DEVELOPMENT OF JOURNALISM STUDENTS’ SMALL TALK SKILLS IN LEARNING ENGLISH

Abstract

In the context of training journalism students, one of the methodical problems is the deve¬lopment of their soft skills to conduct a phatic dialogue effectively, which is not typical for Russian-speaking culture. Therefore, it seems important for this category of students to give the opportunity for the developing phatic dialogue skills in the process of learning English as part of improving their Small Talk skills. The presented study attempts to study the knowledge of journalism students about Small Talk as a type of phatic dialogue that allows successful initiation of communication. In addition, it presents the results of the development and application of the author’s course assessment aimed at Small Talk skills development in journalism students in the process of learning English. The study used empirical methods (testing and observation), as well as traditional methods of descriptive and comparative statistics. The pre-sented results of the study of the effectiveness of the author’s course indicate, on the one hand, its effecti-veness in the improvement of journalism students’ knowledge about the specifics and benefits of Small Talk in professional communication. On the other hand, this course allows journalism students to improve their practical skills in conducting this form of phatic dialogue.