at teaching General English. The second category contains English language textbooks for Specific Purposes. To simplify the transition from general topics to specific ones, we have developed the manual “Personal Management”. It is intermediate from the textbook General English to the textbook English for Specific Purposes. It involves the topics of the formation of “soft skills” (English for Soft Skills Development). These topics make up the core of our manual. These are the authentic texts borrowed from the books of B. Tracy. He is a well-known Canadian-American motivational speaker and author of numerous books on leadership, self-development, self-realization, and the psychology of success. Another source was the books of J. Clear, a writer and speaker who specializes in topics related to decision-making and self-development. The main purpose of learning a foreign language is to develop communication skills to solve personal, business and professional issues. Thus, the main purpose of foreign language classes is to develop students’ communicative skills. It can be achieved by using communication exercises at the pre-text, text, and post-text stages. It stimulates students’ speech activity in its various types and forms. So the article is focused on the advancement of communicative skills through pre-reading exercises worked out on the base of authentic English texts and included in the teaching English manual “Personal Management”. Besides, the article describes the concept of the manual “Personal Management”, the principles and approaches that it is based on. Additionally, сommunication pre-reading exercises and their role in the development of communicative skills are explicitly considered. Each type of exercises is accompanied with tasks from the manual hinted on above. Then, the action sequence with each of the given tasks is detailed in accordance with the assessment results of the manual at English courses with second-year students.