CC BY
0
B7
UÉ
The European Journal of Education PREMIER
and Applied Psychology 2023, No 4 H
ISSN 2310-5704 ppublishing.org
DOI:10.29013/EJEAP-23-4-25-31
AUTHENTIC TEXT AND TECHNIQUES OF WORK AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF TRAINING
Venera Djumabaeva1
1 Karakalpak State University, Uzbekistan
Cite: Djumabaeva V. (2023). Authentic Text and Techniques of Work at Different Stages of Training. European Journal of Education and Applied Psychology 2023, No 4. https://doi. org/10.29013/EJEAP-23-4-25-31
Abstract
The article presents that reading authentic texts when teaching a foreign language in a secondary school, especially in high school, plays a paramount role. The motivation for reading is based on the awareness of its usefulness and necessity for expanding the boundaries of knowledge through mastering reading in a foreign language.
Keywords: initial stage of training, pre-text, text and post-text assignments, middle stage of training, work with text-story, senior stage of training, authentic materials
Introduction
Teaching reading in a foreign language is designed to ensure receptive mastery of language material and develop the cognitive competence of students, because on the one hand, this is a type of speech activity, and on the other, the basis for the formation of information and academic skills. Based on these skills, a person is able to navigate modern information flows.
At the senior stage of education, reading increasingly acts as an independent type of speech activity, when the student reads not so much in order to complete an educational task, but in order to obtain the necessary information from the text and use it. The completeness and accuracy of information extraction depends on the specific speech task.
At the initial stage of training, preference should be given to educational texts. Sometimes authentic texts can be included
to broaden students' horizons. The quality of assimilation of authentic material can be increased by using certain exercises and tasks (Rogova, G. V., 1998).
Mastery of reading technology is carried out as a result of completing pre-text, text and post-text tasks.
Pre-text tasks are aimed at modeling background knowledge necessary and sufficient for the reception of a specific text, at eliminating the semantic and linguistic difficulties of its understanding and at the same time at developing reading skills and abilities to develop a "comprehension strategy". They take into account the lexico-grammatical, structural-semantic, linguostylistic and linguistic-cultural features of the text to be read.
In text tasks, students are offered communicative guidelines, which contain instructions on the type of reading, speed and the need to solve certain cognitive and
communicative tasks in the reading process. Preliminary questions must meet a number of requirements:
- they are built on the basis of actively acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures that are not used in the text in this form;
- the answer to the preliminary question must reflect the main content of the relevant part of the text and should not be reduced to any one sentence from the text;
- taken together, the questions must represent an adapted interpretation of the text.
In addition, students perform a number of exercises with text that provide skills and abilities for a specific type of reading.
Methodology
Post-text tasks are intended to test reading comprehension, to monitor the degree of development of reading skills and the possible use of the information received in future professional activities.
The tasks for the texts also reflect their linguistic complexity. When learning to read, students are presented with texts, both with removed (adapted) and with unresolved difficulties (authentic), while the main thing remains the solution of semantic problems. Tasks that focus attention on language material and relieve language difficulties serve as a means and are of a subordinate nature. Below are suggested tasks for the texts. Tasks related to monitoring the understanding of the text (Rogova, G. V., Vereshchagina, I. N., 2000).
Read the text and show the corresponding objects in the picture.
Read the text. Choose from the pictures given here the one that matches the content of the text; say its number (pick up the signal card with the corresponding number).
Read the text and sentences below the line. Using a signal card, indicate the number of the sentence that does not correspond to the content of the text.
Read the text and sentences below the line. On a piece of paper with sentence numbers, put a + sign if the sentence corresponds to the content of the text, and a - sign if it does not.
Read the sentences and put a + sign on the sheet next to the sentence number if what you are reading about is true and you can attribute it to yourself. If not, put a sign.
Read the text and number the pictures according to the sequence of unfolding content.
Adjacent to these are the so-called "proactive" exercises, the tasks of which prompt specific actions:
Read the text and draw... (or option: choose a picture that matches the content).
Read the text and solve the arithmetic problems contained in it.
Read the instruction text and make this Christmas tree decoration yourself.
Nowadays, more often when teaching reading, test tasks are used that use symbolism, i.e., numbers and letters to demonstrate understanding. The most common tests used in connection with reading are multiple choice and matching tests. Tasks that involve quoting from the text. Exact citation is convincing evidence of understanding without the use of productive forms of work; When quoting, the reader uses ready-made text material, choosing it in accordance with the semantic task. When quoting, silent reading is combined with reading aloud (and sometimes with writing). Quoting exercises occupy a large place in the work on reading. Sometimes quoting serves only as a means of revealing how carefully the text has been read.
