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13DIALOGICAL SPEECH DEVELOPMENT IN SENIOR PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN BY MEANS OF THEATRICAL ACTIVITY
Abstract
The article presents theoretical analysis of the dialogical speech development problem in children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity. In addition, an experimental study of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age is presented. Development conditions are revealed by the authors from the viewpoint of organizing joint theatrical activities of children and adults, creating an educational theatrical and gaming environment and using the pieces of oral folk art in order to work through intonational expressiveness, loudness, tempo, correct pronunciation of sounds, and the development of clear and distinct speech.
The purpose of the article is to justify the conditions that determine the effectiveness of dialogical speech development in senior preschool age children in the process of theatrical activity.
The materials of the article can be used for thematic planning of the work aimed at the development of dialogical speech in children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity.
Keywords
development, dialogical speech, senior preschool age, conditions, theatrical activity,
AUTHORS
Natalia V. Karpova
Ph.D.(Psychology), Associate Professor, Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "Tyumen State University", Tyumen, Russia. 6 Volodarskogo Street, 625003 Tyumen, Russia E-mail.ru: ntverdohlebova@mail.ru
Lyayli A. Sadinova
student, Finance Faculty Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "Tyumen State University", Tyumen, Russia. 6 Volodarskogo Street, 625003 Tyumen, Russia E-mail.ru: sadinova.73@mail.ru
1. Introduction
1.1. Relevance of the problem
Currently, personal contacts are among the main factors of mutual understanding between people, therefore the culture of speech behavior is important for all people whose activities, in one way or another, are connected with communication. By the way a person speaks or writes, one can judge about the level of his spiritual development, his inner culture (Yakubinsky, 2007).
However, many authors note increase in the number of children entering school who do not demonstrate the skills of dialogical speech at a sufficient level for this age. It is very difficult for children to start and maintain a dialogue, their vocabulary is not rich, the words are repetitive, and the language is inexpressive (Karpova, Elantseva, 2013)
The development of dialogical speech is one of the important tasks of speech development in a kindergarten already, because speech centers in the cerebral cortex responsible for speech are actively maturing in children (Brock center: articulation, motor skills, Wernicke center: phonemic hearing); there occurs anatomical and physiological maturation of the articulatory apparatus (Vinogradova, 2009).
One of the dialogical speech development means among senior preschoolers is theatrical activity. At preschool age, theatrical activity is performed through theatrical games. Classes using elements of theatrical activity may include both dramatization games and stage effective games.
1.2. Importance of the problem research
The approach to speech as a form of activity is characteristic for sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic research, studying the processes and mechanisms of speech formation, the occurrence of speech errors and speech disorders (neurolinguistics), the relation of speech actions to other types of social activity of a person (the works of N.I. Zhinkin, A.R. Luria, A.N. Leontiev, A.A. Leontiev, et al.), the role of speech in the formation of consciousness and subconsciousness manifestations, inner speech, the development of children's speech (L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev), etc.
The senior preschool age is a sensitive period for the development of dialogical speech. The urgency of dialogical speech development increases at this age in connection with the preparation for school.
In addition, despite the attention of educators and psychologists to this problem, it is possible to note at the present time the lack of pedagogical conditions for the development of dialogical speech in pre-school children in theatrical activities.
The purpose of the research: to substantiate theoretically and to study experimentally the pedagogical conditions for the development of dialogical speech in children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity.
Analysis of the current state of research on the scientific issue of the article
In the psychological science, the problems of dialogical speech study such scientists as U. Demjanenko, J. Gorvic, C. Garvey, J. Newson, K. Price, J. Yanoushek, L.A. Karpenko, A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky, A.G. Ruzskaya, J. Piaget, T. Slama-Kazaku, D.B. Elkonin, O.V. Troshin, M.I. Lisina, I.V. Nikanorova, L.G. Shadrina, E. Tsuranova, Z.G. Gadzhibekova, R.A. Azizkhanova and Z.A. Gadzhikhanov, N.N. Bartosh, A.V. Chulkova et al. (Bartosh, 2016; Demjanenko, Gorvic, 1992; Newson, 1978). Children learn the main features of the dialogue only in the senior preschool age, this is evidenced by the works of N.Ya. Mikhaylenko, N.A. Korotkov, T.V. Korshikova, T.A. Volkova, I.V. Nikanorova et al (Mikhailenko, Korotkova, 2015). The role of theatrical activity in the development of dialogical speech was investigated by Yu.A. Tsapkova, A.P. Nikolaicheva, L.S. Furmina (Tsapkova, 2012; Furmina, 2012; Karpinskaya, 2012).
