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мышления. Оно состоит в том, чтобы к отработанным материалам вернуться через день-два, затем через четыре дня, неделю, через пару месяцев. Довольно быстро можно убедиться в том, что просмотренный, прослушанный или прочитанный материал легко и надежно воспроизводится в любое время. После формирования такого навыка студент может легко подготовиться к самостоятельной работе, семинарским занятиям или экзамену. Достаточно будет обратиться к планам, вопросам - и они сыграют роль основного значения нужной информации. Всю необходимую информацию он сможет развернуть, если она была хотя бы раз отработана по предложенному алгоритму. Кроме того, эти навыки пригодятся в дальнейшей профессиональной деятельности любого специалиста. Овладение предложенными приемами интеллектуальной деятельности способствуют не просто накоплению в памяти информации, но могут в дальнейшем применяться в практической деятельности, в профессии. Кроме того, применение технологий эффективной интеллектуальной деятельности может послужить основой и для творчества, и для новаторства.
Подводя итоги, можно сказать, что самостоятельная работа будущих специалистов должна быть ориентирована не на усвоение готовых знаний, а на развитие мышления, памяти, речи, на умение работать с информацией, ее собирать, структурировать, правильно использовать, а также на самоорганизацию, саморегуляцию, саморефлексию, развитие интеллектуальной инициативы. Повысить эффективность этих процессов возможно при помощи технологий интеллектуальной деятельности: овладения алгоритмами оптимального восприятия и воспроизведения информации.
Литература:
1. Иванников Б.Д. Методика самостоятельной работы. - Ставрополь, 2000.
2. Косов Г.В., Бобренко О.С. Педагогическая антропология: социокультурный и психологический абрис : монография. - Ставрополь, 2008. - 100 с.
3. Харисон С. Счастливый ребенок. - М., 2005. - С. ' 75.
4. Шаповалов В.К., Минкина О.В. Консультирование по карьере. - М., 2008. -С. 31.
5. Шульга М.М. Высшая школа как фактор социализации в современной России: теоретический аспект анализа. - М., 2005. - С. 282.
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АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ПРЕПОДАВАНИЯ ИНОСТРАННОГО ЯЗЫКА ВЗРОСЛЫМ
Погорельская Людмила Рафаэльевна, магистрант
Абакумова Ирина Анатольевна, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент
кафедра Межкультурной коммуникации и методики преподавания иностранных языков, Южный федеральный университет, Ростов-на-Дону
Статья затрагивает некоторые общие и методологические вопросы преподавания иностранных языков студентам старшего возраста на материале английского языка. Авторы раскрывают психологические особенности целевой аудитории, а также трудности и преимущества обучения старшей возрастной группы учащихся. Также предлагается анализ образовательных возможностей для взрослых в нашей стране, одновременно с описанием некоторых трудностей, с которыми сталкивается преподаватель иностранного языка в своей работе с данной категорией обучающихся. В статье предпринимается попытка сформулировать и проанализировать некоторые особенности обучения взрослых иностранному языку. Целью статьи является определить основные особенности преподавания иностранного языка старшей возрастной группе. Объектом является процесс обучения взрослой аудитории. В статье также предлагаются некоторые практические рекомендации по обучению взрослых грамматике английского языка.
Ключевые слова: овладение иностранным языком; взрослые обучающиеся; преподавание грамматики; образовательные возможности; материалы для учителя; психологические особенности взрослых; старшая возрастная группа.
ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF TEACHING FOREIGN удк 372.881.1
LANGUAGE TO ADULTS ВАК РФ 13.00.02
Nowadays language education became not only the sphere of interests or hobby @ Pogorelskaya L.R., 2020
but also an absolute necessity. The following article deals with actual questions concerning fundamentals and methodology of teaching adult foreign language learners. Authors disclose psychological traits of the target audience, difficulties and advantages of foreign language acquisition in mature age. Authors also analyze learning opportunities for grown-ups and highlight some problems that foreign language teacher may encounter in his work with adult people. In the article an attempt to formulate and investigate some essential reasons of main problems of teaching adults is undertaken. The goal is to investigate some
©Abakumova I.A., 2020
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POGORELSKAYA Ludmilla Rafaelievna, Undergraduate student
ABAKUMOVA Irina Anatolievna, PhD of
Pedagogical Science, Associate Professor
Department of Intercultural Communication and Methodology of Teaching Foreign Languages, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don
peculiarities of teaching adult language learners. The object is the process of teaching foreign languages in the audience of grown-ups. The article also covers practical features of teaching grammar and raises some special questions regarding this teacher's activity. There is a description of conditions and class organization that may favour the best atmosphere for language acquisition, considering the psychological characteristics of grown-ups.