In this case, the task is aimed at finding a sentence in the text suggested by the Russian equivalent. For example: "Find sentences in the text that correspond to the following Russian sentences." Quotes can be used to confirm/refute factual phenomena and to resolve problematic issues. Citation occurs at all stages of learning. Tasks related to question and answer exercises. They occupy an important place among exercises that stimulate and control the understanding of the text. For example, in the question to the text: "Why did the tourists go to Samarkand?" - specific facts are suggested: the characters (tourists), where they went (Samarkand), in addition, the question also states that the text states the purpose of the tourists' trip. Thus, the question reduces the measure of uncertainty; it tightly controls the reader's attention.
There are many types of questions designed to elicit understanding. It is possible to ask questions to the text that require a quote in the answer, i.e. ready material. The following tasks are quite typical in this regard: "Read the text and find answers to the questions in
it." Completing this type of task can demonstrate understanding quite reliably.
There may be questions that introduce a riddle text. The answer to the question is usually laconic: just a guess, which, however, requires careful and interested reading, taking into account all the details. Examples of tasks of this type:
Determine which fairy tale this passage is taken from.
Find out why the text is called that way.
Read and tell me who this article is about.
There are questions that require a free answer, although it follows from the content of the text, but is not available in the text itself. Such a question mobilizes productive forms of work. This is most often a question that reveals cause-and-effect relationships: "For what purpose? Why? On what basis? Why are
4-1 J «1 " « 11" " 11 » "1 » "
the words "buy", "sell", "seller", "buyer", "cashier" put in quotation marks in this text?" (suggested answer: "We are not talking about a real store here, but about a game of store"), etc. (Solovova, E. N., 2002).
When answering a question that requires a free answer, it is possible to answer in your native language, since the main thing is to give students the opportunity to prove their understanding of what they have read, and not to show the ability to formulate an answer in a foreign language.
Much also depends on the place of the question: whether it is posed before the text or after it. The question posed before reading the text directs the reader's attention, it reveals the theme of the story, thereby reducing the measure of uncertainty. A post-text question facilitates the processing of specific information and helps to identify the main and essential details.
Questions to the text determine the type of reading. So, the question of the general idea of the text: "What are we talking about? What is the main idea? or: "Answer the question posed in the title" - focuses on skimming the text.
A series of semantic questions to the main content determines the introductory nature of the reading.
Questions about the factual side of the text and about the subtext, as well as about details, involve exploratory reading.
Work with an authentic text is organized in such a way that the exercises cease to be
exercises, but become a speech situation and are often performed in the form of a game, including role-playing, in groups, individually, collectively. Let's consider the technology of working with the following types of texts: sample text; story; letter; statement.
The main function of the sample text is the programming function or, in other words, the support function. In lexical terms, such texts are not very complex.
Work on the text is carried out in three stages:
The task of the first is the maximum "appropriation" of the content plan of the text, its linguistic material and composition. This is facilitated by tasks aimed at extracting information at various levels from the text:
• recognition of grammatical and lexical phenomena characteristic of a sample text;
• communication-oriented system-atization of grammatical and lexical phenomena;
• answers on questions;
• drawing up a plan or logical-semantic maps;
• selection of keywords for each point of the plan;
• writing out the main sentences of each paragraph;
• drawing up association diagrams;
• search for linking words that define the logic and sequence of action of the text, etc.
The second stage involves various retellings of the source text:
• close to the text;
• on behalf of various actors.
Speech at this stage is reproductive and reproductive-productive in nature, which is associated with the possibility of partial transformation of the text, introducing additions and elements of evaluation.
The third stage involves a complete revision of the text. The newly created text is characterized by motivation, communicativeness, personal coloring and, subject to the relative independence of creativity, can be considered as the student's own speech of a productive nature.
The method of working with a story text is somewhat different from working with a sample text. In lexical and compositional terms,
a story may be more complex than a sample text, and the main tasks in working with it are: creating conditions for understanding the content of the text as a whole, developing the skills of assumptions, guesses, developing the ability to ignore language difficulties, and cultivating an emotional attitude towards what is read. A story telling about the problems and experiences of the characters, about their relationships can serve as the basis for developing the skills of intercultural, and in the zone of proximal development of students, interpersonal communication.
Results
Working with a text-story includes pretext, text and post-text stages.