The issues related to the justification of a conditions set contributing to the dialogical speech development in children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity will be discussed for the first time in our study.
1.3. Research Hypothesis
The research was based on the hypothesis that the development of dialogical speech in children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity will be effective in the following pedagogical conditions: organized joint theatrical activity of children and adults; developed theatrical-gaming environment; in the classroom we use pieces of oral folk art with the aim of working through intonational expressiveness, loudness, tempo, correct pronunciation of sounds, and development of clear and distinct speech.
2. Research methods
2.1. Objectives of the research
In the course of the research the following tasks were solved: 1) studying the level of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age; 2) realization of pedagogical conditions for dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity; 3) repeated diagnostics of the dialogical speech development level in children of senior preschool age in order to test the effectiveness of the hypothesis put forward at the beginning of the research.
2.2. Theoretical and empirical methods
To check the hypothesis and solve the problems posed, the following methods were
used:
- theoretical (analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, normative documents about education on the problem of the research, formulation of hypotheses, synthesis, comparison, classification, systematization);
- empirical (observation, conversation, problem-playing situations, analysis of educational products, experiment);
- methods of processing results (qualitative and quantitative analysis of the research results, a method for visualizing the results, methods of mathematical and statistical processing).
2.3. Research base
The presented research was conducted on the basis of kindergarten "Rodnichok" of Yuzhno-Dubrovinskaya secondary school in the village Armizonskoe, Armizonsky district of Tyumen region. The study involved 60 children of senior preschool age. They were divided into two groups: an experimental and a control group of 30 people each.
2.4. Evaluation criteria and indicators
As a result of theoretical analysis, we determined the criteria and levels of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age.
To identify the level of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age, the following criteria and indicators were used: culture of speech communication, information request, replication, initiating a dialogue.
According to the degree of the revealed indicators manifestations, three levels of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age were determined.
High level - senior preschoolers have a good command of everyday speech etiquette, use different forms of it depending on the situation, use different types of sentences,
including addressing to an interlocutor and phrases of politeness; they address to unfamiliar adults using the words "sorry", "please tell me". Children themselves ask three or more different types of questions, keeping to succession and consistency, they have wide enough information field of questions. Preschoolers actively and willingly come into contact with an interlocutor; quickly respond to replicas in a conversation, use their various types, including those, encouraging partner to speech action; at the request of the interlocutor, they can for some time maintain a conversation on the proposed topic, micro dialogues include three to seven or more dialogical unities. Dialogues, compiled by children describing a picture, have complex structure; when giving a dialogue, children use direct speech; the speech is correct, only few syntactic and grammatical errors occur.
Average level - senior preschoolers use speech etiquette only in well-learned situations of greetings, farewells, requests; their speech clichés are repetitive, replicas in such situations include only a speech cliché without addressing to an interlocutor; children respond with indirect speech, often with mistakes or solve a speech problem, using the available experience, because they do not know the necessary speech cliché appropriate for the given situation. Senior preschoolers ask questions only with the help of an adult, the questions are not diverse, they are simple, narrowly focused; children find it difficult to maintain succession and consistency. These children talk with an adult willingly, but they do not strike a conversation up themselves; they are often distracted, do not know how to carry on a conversation, use few replicas that stimulate an interlocutor to a conversation; their replicas-reactions are short, one-word sentences or complex structures; micro dialogues of preschool children consist of 1-3 dialogical units. Children find it difficult to come up with the content of the conversation, they do not know how to start and end the dialogue; replicas consist of one phrase; sentences used are either simple, single-word or complex structures; dialogs are insipid, constructed according to the plot of the picture or reflect the thoughts and expressions of adults; children make many syntactic and grammatical mistakes due to the use of complex sentence constructions.
Low level - children use a limited number of speech etiquette phrases, which they were taught earlier (greeting, request, apology), although they often mix them up; they use only one common form and cannot replace it with a similar phrase, find it difficult to come into contact with adults and peers; these children do not borrow phrases of speech etiquette from the speech of adults, they use the same forms of addressing to a child and to an adult. Children find it difficult to ask questions even with the help of an adult. These children join to a dialogue passively; they show weak speech activity and make long pauses, they have no interest in conversation, they do not use replicas-stimuli; replicas-reactions are concise and one-word; a conversation lasts until an adult takes the initiative, and the children's micro dialogues consist of only one dialogical unity, having a simple structure. Children cannot come up with dialogs on the picture, they make up individual replicas or define only the topic of the conversation, which reflects the content of the picture.
