Ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers
The article is devoted to considering the ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers. The experience of the existing researches concerning this issue is analyzed and summarized. The ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers are formulated. Some recommendations both on teaching the Russian language within the professional training of law enforcement officers and organizing their self-training are provided. Such concepts as professional speech culture, literacy, functional literacy, language literacy are considered in the article. It is noted that modern society makes higher demands on the professional developing level of specialists in various fields: a competent specialist must have both a set of professionally significant knowledge and skills and high level of professional speech culture, which implies a high level of literacy. It is indicated that the level of developing the professional speech culture is regarded as one of the main indicators of the law enforcement officers’ professionalism. Literacy implies the ability of a person to read and write according to the standards of his native language. The concept of functional literacy is interpreted as the level of knowledge, skills and abilities that ensure the normal individual’s functioning in the system of social relations. Language literacy, being a component of functional literacy, implies the ability of a native speaker to comply with the norms of the literary language in the process of oral and written communication. Some recommendations on teaching the Russian language to law enforcement officers are provided. Various ways of improving the language literacy of this category of specialists are described. It is concluded that the main ways of improving the language literacy of law enforcement officers are the following: teaching the Russian language to law enforcement officers; organizing the research activities of trainees; organizing the self-training of the officers during off-duty hours (using the educational Internet-resources and mobile applications). The urgency of the problem of improving the literacy level of native speakers at the present stage of the society development is emphasized.