Keywords: foreign language acquisition; adult learners; teaching grammar; learning opportunities; teaching materials; psychological features of adult students; grownup audience.
I
In our fast changing world that every day exposes new opportunities and challenges, everyone has to constantly grow in professional or social spheres, has to enlarge limits of knowledge and competences. People need to fit our fast developing society with its speeds, new means of communication, technologies and ever-growing demands. In such a perspective language education became not only the sphere of interests or hobby but also an absolutely indispensable necessity. That is why people who were not very much interested in languages while they were studying at school, today return to the learning activity and continue their language education.
In such a context teachers and students find themselves in a mutual activity where teachers encounter grown up, motivated, demanding and experienced personalities (that is absolutely different to teaching schoolchildren). On the other hand, adult learners, being independent people, have to submit themselves, in a certain extent, to an unknown person (the teacher) and they are also expected to trust this person. All these facts emphasize, in our opinion, the actuality of the article.
The novelty of this work, we suppose, consists in the authors' attempt to formulate and investigate some essential, in our view, reasons of main problems of teaching adults. The goal of this article is to investigate some peculiarities of teaching adult language learners. The object is the process of teaching foreign languages in the audience of grown-ups.
From the methodological point of view teachers have some difficulties with finding relevant materials to teach adult learners. Main teaching stuff such as handbooks, guides and supplementary materials are often provided only by foreign publishers and are quite expensive. In contrast to secondary schoolteachers' works, that one can find anywhere on the web, methodological elaborations for adult learners are relatively rare and insignificant. This fact, in our opinion, is also due to the compulsory character of the secondary education and a high level of state control in the secondary education sphere compared to the learning opportunities for adult students.
When we take into consideration adult learners we do not have only to estimate the advantages of their age and status but also to evaluate their language learning opportunities. In our country grownup people have the next options for foreign language studies:
Firstly, they often get higher professional education and, as we know, foreign language as an academic subject is compulsory in most higher education institutions;
Secondly, they can take language courses in special language schools, which provide them with group, one-by-one or online courses;
Thirdly, they can be engaged in self-education; nowadays, there are lots of opportunities for self-studies, for example, online training courses, multiple videos, educational applications, etc.
Finally, they can take private lessons with either qualified teachers or native speakers.
When we speak about university studies, we can distinguish full-time students, who are commonly young people, recent secondary school leavers that continue their studies. They are more successful in their learning in comparison with older students. Besides, there are also elder, usually part-time students, who meet at their sessions about 2-3 times a year and combine their studies with work and family life. These students are often more than 30-40 years old. Part-time students are frequently motivated enough to get their score, but studying language seems to them rather difficult and boring, especially in non-linguistic specialties. Most of them are steady people, they work, have families and they finished their school studies long time ago. So their learning skills have regressed a lot since then and they are not very confident in their language abilities. It makes a psychological trouble in learning, plus little classroom time according to the part-time curriculum does not let the teacher spend much time on every student's encouragement and motivation.
It is common knowledge that to be successful and qualified in professional activity, FL teacher does not only have to master a high level of the foreign language, but also to understand deeply the processes happening in consciousness and brains of the target audience, to know the specificities of psychic, mental and cognitive activities of the age group. That's why we have found important to mention some psychological traits of grown-up learners.
To understand needs and the character of adult age group better, the teacher has to know psychological peculiarities of adult audience -foreign language learners - from the scientific point of view.
It is important to know that adult learners have another level of motivation and consciousness in comparison with children. Adult people wish to act and to get the results without delay. They try to satisfy their needs at once. In most cases they definitely know what they want and why, and are very demanding for the assistance they get. A stronger motivation they have is due to a greater degree of personal responsibility and of self-consciousness, having strict goals and tasks in learning a foreign language. Adult learners have a deep understanding of necessity of knowing FL in their professional or personal life. It may to some extent cover learning difficulties in comparison with younger learners who are frequently more flexible for the learning activity.