During pre-text work, students are prepared for reading. The task of this stage is to awaken in students a desire to get acquainted with the text. Personal interest in reading the text and an emotional attitude towards it increases work efficiency. In order to clarify the pre-speech situation, a special system of pre-text exercises is used. This may include information about the author and time of writing. For pre-text exercises, a selection of linguistic means of the text is carried out (realities of the country of the language being studied, carrying historical and national-cultural information, lexical units reflecting the author's attitude towards the characters, the social essence of the characters). Due to the introduction of additional, expanding information, the context is expanded, as if the text information is expanded: these can be illustrations, footnotes, links. Pre-text exercises are also needed, which would be aimed at developing reading mechanisms, at developing linguistic guesswork, at expanding the potential vocabulary (including through the development of skills in semantizing words in context). Pre-text work includes: an introduction to the situation, a general mood for reading; discussion of information about the author; introduction to the problems of the text, activation of the knowledge that students have on the problem; relieving language difficulties.
The work of activating background knowledge involves the teacher asking students targeted questions on the topic of the text: Who has heard of this subject? Who
saw him? What will the text say about this? etc. Activation of background knowledge leads to anticipation of the content of the story. Students' attention should be drawn to non-verbal material and visual aids. Preliminary work may also include working with the title and text structure. This stage of work involves removing lexical and grammatical difficulties. But in this case the author of the experiment does not always follow the generally accepted methodology. Of course, students need to be given the meaning of one or two real words; the rest can be explained at their request while reading the text, having specified a limit on the number in advance. At the same time, they themselves decide which words are important for them to understand the text. In general, the following tasks can be attributed to the pre-text stage:
• read supporting words and phrases and name the topic of the text;
• get acquainted with new words and guess what the text is about;
• guess from a diagram of keywords about the content of the story and title it;
• determine the theme of the text based on the illustration;
• read the title and say what the text might be about;
• find a word in the title that conveys the author's assessment;
After the preliminary work, the stage of reading the text (text) begins. At this stage, it is important to correctly formulate the task for the text:
• read the first paragraph of the story and say what it is about (topic);
• read the first paragraph of the story and find in it a sentence containing basic information;
• read the story to the end and find in the last paragraph a sentence containing the argumentation of the main idea (idea);
• read the story and name the words that carry the greatest semantic load;
• indicate the sentences that are most consistent in meaning with the title;
• read the paragraph and formulate the main idea in one sentence, etc.
The post-text stage of work is aimed at ensuring that the student expresses his atti-
tude to what he read. The goal of this stage is to develop in students the skills and abilities of semantic processing of text. Text and imitative-reproductive exercises are used. To further consolidate the material and motivate students' creative work, productive and creative exercises are used, as well as all kinds of role-playing situational games.
Students can:
• express your agreement/disagreement with the statements below;
• distribute these questions in a sequence that corresponds to the content of the text;
• express the main idea of the text, explain its title;
• describe the environment in which the characters lived;
• talk about the hero's feelings and thoughts at a certain moment;
• come up with a telephone conversation between the characters;
• say whether his point of view coincides with the author's;
• highlight interesting information from the story and evaluate it, etc.
Working with a text - a letter - depends on its content and is generally similar to the technologies described above: answers to questions, selection of information, We add to post-text tasks such as "write a response letter". What makes the work special is letters received by email. Random line breaks occur in the email. Students can be offered the following tasks to work in pairs/groups:
Who will restore the letter faster?
Read the letter and tell me what it says?
This is how an information and research culture is formed in the classroom.
In extracurricular or individual work, poetry is used for dramatization, memorization and expressive reading, and literary translation.
At the senior stage of training, you can also use techniques for working with authentic text that are characteristic of the initial and middle stages. But it is very important to take into account the characteristics of the senior stage when selecting the necessary tasks and exercises.
Since the main goal of education is to prepare the student for verbal communication in natural conditions, the learning process
will only be purposeful and effective when the student has encountered the difficulties of natural speech and learned to overcome them. The role of authentic materials in creating the illusion of a natural speech environment cannot be overestimated.
The use of authentic materials at the initial and secondary stages of education is relatively limited due to the presence of a large number of lexical, grammatical, and phonetic difficulties, while at the senior stage students already have a sufficient supply of knowledge in basic language aspects. Thus, the use of authentic materials and consideration of the features of working with them in the learning process seems to us more appropriate and effective precisely at the senior stage of training.
Schoolchildren of this age are faced with the task of social and personal self-determination, which presupposes a clear orientation and determination of their place in the adult world; the senior, or final stage of training is characterized by the fact that during this stage students improve the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired by them during the previous period.
This stage is characterized by the improvement of students' abilities to use various techniques for enriching their vocabulary, expanding their potential vocabulary and linguistic knowledge. The independent use of a foreign language comes to the fore as a means for students to obtain new information that would present the facts they know differently, expand their awareness in various fields of knowledge, and introduce them to new areas of application.