2.5. Course and description of the experiment
In the process of ascertaining experiment, the level of dialogical speech development in children of the senior preschool age of the control and experimental groups was diagnosed. To do this, the following diagnostic techniques were used: Methodology "Speech etiquette" (N.A. Starodubova); Methodology "Interview" (O.V. Dybina); Methodology "Replication" (T.A. Repina); Methodology "Making Dialogues" (N.A. Starodubova)
An analysis of the ascertaining experiment results showed that the majority of respondents are on average and low level of dialogical speech development. The obtained results made it possible to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to realize the conditions contributing to dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age.
Only preschoolers of the experimental group took part in the forming experiment.
The purpose of this stage: the implementation of pedagogical conditions for the development of dialogical speech in children of senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activities.
Objectives: to teach children the rules of dialogue and speech etiquette; to form an ability to formulate questions properly, to stimulate independence in the conduct of inquiry; to stimulate the use addressing as a way of complicating the sentence, a verbal reaction in the conversation; to improve the skills of independent dialogues compilation according to the proposed situation.
In line with the hypothesis of the research, the process of dialogical speech development in children of senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activities was carried out through: organization of joint theatrical activities of children and adults; creation of educational theatrical-gaming environment; use of pieces of oral folk art at the lessons in order to work through the intonational expressiveness, loudness, tempo, correct pronunciation of sounds, the development of clear and distinct speech.
The zone of theatrical games at the grounds of "Rodnichok" kindergarten of Yuzhno-Dubrovinskaya secondary school has a special place. Here, a pavilion as a zone of theatrical games is used, as it is easily turned up into a children's theater, a puppet theater or animals theater. The shape of the pavilion allows you to arrange it accordingly. If this is a theater, then at the entrance to the pavilion you can hang theater masks, if this is a circus - an image of a smiling clown. There are benches in the inner part of the pavilion -seats for spectators. A bright screen with sliding curtains is installed in front of them. There is a ticket office at the entrance. In winter, the winter recreation palace is made from the pavilion, which is a good addition to the decoration of the ground in accordance with the time of the year and causes delight in children with its entertaining and somewhat unusual design. The zone of theatrical games in the group room has a sliding screen, slightly above the average height of a child of this age, a flannelegraph (inclined fleecy plane on which cardboard figures are mounted), a table for playing table-top theater. There are boxes with toys of different kinds of theater, masks and other equipment on the shelves. Children can use them freely when they need them. A costumier's room is an element of this zone in which there are toilet articles, costume elements, old-fashioned things. This equipment is used for interesting games with dressing.
There is no possibility to arrange the theatrical zone in the group classroom permanently, so it is integrated with the book corner.
Thematic plan of classes using theatrical activity:
Lesson 1. "Magic of the theater", the goal: to expand children's ideas about the theater, to bring up interest in the theater, theatrical games.
Lesson 2. Game-dramatization "Miraculous transformations", the goal: to instill elementary ethical norms of behavior, to develop dialogical speech, to teach expressively pronounce phrases bearing various emotional coloring.
Lesson 3. Game-dramatization of the fairy tale "Zayushkina izba", the goal: to improve the dialogical form of speech, to expand the vocabulary; to teach children to render emotional conditions, to use figurative expressions and intonation-shaped speech.
Lesson 4. Preparation for the play "Zayushkina izba" performance, the goal: to consolidate the knowledge of children about different types of theater, to stimulate the
participation in theatrical activities; development of dialogical speech and replication skills.
Lesson 5. "Magic clew", the goal: to develop dialogical and coherent speech, to establish replication skills; to contribute to the creation of emotional mood; to develop the ability to formulate questions properly, to ask questions independently.
Lesson 6. Game-dramatization "How the fox offended the bull," the goal: to develop the skills of starting a dialogue, to ask questions; to promote the development of speech intonational expressiveness, to follow the rules of dialogue and speech etiquette.
Lesson 7. Stage-game "Mishka's Birthday", the goal: to develop dialogical speech, replication skills; to contribute to the creation of emotional mood; to develop the ability to formulate questions properly, to ask questions independently.
Lesson 8. Game-dramatization "Who said" meow '?", the goal: to develop dialogical speech, to use addressing as a way of complicating the sentence, speech reaction in the conversation; to form the skills of independent compilation of dialogues according to the proposed situation.
