Multilingual Education: Development of Professional Foreign Language Communicative Competence of Students in a Digital Environment

The purpose of the study is the research of the opportunities for developing professional foreign language communicative competence within the concept of multilingual education. The study is based on the method of the experiment presented by a survey of students. The course was tested by 70 Master’s degree students of Gumilyov Eurasian National University. The functionality of the Google Meet communication platform and mobile applications have created a comfortable environment for learning Business English. The educational course revealed students’ ability to carry out highquality communication. The results show that students improved their skills in spontaneous business discussion with rational construction of communication, proper speech intonation, lexical sufficiency within the framework of speech topics, and grammatical correctness. The practical significance and prospects for further research are presented by the opportunity of using the developed methodology in the process of communicative competency formation by students of different specialties.


INTRoDUCTIoN
One of the most important aspects of the economic and social modernization of society in Kazakhstan is the language policy. In this regard, there is no doubt about the relevance of the multilingual education concept, which is the result of the state national and linguistic educational policy reflected in the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The major directions of multilingual education development include: -improvement of the quality of foreign language training; -development of innovative foreign language education; -integration of teaching with intensive research activities in the field of linguistics, methods of teaching foreign languages, and intercultural communication; -based on the cognitive foreign language and multilingual-linguocultural methodology (Kunanbaeva, 2014), to develop a multilingual model of training specialists aimed at developing professional foreign language communicative competence; -to implement a multilingual model of training specialists in Business English distance learning course with an emphasis on the development of professional foreign language communicative competence; -to test the online course among the master's degree students of Gumilyov Eurasian National University based on the use of Google Meet communication platform and mobile applications, such as EF Smart English, Business English by Business English Pod (BEP) -Listening and Vocabulary, English for Meetings by BEP, English for Presentations by BEP, English for Telephoning by BEP, as well as Facebook network; -to characterize the capabilities of digital solutions implemented in the gradual development of students' communicative competence; -to comprehensively assess the level of students' mastery of professional foreign language communicative competence in the process of educational activities and to identify the importance of the temporal characteristics of the course in competence development.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Professional foreign language communicative competence is formed in the process of communicative learning, which is carried out through social interaction of students aimed at the solution of real and imaginary cooperation issues using a foreign language (Irsaliyeva et al., 2020). With the development of technology, intercultural communication is moving into a virtual environment using electronic tools such as audio/video conferencing, e-mail, instant messengers, platforms, and groups; thus, the distance between people from different cultures is reduced and information exchange occurs within a few seconds (Dumitraşcu-Băldău & Dumitraşcu, 2019). Building the professional foreign language communicative competence of a specialist should be based on two components: the study of the "what" to say based on the given situation and the study of the "how" to say it. The "What" is the essence of communication that underlies one's intentions and is chosen by maximizing any given utility making it a functional utility-driven process. On the other hand, the "how" is a surface realization of one's intentions, that is, the words that one uses to successfully convey the "what" (Lazaridou et al., 2020). Technological progress has provided educators with the opportunity to use technology in education. The use of digital technologies in learning and teaching foreign languages has become an indispensable part of language learning curricula. A number of learning platforms and programs have been created, which have contributed to the mastery of foreign language communicative competencies as the use of digital technologies in language learning maximizes the possibilities of effective communication, qualitatively supports cooperation between students and teachers, improves writing skills, and develops auditory perception of a foreign language (Zakirova & Haydarov, 2020). To develop communication skills in the study of a foreign language, multimedia technologies with an emphasis on synchronous online communication are widely used; the adequate use of these technologies contributes to meaningful and successful language learning and provides an opportunity to go beyond the physical boundaries of the classroom (Bailey et al., 2020). The following Internet tools have gained great popularity in foreign language learning: intelligent learning systems, games, Internet videos, social networks, websites and media resources, virtual and augmented reality applications, e-books, e-dictionaries and e-libraries (Shadiev & Yang, 2020). In the language pedagogy of higher educational institutions, up-to-date information technologies, multimedia complexes, textbooks and teaching aids based on interactive methods, as well as audio/video teaching aids are used (Mardievna et al., 2020). Technology integration supports teaching and enhances student learning experience by offering a variety of engaging learning materials and tools to foster active learning and professional collaboration (Ulla et al., 2020). E-learning with its advantages and disadvantages has had a significant impact on the learning process organization technology. By adopting it, various institutions have improved students' access to educational content, modernized the learning environment, and opened up new opportunities for high-quality interaction between participants in the educational process within educational courses (Mbombo & Cavus, 2021).