The specificity of authentic materials as a means of teaching at the senior stage ensures communication with real objects that stimulate almost genuine communication: students seem to become participants in all situations played out with their help, play certain roles, and solve "real" life problems. The resulting effect of participation in the everyday life of the country of the target language with its special culture not only contributes to the learning of a natural, living language, but also serves as a powerful incentive to increase student motivation (Solovyevich, N. A., 1999).
Study material at the senior stage must meet the following requirements:
Compliance with the age characteristics of students and their speech experience in their native and foreign languages.
Content of information that is new and interesting for students.
Presentation of different forms of speech.
Presence of redundant elements of information.
The naturalness of the situation, characters and circumstances presented in it.
The ability of a material to evoke a reciprocal emotional response.
It is desirable to have educational value.
When selecting materials at the senior stage of training, preference should be given to authentic materials that represent the conversational style of everyday communication. You should use the texts of modern foreign textbooks, journalistic and regional studies texts, as well as monologues and dialogues of characters in works of art written in a colloquial style. It is important that the text uses words and phrases characteristic of oral informal communication. It is also necessary to introduce students to examples of common genres/ types of texts, showing the logical, compositional and linguistic features of their implementation in the target language. These genres include: story, description, message, explanation, evidence, review, conversation, interview, questioning, argument, discussion. In order to acquire background knowledge and develop sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence on this basis, the student must receive the necessary information about the country of the language being studied and its people.
It is necessary to pay special attention to the analysis of the speech behavior of speakers depending on the situation. The teacher should pay attention to how communicants address each other in situations of official/ informal communication, how they request information, make requests, greet each other, say goodbye, start and end a conversation, and so on. It is also necessary to inform students of the words assigned to certain situations (greetings, addresses, congratulations).
At this stage of training, we can propose the following algorithm for working with authentic text:
Multiple substitution task
Students are given a newspaper text, which is divided into paragraphs. Separate-
ly, the headings for these paragraphs are given in random order, and there may be more headings than paragraphs, which somewhat complicates the task and reduces the possibility of mechanical guessing. It is necessary to correlate the content of the paragraph with the title. The goal in this case is to test how quickly and effectively students can determine the main idea of the text, as well as some details at the level of content and meaning.
Multiple choice task
This task involves monitoring several skills; it simultaneously tests: general reading comprehension; establishing logical connections of the text; detailed understanding of the text at the level of semantic ideas and connections. One of the questions may be aimed at understanding the meaning of a single word in a specific context. Here it is necessary to establish the logical and semantic connections of the text. There may be questions about understanding the entire text as a whole, that is, the ability to summarize information is tested, and so on.
Text recovery
In this case, an understanding of the structure of the text is tested, along with the ability to establish the general meaning and restore missing details of the text. Either individual sentences or paragraphs are removed from the text. In order to complicate the task, extra sentences or passages may be added to the removed parts of the text. The task is to restore the text in the required sequence.
Search for specific information
In this exercise, questions are given before the text, but not in the order in which the information appears in the text. To complete a task quickly and correctly, students must scan the text until they find the relevant information. Only then does the pace of reading slow down and more detailed reading begins. Without setting a separate goal to control reading technique, this control format provides a solution to this problem. Obviously, if the reading technique is not well developed, then it is not possible to complete all the proposed tasks in the allotted time.
Thus, thoughtful organization of the educational process, clarity and logic of presentation, maximum reliance on active mental activity, a variety of teaching methods, and clarification of perception tasks make it pos-
sible to create internal motivation and direct students' attention to points that will help program future practical activities with the material they have read.
Conclusions
In conclusion, it should be emphasized once again that the ultimate goal of studying in high school is to acquire the skills and abilities of the graduate to perceive and
understand foreign language speech, which will help him, in turn, take part in acts of oral communication. However, since students do not have sufficient contact with native speakers, effectively achieving this goal is impossible without the use of authentic materials, since they ensure the formation of the ability to understand foreign language speech in natural communication conditions.
References
Rogova, G. V. (1998). Methods of teaching English at the initial stage.- M.: Education,- 294 p.
Rogova, G. V., Vereshchagina I. N. (2000) Methods of teaching English at the initial stage in general education institutions: a manual for students of pedagogical universities.- M.: Education,- 232 p.
Solovova, E. N. (2002). Methods of teaching foreign languages. Basic course of lectures.- M.: Education - 238 p.
Solovyevich, N. A. (1999). "Training to read authentic texts with linguistic and cultural content", Institute of Languages and Sciences,- No. 1.
submitted 22.08.2023; accepted for publication 20.09.2023; published 8.10.2023 © Djumabaeva, V.
Contact: veneradjumabaeva@mail.ru