Lesson 9. Stage-game "Cinderella", the goal: to develop dialogical speech, to use addressing as a way of complicating the sentence, speech reaction in the conversation; to form the skills of independent compilation of dialogues according to the proposed situation.
Lesson 10. Game-dramatization "The Living Hat", the goal: to develop dialogical speech, replication skills; to contribute to the creation of emotional mood; to develop the ability to formulate questions properly, to ask questions independently.
Lesson 11. Stage-game "Geese-swans", the goal: to stimulate following the rules of dialogue and speech etiquette, to use addressing as a way of complicating the sentence, speech reaction in the conversation; to form the skills of independent compilation of dialogues according to the proposed situation.
Lesson 12. Game-dramatization "Cucumbers", the goal: to stimulate following the rules of dialogue and speech etiquette, to use addressing as a way of complicating the sentence, speech reaction in the conversation; to form the skills of independent compilation of dialogues according to the proposed situation; to develop the ability to formulate questions properly, to ask questions independently.
6 games-dramatizations and 5 stage-games were performed with children during five weeks. Preparation and performance included: reading a fairy tale (story); conversation on the content; games on the pronunciation of replicas, intonations; selection of the features for the characters of a fairy tale (story) and their actions; re-telling a fairy tale (story); discussion of roles; reading a fairy tale (story) by roles; retelling of a fairy tale (story) along a chain with subject pictures support; game "Present a character from a fairy tale (story) ..."; selection of costumes, masks for a fairy tale (story); dramatization of a fairy tale (story); Shadow theater, puppet theater, using toys "bi-bi-boo".
We took for our games the fairy tales already familiar to children. Teaching children dialogue, we used as the base the following methods: creation of communication environment; organization of activities beyond reading classes frameworks; use of undisciplined methods of attracting and retaining attention; creation the condition of emotional comfort, creative atmosphere.
Educators created informative theatrical-gaming environment in the group classroom in order to attract children's attention to the different works of art. At the first stage, the main task was to expand and increase the speech experience of children with various types of replicas and dialogues. In this case, we used the ability of children to imitate and borrow speech models. Reading of stories to children as a rule occurred at the lessons of speech development or literature. In the course of work on dialogical speech development in children, the questions concerning every read story were prepared in advance, the
questions were posed in such a way that they presumed full and detailed answers from children. After reading the story, discussions were held. After children had given answers to the questions, collective and individual work was conducted, during which the question was asked of the certain child. Then the children were offered to play a situation, which they analyzed. Each situation had to be played 2-3 times, both individually and collectively. We tried to ensure that every child answered with a full sentence. In addition, children were taught to ask questions correctly, paying attention to the correctness of their construction. This form of work was used at each lesson of speech development. Then the children were offered didactic tasks. Within the framework of these tasks a child was given the role of an adult, where he had to ask either a peer or a tutor about the events in the story. Teaching children the ability to make a conversation went in parallel with the teaching the speech etiquette and behavior culture: children learned polite words, listened attentively to the one who spoke, learned not to distract and interrupt the interlocutor, to restrain their immediate desire to answer the question immediately, without waiting for a call. They brought up reticence, politeness and general culture of speech communication in a conversation. During a walk as well as other free time, an educator worked with senior preschoolers individually, referring to the illustrations from the books, asked a preschooler about the content of the conversation, and then offered to play a dialogue in roles. By memorizing literary dialogues, transferring them to the dramatization of stories, children borrowed various forms of dialogical remarks: You should not have done that. Who gave you permission? The shame on you! etc. Playing ready dialogues helps children not only to learn the forms of dialogical replicas, interrogative, narrative intonations, but also to follow the basic rules of dialogue: the order, carrying on and developing the topic of conversation. Before the staging of dialogues, preschoolers were reminded the rules of behavior: to listen to the question to the end; not to cry out, not to interrupt. The children received a petal from a flower for the right answers - the mark. For the dramatization, simple dialogues, consisting of a small number of short sentences, were chosen.
So, they organized games-dramatizations of tales and stories as well as stage-games during five weeks with preschoolers. The following methods were used in the work: playing situations with the heroes of stories and fairy tales participation; staging of small dialogues; drawing up dialogues based on illustrations. Then followed the game-dramatization.
