Thematic-situational principle as the basis for designing an oral professional speech course for adults in the context of corporate training

Importance. The development of corporate education, the digital transformation of business processes, and the growing complexity of professional interactions have collectively precipitated a sharp increase in the requirements for employees’ oral proficiency in a foreign language. It has become critically important for personnel to be able to swiftly deploy general professional vocabulary in typical scenarios of professional interaction. Consequently, there is a growing demand for a teaching methodology that effectively expands lexical range and cultivates functional readiness to perform professional speech acts in a foreign language. Russian and international scholars acknowledge the significance of both the thematic and situational principles in language instruction. Nevertheless, the issues surrounding their integrated application in teaching general professional vocabulary to adults within the context of corporate education remain insufficiently explored. This gives rise to the following problem: despite the recognized importance of the thematic and situational principles, there is a lack of a theoretically grounded model for their integration. Such a model would enable the design of adult professional spoken language courses that ensure both the systematic acquisition of vocabulary and its effective application in typical professional communication scenarios. The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of a methodology for developing adult professional oral speech within corporate education through a course based on an integrated thematic-situational principle.
Research Methods. The research employed the following methods: 1) Modeling, which is instrumental in substantiating and describing the structural-functional organization of the thematicsituational principle in relation to teaching general professional vocabulary to adults. This method is particularly significant during the theoretical analysis stage, enabling the conceptualization of the future course structure as a system of interconnected elements oriented towards solving professional communicative tasks. 2) The comparative-evaluative method, applied to empirical research data, allowed for the identification of factors enhancing instructional effectiveness. It also facilitated the integration of findings from existing Russian and international studies, their correlation with experimental data, and the justification for transitioning to a more comprehensive instructional model. The combined application of these methods enabled both a theoretical reconstruction of the principle under investigation and its practical validation. The triad of “modeling – comparison – evaluation” ensured the integrity of the study and the reliability of the conclusions drawn. A comparison of means is conducted using the parametric statistical method of Student’s t-test. Six parameters of oral speech served as the control objects.
Theoretical Foundations. The thematic and situational principles initially evolved in parallel, complementing one another; their integration into a thematic-situational principle represents a logical progression within the Russian methodological tradition. The thematic-situational principle, which is grounded simultaneously in topic, situation, and speech stimulus, creates the conditions for integrating systematicity with functionality: the adult learner acquires vocabulary and speech patterns as a means of solving professional tasks within typical communicative scenarios.
Results and Discussion. The thematic-situational principle, as the foundation for designing an oral professional speech course, is trialed during an experimental study and demonstrated its efficacy compared to the thematic principle across all controlled parameters. The conducted experimental work revealed that at the initial stage no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) is found between the Control Group (CG, N = 23) and the Experimental Group (EG, N = 23). In the Control Group, heterogeneous progress is observed. Statistically significant improvements occurred in only two out of the six parameters. A highly significant increase is noted in the parameter use of general professional vocabulary (p = 0.003), and a significant improvement was recorded for communicative success (p = 0.007). Changes in the remaining four parameters did not reach the threshold of statistical significance (p > 0.05). In contrast, the Experimental Group demonstrated progress across all six parameters, with all six values being significantly lower than p < 0.05, and four out of six below p < 0.001. Progress in four key parameters communicative success, speech fluency, speech accuracy, and use of general professional vocabulary reached the highest level of significance (p < 0.001), indicating the pronounced effectiveness of the applied principle in education.
Conclusion. The thematic-situational principle proves to be the most effective approach for the development of adult oral proficiency utilizing general professional vocabulary. This is due to its capacity to leverage learners’ professional experience and address their immediate needs, ensure immediate applicability of the acquired material, and enhance motivation through problem-based and role-play speech stimuli. Prospects for further research are associated with the development of diagnostic tools, sector-specific course variants, and the integration of digital tools for the automated design of situational-thematic communicative forms of instructional interaction.

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