Right after high school, thanks to the recent school studies, their minds are still very tuned and active; their foreign language knowledge is still very fresh. They are more likely to succeed in language acquisition than their elder co-learners. In addition, adult learners are sometimes stigmatized by their professional sphere which is rarely closely connected with foreign languages, especially in technical specialties.
A high level of personal motivation equally favours the increase of activeness during foreign language lessons and the decrease of a range of psychological barriers. It may be considered as some kind of compensation of weak sides in learning due to the age peculiarities of grownups. It is crucial also to take into consideration that the learning possibilities of this age group are significantly limited bya number of social and domestic responsibilities that in general have priority before the learning process. Additionally, some experts underline the phenomenon of "psychological deafness" among language learners' environment: families and friends sometimes do not support the learners' intentions and interests. [1, c. ]
Psychologists suggest that there are some essential points about adults that can make them successful in learning, [2, c]
1) Adults have to be eager to learn. Nobody can force grown-ups to do things they do not want to do. They will resist to the pressure and the result will be nul.
2) The representatives of this age group will learn only the things that they believe are important and necessary for them.
3) Adults study while they are acting or working. This means that if they don't have the opportunity to practice immediately and continuously their new skills, they will surely forget 80% of the material in less than two years.
4) Teaching of grown-up learners has to be focused on real problems. Thus, it is important to take cases from the real life and work them through.
5) The learning process is greatly influenced by the previous experience. Acquisition of some new knowledge is inseparably linked with accumulated life experience. If the new knowledge is in controversy with the previously approved information, grown-up learner will probably reject it.
6) Grown-ups study better in an informal setting. Many of them have unpleasant memories connected with their school studies. So the teacher has to create an informal and natural atmosphere for learning.
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7) It is important to use different approaches in teaching. Various means such as audio, video materials, discussion clubs and visual aids will be very useful for the learning process.
Some experts believe that adult language learners have psychological trouble to be evaluated and corrected in public [3, c.]. They are afraid to make a mistake, to misunderstand, to speak and thus to demonstrate their language level in class. Especially it concerns any kinds of tests where students must demonstrate their real competences. So it is up to the teacher to build friendly and careful atmosphere at the lessons. Also the learning process may be affected by the influence of some unpleasant and bad school experience. Child memories form in the conscience of adults an unfavorable picture of themselves as language learners because they have once failed at school.
Another question concerning adult teaching is an adequate evaluation of foreign language knowledge at the beginning of studies. Some surveys say that only 10% of adult population possesses decent language knowledge in our country. This fact is to change, we suppose, with recent and future school leavers because of the school curriculum which provides quite a big amount of teaching hours of foreign languages at school.
Thus, Russian secondary school curriculum suggests two hours of a foreign language per week in primary school and three hours per week for senior school students. The state standard for language competences equals the Upper-Intermediate level for the 11th grade school graduates. [4, c.] At this level students must surely demonstrate a serious preparation, have to speak freely and to understand easily foreign speech. This means that almost all adult people that continue their foreign language training after finishing secondary studies, have already had some knowledge of the language. But it often occurs that those who are willing to continue their studies have to start from the very beginning.
Some adults usually misjudge their level of the foreign language because they do not have systematic knowledge, in other words, their knowledge is quite fragmentary, and students have no certitude in their foreign language competences. Others having a significant academic foundation of English grammar knowledge lack fluency or don't know how to speak, so, they are unable to lead the productive activity. Sometimes students simply do not know how to evaluate their foreign language level and
think they are beginners. In addition, most of the tests available for self-evaluation cover grammar skills, while other competences are often omitted. As a result, the evaluation becomes incomplete.
Another serious aspect that affects the level of knowledge of the English language is that there is a huge teaching staff turnover in schools especially among English teachers which leads to the lack of systematic knowledge of the foreign language among secondary school leavers. Every new teacher is a new personality with a specific approach, level and simply, personal qualities. This fact influences greatly the possibility of systematic knowledge formation. In addition, young teachers who have just started their teaching practice have to get some time to elaborate their own approaches to become effective.