A vivid reflection of social reality and natural phenomena characteristic for a game-dramatization makes it possible to acquaint children with the surrounding world in all its diversity. And competently posed questions in the process of preparation for the game prompt them to think, analyze rather complicated situations, draw conclusions and generalizations. This contributes to the improvement of mental development and closely related to it speech perfection. In the process of making characters' replicas expressive, the child's own vocabulary becomes richer, the sound side of speech is improved. A new role, especially the characters' dialogue, makes the child to speak clearly, plainly, distinctly. He improves his dialogical speech, its grammatical structure, the child begins to use the vocabulary more actively and enrich it.
Thus, dialogical speech is improved in the theatrical activity, and its expressiveness increases. In theatrical activity, the child seeks to learn about his own possibilities in reincarnation, in the search for new and in the combinations of the familiar things. This is a feature of theatrical activity as creative activity, the activity that contributes to the development of children's speech. The task is to teach children not only represent the characters, but also speak for them, be engaged in sketches and exercises.
To develop the ability of children to use intonational expressiveness in narration, a lesson was conducted on the development of speech with the elements of theatrical
activity "How the fox offended the bull ". The name of the fairy tale surprised children greatly, but in the process of acquaintance with the fairy tale, the children had various feelings. Subject No. 7 condemned the fox for offensive words, and subject No. 5, on the contrary, condemned the bull-calf: "You must not call names, you had to answer the fox in another way, and it would apologize." To show the children the need to use expressiveness in the storytelling, we read the fairy tale without expression for the first time, and for the second time we did it with a pronounced intonational coloring. The children chose the second option for their story. After the discussion of the fairy tale content, the children retold it in pairs. After listening to two pairs of children, they were suggested to stage the fairy tale.
It is important to note, that it is in theatrical activity that children have the opportunity to expand their initiative and independence in choosing the character of their hero (or even a whole performance). In connection with the fact that the content of activities is expanding (on the basis of their creativity), children have the desire to use expressive means in everyday speech or, conversely, to use the events of real life in dialogues in theatrical activity.
3. Results
At the control stage of the experiment, quantitative data about levels of dialogical speech development in children of older preschool age showed some difference from the results of the ascertaining experiment: in the experimental group, the number of subjects with high level increased by 30%, with average level - did not change, the number of subjects with low level decreased by 30 %; in the control group, the number of subjects with high level decreased by 10%, with average level - did not change, the number of subjects with low level increased by 10%.
Thus, there are obvious significant changes in the level of dialogical speech development among children in the experimental group, and we can observe insignificant changes in the direction of lowering the level of dialogical speech development in children of the control group. So, the effectiveness of the research hypothesis was confirmed.
4. Discussion
The development of dialogical speech is one of the important issues of speech development in a kindergarten already, because speech centers in the cerebral cortex responsible for speech are actively maturing in children; and the senior preschool age is a sensitive period for the development of dialogical speech. The urgency of dialogical speech development increases at this age in connection with the preparation for school.
Following Z.G. Hajibeckova, R.A. Azizkhanova and Z.A. Gadzhikhanov, we understood under dialogical speech in this article the dynamic and natural process of speech interaction of two or more interlocutors, which essential features are spontaneity, addressing, supportability and situation dependence (Z.G. Hajibeyova, R.A. Azizkhanova, Z.A. Gadzhikhanov).
Our study makes it possible to confirm that the development of dialogical speech among children of the senior preschool age in the process of theatrical activity will be effective in the following pedagogical conditions: the joint theatrical activity of children and adults is organized; the theatrical-gaming environment is created; the pieces of oral folk art are used in the classroom with the aim of working through intonational expressiveness, loudness, tempo, correct pronunciation of sounds, and development of clear and distinct speech.
5. Conclusion
It is confirmed in the course of the study that the development of dialogical speech in pre-school children in the process of theatrical activities will be effective in the following pedagogical conditions: the joint theatrical activity of children and adults is organized; the theatrical-gaming environment is created; the pieces of oral folk art are used in the classroom with the aim of working through intonational expressiveness, loudness, tempo, correct pronunciation of sounds, and development of clear and distinct speech.
6. Recommendations
The materials of the article may be useful for teachers of preschool educational organizations, that is:
- they will allow to scientifically justify and select forms, methods and tools that promote the development of dialogical speech in children of older preschool age;
- the developed criterial diagnostic tool may be used as one of the pedagogical diagnostics methods of dialogical speech development effectiveness in the period of preschool childhood;
- they may be used in the development and implementation of the basic educational program for pre-school education, formed by the participants in the educational process.
In addition, the scientific and methodological materials presented in the article will enrich the content of the course "Preschool Pedagogy" for students of secondary and higher educational organizations.
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