METHoDoLoGy
The paradigm of multilingual education in the European socio-cultural space appeared at the end of the 20th century; it was described in Resolution 12 / 30C adopted at the 30th session of the UNESCO General Conference in 1999 (Yalalov, 2020). The methodology of multilingual education in the current context is determined by linguo-didactic, historical, social, and pedagogical concepts (Nurgaliyeva et al., 2019).
The cognitive foreign language and multilingual-linguocultural methodology is used in order to determine the way in which the educational process is organized while providing an innovative approach to modeling the process of language learning (Kunanbaeva, 2014).
Based on the cognitive-linguocultural methodology principles, a multilingual model of training was developed with an emphasis on developing professional foreign language communicative competence ( Figure 1). The multilingual model of training is represented by such parts as personnel demand assessment and analysis of the requirements for the teaching staff development. Target block is presented by goal (improvement in the efficiency of training specialists with the high level of professional foreign language communicative competence) and objectives (formation of professional foreign language communicative competence). There are also methodological block, content block, and results.

RESEARCH DESIGN
The study is based on the method of the experiment, presented by a survey of students to determine the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The Business English online course was developed in order to test a multilingual model of training specialists within the system of distance learning. An experiment involving graduate students of Gumilyov Eurasian National University was conducted ( Table 1). The main selection criteria were the educational program and faculty; age and gender indicators were not taken into account.
The course was implemented by the teachers of the Faculty of Philology and the Faculty of International Relations (5 people). The main group of students (70 people) was divided into 10 subgroups; each group had a moderator to support students at all stages of the implementation of educational activities.
The course was implemented on the basis of the use of the Google Meet online communication platform, mobile applications, such as EF Smart English, Business English by BEP -Listening and Vocabulary, English for Meetings by BEP, English for Presentations by BEP, English for Telephoning by BEP (Table 2), as well as Facebook network.
The level of professional foreign language communicative competence was assessed by the course moderators based on the observation of each student progress. The weekly reports of the moderators made it possible to determine the group progress dynamics in terms of the period of study.

RESEARCH LIMITATIoNS
The main limitation of the study was a small sample of participants in the experiment, represented by 70 students from only two faculties of one university, while other faculties and universities in other countries were not taken into account. In the context of the rapid introduction of information  technologies into educational practices, there is a need to find optimal solutions that support the synergy of effective pedagogical methods and up-to-date digital tools. The study demonstrates the beneficial effect of the application of digital communication platforms, mobile applications and social media tools to implement educational goals aimed at developing professional foreign language competence of specialists. The study limitation is due to the narrow thematic focus of the course (business English); the multilingual learning model on which the online course was based can be implemented both at the macro level (in the context of higher education) and at the micro level (in the context of the course). Limitations are associated with the lack of comprehensive quantitative analysis confirming the constructive influence of individual educational practices on the development of professional foreign-language communicative competence of students. In addition, the study is descriptive research outlining optimal innovative solutions for the creation of educational courses aimed at the development and improvement of communication skills of students studying English at a professional level.

Ethical Aspects
The study group to participate in the experiment was selected on a one-to-one and voluntary basis. The students gave consent to their personal data processing and the publication of the research results.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIoN
Based on the experimental method, the effectiveness of the developed methodology to improve students' communicative competence was studied. The results are presented in tables and diagrams. A comprehensive assessment of students' mastery of professional foreign language communicative competence (Table 3, Figure 2) carried out by the course moderators made it possible to outline the group progress in terms of the period of study. The results of the assessment revealed the importance of temporal characteristics of the course in the development of communicative competence. The optimal level of development of professional foreign language communicative competence was achieved in the 4th month of study.
Within the Business English course, digital tools allowed generating a high-quality learning environment for the development of skills needed for interaction in a business intercultural space. Features of the use of mobile applications and online communication services at the stage of the experiment implementation are described below.
Google Meet (n.d.) is a video conferencing service that allows users to conduct video conferences, webinars, and virtual training. Within the Business English course, the Google Meet platform was used Table 3. The criteria for a comprehensive assessment of the development of professional foreign language communicative competence

Assessment Assessment criterion content
Optimal Ability to synchronously communicate in an online environment while perfectly understanding the opponent Optimal mastery of the strategy and tactics of constructing communication, proper speech intonation. Ability to clearly and competently communicate ideas and judgments; ability to argue, convince, and cultivate a positive attitude towards one's own position and personal views; ability to timely and independently correct mistakes against the background of 75% of grammatically accurate statements Mastery of professional vocabulary within the framework of speech topics and grammatical correctness in the process of performing simultaneous and asynchronous translations Optimal mastery of the critical analysis skills to analyze audio and video media resources taking into account intercultural differences Optimal mastery of the skills of interpreting business publications in a monologue with a modal evaluation of the content in a synchronous online group communication Facebook served as an effective environment for the implementation of the creative part of the course and provided opportunities for a high-quality online interaction between students and course moderators. Besides, in the Facebook environment, the Business English by News module was implemented according to the following scenario: 1) creation of the Business English by News group to be joined by the course participants; 2) daily publication of 5 topical business news and thematic issues for discussion on the group page; 3) writing comments to each publication (posts of about 200-300 words) and conducting thematic discussions.
Self-study assignments were developed on the basis of the following Business English mobile apps: 1. EF Smart English (n.d.) is a mobile application that allows students to improve communication, vocabulary and grammar skills anywhere and anytime. Within the Business English course, students had access to interactive content, exclusive videos, real life simulators preparing for genuine communication; industry and business modules of the course. The advanced speech recognition offered by the application has improved spoken English skills.

