THE STUDY OF VISUAL COMPETENCE IN DIDACTICS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Visualization of contemporary multicultural society is viewed as one of the challenges of the global information space. The result of this process is the development of visual communication among representatives of different cultures through various media resources, network communication, social networking, etc. In this connection arises the problem of visual competence development in young people. To determine components in the structural composition of the competence the author discusses the works of foreign and Russian scholars devoted to the notions of visual literacy, visual communication, visual thinking and visual education. Visual thinking includes the patterns of perception and understanding visual images. Visual communication is a part of interpersonal nonverbal communication. Visual training is aimed at development of visual literacy, which involves the mastery of skills to explore visual images, interpret them and visualize the world around us. The conducted research made it possible to single out cognitive, emotional-evaluative and activity components of the visual competence. Visual competence within the framework of foreign language intercultural education is defined as the ability and willingness to consciously and critically perceive visual and cultural information in various media sources, apply a creative approach to cultural visualization of images and, being a mediator of cultures, to consciously use them in the practice of intercultural communication.