MOTIVATIONAL COMPONENT OF MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS (IN CONDITIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINE TRANSLATION SYSTEMS

The article studies the motivation of students of a technical university to learn foreign lan- guages in the context of the development of information technologies. The significance of the issue under discussion is connected not only with the relevance of the scientific analysis of the psycho- logical effects of the development of information technologies, but also with the influence of the motivational sphere on the communicative activity of a person. The pilot study was conducted among students of a technical university in the form of a written survey. The students were asked to express an opinion on their personal motivation to study foreign languages in the conditions of the existence of electronic translators. The results of the survey revealed that the students realised the need to learn foreign languages for personal and professional development: 19% of the responses showed a lack of motivation to learn foreign languages (10% of opinions justified this position by the presence of electronic translators); 23% of the responses associated the need to master foreign languages with the imperfection of the operation of modern technical devices that carry out transla- tion. Further technological progress can make such a motivational position unstable. The share of 19% is made up of answers related to current ideas about the connection between knowledge of for- eign languages and a successful professional future. The opinion that learning foreign languages contributes to self-development is the least susceptible to social and technological changes (39%). It is this motivational position that can be considered a ‘reference' for the effective development of pedagogical technologies of multilingual training of students of a technical university. The relative- ly recent developments of pedagogical methodology of multilingual education (for university stu- dents of non-linguistic specialities) should take into account the influence of the easily accessible translation software on the educational motivation of students, and not to address only to personal competence resources of an individual.