Business English by Business English Pod -Listening & Vocabulary (n.d.) is a mobile application
that provides access to a large number of different lessons for learning business English. Business English by BEP is a business English resource popular with English teachers, schools, companies, and individuals studying Business English around the world. Within the framework of the Business English course, the use of the application allowed learners to enrich business English vocabulary, improve listening skills, and learn idioms.

English for Meetings by Business English Pod (n.d.) is a mobile application for learning business
English with an emphasis on the technology of business meetings and negotiations. Within the Business English course, the use of the mobile application provided students with an opportunity to practice business English in typical scenarios of meetings, negotiations, seminars, and online conferences. 4. English for Presentations by Business English Pod (n.d.) is a mobile application for learning business English with an emphasis on developing the ability to create effective and convincing business presentations. Within the Business English course, the use of the mobile application allowed students to learn to give presentations in a business environment. 5. English for Telephoning by Business English Pod (n.d.) is a mobile application for learning business English with an emphasis on telephone communication. Within the Business English course, the use of the mobile application gave students an opportunity to study the technology and etiquette of business telephone conversations.
In the modern conditions of digital socio-economic interactions, professional foreign language communicative competence is becoming a top requested skill creating the basis for professional mobility and expanding opportunities for professional self-realization. Human relations cannot be built without quality communication. Interaction and communication between people from different cultures in terms of worldview, values and social issues (religion, economics and politics) in each activity indirectly affect the reduction of social distance between the representatives of different cultures (Kohar et al., 2020). Cultural differences should not be an obstacle to communication, but an opportunity for self-development. The key to understanding cultural differences is obtaining intercultural information and the development of intercultural skills. By understanding the beliefs, values, and worldviews that affect alternative approaches to communication, it is possible to see the logic behind the motivation for the actions or behavior of other people having different cultural backgrounds. Cultural differences represented by norms, values and behavior play a very important role in team building, decisionmaking, organization of work processes, marketing and promotion, as well as in many other aspects of the global economic environment (Dumitraşcu-Băldău & Dumitraşcu, 2019).
Effective intercultural communication has become a priority due to the importance it acquired in understanding the cultural diversity of the world. Migration, urbanization, international employment, educational exchange programs and ease of travel abroad facilitate everyday interaction between people of different cultural backgrounds. The quality of intercultural communication is supported by knowledge, skills and attitudes (Ilie, 2019). Education is a holistic and integrated process aimed at instilling self-esteem and respect for the community by adapting a new attitude and behavior in the environment of international communication (Baykan, 2021).
A competency-based approach requires a student to be able to solve problems; therefore, educational technologies used to develop professional intercultural communicative competence must be adapted to the implementation of practical activities (Valeeva et al., 2016). The formation of professional foreign language communicative competence in the training will be more effective if the educational strategy positively affects the motivation for self-education and achievement of a high level of knowledge and skills (Grigor'eva et al., 2019). Reinterpretation of language teaching and learning requires a more adequate conceptual understanding of culture and human action. Practical activities are a powerful and effective tool for fostering a deeper intercultural communication (Kim, 2020).
A foreign language teacher must have a wide range of cultural knowledge, taking into account the differences between cultures around the world in order to teach students to correctly express their thoughts in different situations, to qualitatively transform cultural information through analysis and comparison while leveling possible cultural misunderstandings. Therefore, teachers play a decisive role in improving professional foreign language communicative competence. In addition, there are effective student-centered learning strategies that can provide a solid foundation for the development of students' professional intercultural competence. Role play is one of the highly effective techniques, which, based on real-life situations, provides students with authentic educational materials from English-speaking countries using media resources available on the Internet. Authentic materials, such as web pages, blogs, TED talks, TV broadcasts, films, posters, news feeds, etc., can be very useful for the development of intercultural competence in students; in addition, the use of authentic materials is a relatively simple and convenient way of learning a language (Sabirova, 2020). Social networking tools also contribute to the development of professional foreign language communicative competence providing students with the opportunity to practise verbal and written communication in real-time on group forums contacting native speakers of the language they are studying (Ahmed & Pawar, 2018). Realistic interaction is one of the main features of virtual reality technologies attracting the attention of foreign language researchers and teachers. Virtual reality simulation improves various skills such as vocabulary, speech, intercultural understanding, and communication strategies. Immersion in social virtual reality allows students not only to explore the environment, but also to make friends in different parts of the world. Among other things, the use of avatars frees students from the physical limitations of the real world. In addition to textual or verbal interaction as a common method of computer communication, contexts included in social virtual reality make interactions more authentic. In virtual reality simulation, students simulate a real process or system; for example, they learn about the stock market, sit in a courtroom, rehearse an oral presentation, or have an interview. In addition, teacher-led language tasks that are student-centered are another widely used approach to learning in social virtual reality (Lan, 2020). A study conducted in Taiwan confirmed that mobile English learning programs based on augmented reality and simulating realistic situations contribute to student concentration on foreign language speaking practices, increase satisfaction and inspire independent work in language learning (Chang et al., 2020). A study conducted in a Chinese college analyzed the use of VR and Smart English software when teaching students within the Learning English through the news course. The sensation of being in virtual scenes helped the students eliminate external obstacles and fully immerse themselves in the language learning project. The three-dimensional virtual learning situation and imitation of physical presence in a virtual environment turned out to be a completely new cognitive experience for students and allowed them to achieve good learning outcomes in terms of improving intercultural communication skills (Li & Cao, 2020). Although virtual and augmented reality technologies allow students to virtually observe events, places, and stories from a new perspective and gain practical experience that they did not have before, the expected learning outcomes cannot be guaranteed without appropriate learning objectives.
Efficient language learning requires constant practice for increasing the effectiveness of language communication skills. The introduction and integration of innovative digital technologies with traditional teaching methods is the optimal solution to support the strategy of multilingual education creating a motivating multicultural learning environment and improving students' analytical and critical thinking skills (Krishan et al., 2020).
Compared to other studies on this issue, this work has advantages in developing its own methodology for communicative competence formation in the process of learning English. At the same time, the disadvantages in comparison with other works are taking into account only the component of Business English and forming methodology for two faculties, i.e., the lack of universality criterion of the proposed methodology and the impossibility of its adaptation to study English at other faculties.

