Development of Seafarers’ Foreign Language Communicative Competence Using Simulators

Due to the high speed of technical progress in the maritime industry, seafarers need to constantly improve their professional competences and not lose sight of important prospects. To study the experience of developing foreign language professional competence of seafarers, the authors consider the conditions for using a wide range of educational tools, including simulators, at the maritime university and find the rationale of the logics of development and application of simulation modelling. The article reflects descriptions of various research methods (theoretical analysis of scientific literature, questionnaires, ranking and comparison, discussion and interviews, collection of statistical data, ascertaining and formative experiments). Analysis of educational expertise through the prism of the competence approach and the results obtained at different stages of activity prove that the effectiveness of developing foreign language communicative competence increases when applying an integrated interdisciplinary approach and modern high-tech teaching aids, a special place being dedicated to simulators. The authors emphasise the need for appropriate methodological follow-up, when the technological approach involves special scenarios of simulator training, situational algorithms using standard IMO phrases, considering many factors, both related to the technical features of the devices themselves, their software, and the situational component.