The dissertation is devoted to the theoretical and methodological principles of preparation of social sphere specialists on the bilingual basis at universities. It has been proved that the purpose of professional training of specialists on the bilingual basis is the development of their bilingual professional communicative competence.
The conceptual-categorical apparatus of the research was systematized and there were defined the concepts that characterize, firstly, the essence and specificity of bilingualism in the educational sphere, secondly, they cover the peculiarities of content and language integrated learning and, thirdly, reveal the subject of the research.
The concepts of "bilingual teaching" and "bilingual education" became more advanced, as well as the definition of "bilingual professional communicative competence" was proposed. The meaning of the concept "subject-oriented bilingualism" was specified. It was determined that the development of bilingual education in the domestic educational sphere is carried out through artificial bilingualism of subordinate type.
Among the range of approaches analyzed in this research the most effective in the process of the development of the bilingual professional communicative competence were singled out: general scientific (system approach), scientifically gradient (competence, personal-activity, sociocultural, technological) and linguistic (credit-block, terminological, thematic).
The main principles of the professional training of future social sphere professionals on the bilingual basis were distinguished, which were divided into three main blocks: general-didactic, linguistic and specific principles of bilingual education.
The allocated methodological approaches and principles promoted the gradual development of the bilingual professional communicative competence of a future social sphere specialist. Their content basis was the author's model of professional training of future social sphere specialists on the bilingual basis, the basic structural blocks of which have been defined as: target, conceptual, motivational, content, activity-technological, productive.
According to this model, the professional training of future specialists takes place in four stages (accompanying, complementary, parity, enriching), which enables them in the process of learning to achieve a certain level of the bilingual professional communicative competence. The criteria basis of the research formed four groups of the criteria: motivational, language, operational and productive. Based on the selected criteria, the low, medium, sufficient and high levels of the bilingual professional communicative competence of future social sphere specialists have been singled out.
The scientific-methodical principles of realization of the author's model have been implemented within the pedagogical experiment, which confirmed the effectiveness of the developed model.
The results of the research have been introduced into the practice of higher educational institutions in Ukraine.