One of the main specific features of grown up age group, as we have already mentioned, is that if adult people are not motivated enough it would be difficult to make them do things. The problem is that some adults are absolutely sure that to speak the language they do not need grammar rules. Perhaps they are influenced by a negative school experience or some deficiencies of secondary school education, that is sometimes not connected with real communicative situations or they are misinformed by some promises of quick results without much work that attract busy or lazy people. This fact makes the English language teacher bring some special approaches and techniques in teaching grammar. Thus, the teacher's goal is to build his teaching in such a way that adult learners will clearly understand the importance of knowing grammar rules to lead the effective and competent productive activity. For instance, the teacher may demonstrate the importance of the strict word order in an English sentence by the next example: word order in English has much more importance than in the Russian language. No matter what word order is in the Russian phrase "Миша любит Машу", it will not change the sense of the saying, while in the English sentence "Michael loves Mary" or "Mary loves Michael" changes in the word order affect dramatically the plot of the statement. [5, c.3] The most effective way to overcome this problem, we suppose, is a simple but persuasive explanation first, of the importance of grammar and second, of grammar rules themselves.The teacher should have a high level of understanding and knowledge of grammar functioning to make students aware that to speak correctly and to understand the target language correctly they need grammar.
Grown up learners who finished their school studies long ago have sometimes a very restricted knowledge about a foreign language structure and even the structure of their own language. They can hardly find or define the predicate or the subject of the sentence and sometimes are confused with parts of speech. That's why explaining grammar the teacher should not use complex notions such as Participle II or Past Participle, introducing cases of Perfect tenses. It will be efficient to use the methodological term, for example, the 3rd form of the verb (V3/ed). We would say that the principle in presenting grammar is "the easier, the better".
Finally, we would like to state that some experts underline the importance of cognitive-communicative method in teaching adult language learners which presupposes learning through understanding, comprehension of the language system and awareness of how the language functions. The pure reproduction and imitation, according to the same experts, may give positive results only on the first stage of learning. Thus, the more efficient methods appeared to be those which are personal-oriented. Among them such approaches as: cooperative learning, project method, "learner's portfolio", internet technologies may be mentioned. In general, these methods got the name of "competence approach", that means the formation of different competences, not only transmitting the knowledge but opinion and attitude formation, accumulation of knowledge and the desire to progress further which is especially important in adult teaching.[6, 3]
Nowadays, all foreign language teachers state that methods like Grammar translation, Direct or Audio-Lingual appeared to be obsolete in a modern context, all these methods are teacher-centred ones, but today professors tend to individualize the teaching process by applying communicative, group and learner-centred activities.
Many prominent methodologists from all over the world, considering the process of tuition in adult age group, suggest that one of the most effective and interesting ways of teaching foreign languages is the method called "cooperative" or "collaborative learning".[ ] This method draws students to work in groups in cooperation, sharing ideas, learning strategies and improving social and collaborative skills. Thus, using this method the teacher assists in meeting both cognitive and educational goals by encouraging students to learn from each other. The teacher
involves learners in small group activities, helping them cooperate and share learning strategies they use. The teacher also take responsibility for evaluating the group's success, the latest depends on each student's contribution and efforts. Everyone in the group can do his own part and foster common success and the group's high scores.
The teacher's role is triple in this method: firstly, he organizes the group activity itself, he plans and divides the class into groups, prepares tasks, sets and explains the goals, he also encourages students to foster social skills and specifies which ones to be developed. Secondly, the teacher has to monitor the groups' work and observes the process. Thirdly, he is to evaluate the results and is responsible for final summarizing and analyzing the work.
One of the teacher's responsibilities in organizing cooperative activities is that he divides the class into groups. In group's formation the teacher may put any principle he wants, for instance, the students' level of the foreign language can differ within one group and this can benefit the total success, if the teacher monitors wisely the groups' work. Monitoring is extremely important in order to avoid strong students' prevailing and the lack of efforts from the side of weak ones.