CoNCLUSIoNS AND RECoMMENDATIoNS
The results show that students improved their skills in spontaneous business discussion with rational construction of communication, proper speech intonation, lexical sufficiency within the framework of speech topics, and grammatical correctness. The results also show the effectiveness of educational activities due to an innovative approach to the development of communication skills supported by the introduction of modern mobile applications into educational activities, which contributed to an increase in students' interest in competence development, and also created a discussion environment for speech practice. The implementation of the multilingual model of training specialists within the concept of the Business English course allowed outlining an effective trajectory for the development of professional foreign language communicative competence. Based on the use of constructive capabilities of the Google Meet platform, mobile applications, such as EF Smart English, Business English by BEP -Listening and Vocabulary, English for Meetings by BEP, English for Presentations by BEP, English for Telephoning by BEP, as well as the Facebook platform, the educational course revealed the abilities of students to carry out high-quality English-language communication. Group meetings on the Google Meet platform allowed students to improve their skills in spontaneous business discussion with rational construction of communication, proper speech intonation, lexical sufficiency within the framework of speech topics, and grammatical correctness. Group discussions within the framework of online video conferences were found to be an effective pedagogical tool for mastering communication skills. Business English mobile apps have provided students with opportunities to learn the language based on realistic business scenarios. Students gained universal knowledge, skills, and abilities to build constructive business relations, learned to plan a discussion, effectively participate in various forms of multilingual communication, conduct open conversations in a synchronous online environment, create a favorable communication atmosphere while observing the norms of formal/ informal communication. They used linguistic technologies to stimulate the communication activity of an interlocutor; they learned how to argue, convince, and shape a positive attitude towards their position and personal views. The educational activities of students on Facebook within the framework of the Business English by the News module allowed them to expand their active Business English vocabulary. Students learned to carry out a critical analysis of media resources presented in audio and video formats, as well as to comprehensively assess events and phenomena in the business environment, to interpret business publications in a monologue statement with a modal-evaluative characteristic of the content in a synchronous online group communication, to concisely present main thoughts and opinions on online discussion forums. Students showed increased activity in blogging on business topics on Facebook, producing information content with arguments and facts, clarifying their own understanding of the problem, and proposing innovative ideas and solutions. Commenting on various business news related to professional activities in certain business segments and countries allowed expanding the general idea of students about national characteristics and differences in doing business, as well as outlining the criteria for universal intercultural literacy in business communication. The practical significance and prospects for further research are presented by the opportunity of using the developed methodology in the process of communicative competency formation by students of different specialties. It is also perspective and relevant to study the effectiveness of modern technologies in the process of learning foreign languages in the context of distance learning among students of different universities from different countries in a comparative aspect.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or notfor-profit sectors.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.