INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE AS WELL AS ACCULTURATIVE STRESS AND SHOCK IN PSMU INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS

Summary The article is devoted to the actual multi-disciplinary problems of intercultural competence, cross-cultural adaptation forming and development in the higher education foreign applicants. The present time is accompanied by vast exchange of the foreign students on one hand and multiple factors affecting their proper adjustment on the other hand in part remote education, stresses, war situation and various diseases of dys-adaptation. It increases the topic studied actuality. The scientists from many countries paid and pay much attention to search the way and mechanisms of the International students’ proper cross-cultural adaptation. Intercultural competence forming and development starts from family. Studying in the educational establishments, cultural peculiarities of the countries the applicants are from, the students’ upbringing and habits in part impact on this competence while it influence on cross-cultural adjustment and its formation is hardened significantly at acculturative stress and shock in the foreign students. We determined acculturative stress and even shock features in our educational establishment foreign students; intercultural competence degree was fluctuated from low to moderate; we analyzed the described competence indices told by the students and proposed our own ways to improve the foreign applicants’ cross-cultural adaptation, intercultural competence as well as to prevent acculturative stress and shock development in them.


Foreign applicants adaptation types
Acculturation theory of J.W. Berry (Berry, J.W., 2005) has a universal character and is used in different countries for various groups of people when individuals and groups of different backgrounds meet (Sam, D.L., Berry, J.W., 2010); this theory was developed and added (Ward C., Kus L., 2012). International students represent vulnerable student population (Sherry et al., 2010) because of essentiality to acquire and develop natural, social (in part psychological, cultural, cross-cultural or trans-cultural, academic) adaptation while their studying abroad. They say and write about dynamics process among the foreign students in multi-ethnic environment which itself is seen as the psychological and pedagogical research' object (Akhtariyeva R. et al., 2019;Kutbiddinova R.A., Eromasova, A.A., 2009). Modern life is characterized by the International students' vast mobility that creates an essentiality to provide the conditions for the applicants' multi-facetated adaptation by the educational establishments' every link beginning from the hostel's staff, librarians and ending with dean-office staff, vice-rectors and rectors. The tutors in the foreign academic groups as well as the curators take an important position in this row. Cross-cultural adaptation places rather important position the foreign applicants face in another country while receiving their education abroad (Bierwiaczonek K., Waldzus, S., 2016).

Intercultural competence and main contributive factors
There are researches about intercultural competence (Jackson J., 2015) development and influencing factors with peculiarities in various countries (Raina, R., 2013), in different educational establishments but with common features such as impact of the foreigners' upbringing, education at school or college, customs and traditions in their families, native cities, countries; managing the languages of teaching by the tutors, the curators' attitudes to their duties, psychologists' activity in the educational establishment, interrelations between additional services staff (hostel, library in part) and the International students which is also in dependence on its managing the foreign languages. Becoming interculturally competent represents important task both for the education applicants and for the teachers (Holguin, B.R., 2013), the establishment administration.
There are the methodics and approaches to the intercultural competence assessment in various countries and even in separate educational establishments with intercultural exchange performance, for example, of International Students at Kocaeli University, while mentioning about intercultural students intercultural competence level (Guncavdi, G., Polat, S., 2016).
Creating models of intercultural competence in practice (Reid, E., 2013) represents important part of any educational establishment activity working in any country with the International students. Inter-cultural exchange represents very helpful mean in it (Lin J.-H. et al., 2012: 20): between the foreigners in one educational establishment, in some or many educational establishments of one profile, close or even far profiles, while making the conferences and on-line; between the students and the tutors, administration different levels representatives; between the chairs in one, some or many educational establishments in one city, separate cities in one country or cities in different countries; between whole educational establishments in one, some or many countries off-line or on-line; curators and psychologists must be very active in such inter-cultural experience sharing. There exist the terms "intercultural experiences" (Gu, Q. et al., 2010) and "acculturation experiences" in the foreign students (Smith, R.A., Khawaja, N.G., 2011). This experience is contributive to intercultural competence forming and development doubtly.

Acculturation stress and shock
Foreign applicants intercultural transitions while receiving their higher education abroad are paid separate significant attention (Ecochard, S., Fotheringham, J., 2017) by the specialists from the Science different branches and are accompanied by individual adaptation, transformation, engagement as the positive moments (Volet, C., Jones, C., 2012) as well as acculturative stress (Crockett L.J. et al., 2007) and even shock as the negative ones.

Social support and intercultural friendship
Social support and intercultural friendship (Kudo, K., Simkin, K.A., 2003) are important for diminishing if not liquidating the acculturative stress and shock in the higher education foreign applicants. Social support is realized in different countries, in the various ethnic groups for example in Latinos in California (Finch, B.K., Wega, W.A., 2003) and is too much important to prevent and to cease mentioned acculturative stress and shock as well as to predict the foreigners' social adjustment ( Baba, Y., Hosoda, M., 2014)

The research novelty:
these research were not performed in our educational establishment.

The research aim:
to determine intercultural competence indices and effectiveness as well as acculturation stress and shock presence in PSMU International students.

The research tasks:
1) to determine intercultural competence indices and effectiveness in the PSMU International students; 2) to establish as acculturation stress and shock presence in these International students of our educational establishment.

The research methods:
We used survey as the only research method.

The research results:
As the research' results demonstrated, many students had the features of cultural stress and even cultural (cross-cultural) shock namely: headache, problems with appetite, weight fluctuations, problems with mood, non-desire to study, desire to change the educational establishment, hardened contacts with counterparts and stuff, feeling of loneliness.
The applicants mentioned following indices of intercultural competence: • feeling of being lonely, • desire to study in our educational establishment, • having many friends among the students from their native country, • having friends among Ukrainian students, • warm relations like to the Tutor-Friend, Advisor, Helper but not Controller to some teachers who they can trust to and who they can address to when necessary and receive a help or advice.
We assess the International students' intercultural competence as the moderate or low; the students of medical groups had non-valuably bigger intercultural competence than the dental ones on the base of academic adaptation assessment.

Conclusions:
1) Acculturation stress and even shock features presence in the International students. 2) Moderate or even low intercultural competence in the students with dys-adjustment expressions such as acculturative stress and shock.
3) Essentiality to activate sharing the intercultural experience, curator's and psychologists' work; to insist on psychological preparing of the tutors teaching in the foreign academic groups; to increase the teachers' choice in such academic groups concerning to English managing; to provide the foreign applicants with well-adapted manuals, methodical instructions, multimedia presentations; to increase the tutor's level of the academic disciplines they teach.