Here is the example of the work where the teacher implements cooperative learning strategies. The class of 24 is divided into six groups.The teacher explains the taskthat consists of reading and exploring six different parts of one text. Each part contains unknown words which have to be found and translated whether with the help of dictionaries or by asking the teacher. When the parts are distributed each group has to read and understand its part. In ten minutes three students from every group change the group. Their task is to tell their part of the text and explain new vocabulary to other group. In ten minutes students change the group again and do the same things in other groups. After that students return to their original groups and representatives tell the whole story to the class. Additional peculiarity of this work is that at the beginning the teacher suggests developing some social skills and this time it is the skill to encourage co-learners and group mates. Students can encourage each other by tapping on the student's back, for example, and exclaiming encouraging words, like "good work", "well done" and so on. At the end of the work the teacher does not only evaluate the learning results such as new vocabulary and new learning strategies
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but also the success of a new developed social skill. The teacher gives bonuses and additional resting time for the next lesson as a reward and proposes to develop further new social skill at the next lesson. One of the most important things about learning in cooperation is that every student's success contributes to the high score of the whole group and all the participants take advantage of it. [7, p.164-166]
One of the drawbacks of this method the teacher may encounter is that students with lower level will not take the relevant part in common workand that highly prepared students will prevail and will not let other members of the group work appropriately. The teacher has to divide the class into groups which are equitable so that every student is able to participate in full and make a positive contribution to the group work. [9, p. 26-27]
According to Johnson & Johnson, the cooperative learning approach includes five fundamental features: positive interdependence; individual accountability; face-to-face promotive interaction; social skills; and group processing. Some authors underline that in the cooperative learning activity the main principle to determine failure or success is the group dynamics. Dornyei's suggestions for achieving success through cooperative learning are proximity or physical closeness, individual contact, cooperation for a common goal, rewarding nature of the group experience, intergroup competition, and group identity. [12. p. 102]
Many researches showed different results comparing cooperative learning (CL) approach with traditional methods such as Grammar-Translation or other teacher-centered ones. Some of the data support an efficient superiority of CL method results in reading comprehension as compared with a traditional approach. While others report the difference in efficiency of low significance. [12, p. 113] The results differ in some extent in investigation concerning speaking and
listening tasks. Researchers attribute these results to the difference of speech activities such as reading (receptive) and speaking (productive), and also to supervisors' monitoring abilities during the class work.
References:
1. Попкова E.M. Содержательные компоненты успешности в обучении взрослых английскому языку и их реализация в учебнике Face2Face.
2. Кривоносова Е.В. Особенности обучения взрослых иностранному языку // История, философия, филология. - 2013. - №5. - С. 189-191.
3. Назарьков А.А. Психолого-педагогические основы обучения взрослых иностранному языку в системе дополнительного образования // Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики. -2013,-№9 (27).-4.1.
4. Требования ФГОС нового поколения и обучения иностранным языкам в средней школе.
5. Романовская Н.В., Черняева Е.В., Пособие по переводческой грамматике английского языка. -М., 2004.
6. Онорин Д.Е. Особенности взрослых как уникальной психолого-возрастной группы обучающихся при овладении иностранным языком // Мир науки. - 2017. Т. 5. - № 5.
7. Diane Larsen-Freeman. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford, Second Edition University Press, 2003, p. 164-166.
8. Dornyei Z. Psychological processes in cooperative language learning: Group dynamics and motivation //The Modern Language Journal. 1997. 81 (4). p. 482-49.
9. Hsuan-Yu Chen (Jack). Structuring Cooperative Learning in Teaching English Pronunciation//English Language Teaching. 2011. vol. 4. №3. p. 26-27.
10. Johnson D.W., Johnson R.T. & Holubec E.J. Cooperation in the classroom (7th Ed), Edina, MN: Interaction, 1998.
11. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. The impact of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning environments on achievement. In J. Hattie & E. Anderman (Eds.), International handbook of studentachievement(372-374). NewYork: Routledge, 2013.
12. Ning, Huiping and Hornby, Garry. The effectiveness of cooperative learning in teaching English to Chinese tertiary learners // Effective Education. 2010.2:2.99-116. p. 113.
STAGES OF ENTERING STUDENTS OF A PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY IN A DIGITAL SCHOOL
Presnyakova Tatyana Nikolaevna, PhD of Philosophical science, Associate Professor of Department of Historical Education
Nepachatykh Irina Anatolevna, Senior Lecturer ofDepartment ofinformatics, Information Technologies andTeaching Methods
Branch of the Far Eastern Federal University in Ussuriysk (School of Pedagogy), Ussuriysk
Isaeva Nadezhda Evgenievna, Chairman of the Ussuri Union Organization Trade Union of Public Education and Science Russian Federation, Ussuriysk
The Article is devoted to the actual problem of students ' entry into the professional environment. Innovative processes related to digital education further complicate the process of forming professional competencies.
