INTRODUCING EUROPEAN UNION NEW SKILLS INITIATIVES IN TEACHING MASTER’S DEGREE STUDENTS

Internationalization of education imposes new requirements on higher education, more attention is given to new skills for the future, with a special attention to developing new skills for the future and exploring new communication strategies in the English language in academic and professional contexts. These requirements are of special importance for the Russian engineering education which trains professionals for the industry of the future. Unfortunately, little attention is paid to soft skills including intercultural competencies which are considered as most necessary for professional activities in any field. The paper proposes a solution to this problem at the level of master’s degree studies through changing the contents of the course in the foreign language. The paper analyses the experience of encouraging intercultural communication of MSc students through studying the EU new skills initiatives during the English language classes with the use of interactive and digital technologies. The results show that under conditions of internationalization of higher education and collaboration between the Russian and European Union universities, it is efficient to train master’s degree students for intercultural communication using the new skills initiatives of EU in the English language classes. These educational materials contribute to developing intercultural and communicative competences of master’s degree students and their personal interest in studying the course of the foreign language. The author concludes that it is necessary and efficient to study the experience of the EU as one of the key economic partners of Russia. The results of this study can be further used in teaching other courses of humanities in engineering master’s degree programs.