CC BY
119UDC 378.147:811
DOI: 10.17223/24109266/4/8
EMOTIONAL ASPECT OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING CONTENT
S.V. Chernyshov
Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation).
E-mail: [email protected]
Absract. The article analyses the models of the content of foreign language teaching presented in the works by N.D. Galskova, A.N. Shchukin, R.K. Minyar-Beloruchev and others from the point of view of the emotional aspect reflection. By results of the analyses the author proposes to include emotional concepts into the structure of the content of foreign language teaching as didactic units, ensuring completeness and consistency of representation of the linguistic emotional picture of the world, on the one hand, and sustainable motivation of the students to learn foreign languages, on the other hand. Keywords: emotions; emotional competence; the content of foreign language teaching; emotional conceptual approach in teaching foreign languages.
Despite numerous methodological research works in the field of designing the content of foreign language education, questions of defining the notion of "the content of foreign language teaching" and the component structure of the content of foreign language teaching continue to be controversial. This article does not claim to be comprehensive research on all problems and disputable moments connected with this important methodological category. It aims to analyze the representation of the emotional aspect in the models of the content of foreign language teaching created by Russian meth-odologists and to offer the version of its representation from the position of emotional conceptual approach.
The content of foreign language teaching is interpreted in different ways in the methods of foreign language teaching. In a broad sense, "the content of foreign language teaching" means the total amount of what "students should learn to achieve the required by this or that educational institution level of knowledge of a language" [1: 5].
The analysis of numerous methodological works (by I.L. Bim, M L. Vaisburd, M.N. Vyatyutnev, N.D. Galskova, N.I. Gez, P.V. Gurvich, A.A. Mirolyubov, E.I. Passov, S.K. Folomkina, V.S. Tsetlin, S.F. Shatilov, A.N. Shchukin and others) allows us to establish the fact of the lack of a common definition that could reflect all aspects of this notion and be accepted by all the scientific community in the sphere of foreign language education.
E.I. Passov and N.E. Kuzovleva propose to refuse from the usage of the notion "the content of foreign language teaching" and to replace it with
the notion "the content of foreign language education". They also make no difference between the notion "the content of foreign language education" and "the foreign language culture" [2: 60]. There is certain logic in such approach to understanding of the content of foreign language teaching because the strategic goal of teaching foreign languages is the formation of the students' traits of the multicultural personality that cannot be associated without foreign language culture, certain moral, ethical and emotional personal qualities that allow the individual to exist in the multicultural space.
Meanwhile, we preferably use the notion "the content of foreign language teaching" because the notion "the content of foreign language education" still means the process and result of cognition of foreign language culture. In our understanding, the content of foreign language teaching is a continuum for successful implementation of the foreign language education and, accordingly, for cognition of the foreign language culture by students. It includes: 1) a system of knowledge represented in topics, texts, situations, language material and so on; 2) a system of skills and abilities forming the basis of features of the multicultural personality.
The diversity of definitions of the content of foreign language teaching is caused by the difficulties of disclosure of the component composition and by its main characteristics: multidimensional character, dynamics, temporary and situational variability.
In various methodological sources the question of the component composition of the content of foreign language teaching is solved in different ways. The most common point of view on the content of foreign language teaching is based on the general pedagogical interpretation of the structure of the educational content that includes the following components: 1) the experience of the cognitive activity represented in the form of knowledge; 2) the experience in the reproductive activity implemented in the form of a variety of skills and abilities; 3) the experience of the creative activity with the skills to take non-standard solutions to problem situations; 4) the experience of the emotional-value-relations, realized in the form of personal orientations (V.V. Kraevsky, I.A. Lerner, M. Skatkin and others).
Thus, A.N. Shchukin proposes to include into the content of foreign language teaching the following elements: 1) means of communication (phonetic, lexical, grammatical, cultural, linguo-cultural); 2) knowledge how to use these means in the process of communication; 3) skills and abilities formed during the training and providing a possibility to use the language as a means of communication; 4) spheres, topics and situations in which the content of teaching can be implemented; 5) the culture forming the material basis of the content [3: 122].
N.D. Galskova gives a similar, but more detailed interpretation of the component composition of the content of foreign language teaching, considering in it: 1) spheres of the communicative activity, topics, situations and
the plans of their representation, communicative and social roles, the actions of speech and the language material (texts, speech patterns etc.); 2) linguistic material, the rules of its design and the skills of operating them; 3) a complex of special (speech) skills characterizing the level of mastering of the foreign language as a means of communication; 4) the system of knowledge of the national cultural characteristics and realities of the country, etiquette-usual forms of speech and ability to use them in various spheres of speech communication; 5) training and compensating abilities, rational methods of mental work, leading to a high level of culture of learning the language in educational conditions and the culture of communication with native speakers [4: 103].
The model of the content of foreign language teaching presented by N.D. Galskova reflects, in our opinion, most fully a wide set of components that provide a high level of communicative competence.
It should be noted that unlike A.N. Shchukin, N.D. Galskova does not include such component as the culture into the content of foreign language teaching. In our opinion, it is quite legitimate, because the culture as a set of material and spiritual values of the society should be the space within which the structural elements of the content of foreign language teaching are selected and represented. In our opinion the culture can't be considered as an independent and discrete entity. At the lessons of foreign language the culture is represented in different knowledge transmitted through topics, situations, units of the language, texts of the social-cultural content, material objects illustrating these or those phenomena of the foreign language reality.
That's why R.K. Minyar-Beloruchev considers the composition of the content of foreign language in the following way: 1) knowledge as a product of public, material and spiritual activities of people; 2) skills and abilities. He includes into the knowledge: a) the linguistic and speech materials; b) concepts about the methods and techniques of speech activity; c) lexical background; d) themes and e) the national culture (the emphasis is added by us) [5: 40-44].
The interpretation of the component composition of the content of foreign language teaching presented by R.K. Minyar-Beloruchev has a general nature. The author actually points to the existence of two aspects in the content of foreign language teaching: objective and procedural. I.L. Bim has the same view on the content of teaching. She defines it as "a complex dialectical unity resulting from the interaction of organized teaching material and the process of foreign language teaching" [6: 180].
The most interesting element of the content of foreign language teaching presented by R.K. Minyar-Beloruchev [5] is a lexical background. Including it into his component composition of the content of foreign language teaching the author points to the necessity of learning not only lexical notion of a word, but also additional information associated with it [Ibid: 42].
In the methods of teaching foreign languages the amount of background knowledge (including the lexical background) that the student has to
learn is connected with the notion "presupposition" (V.P. Furmanova, I.I. Khaleeva and others).
I.I. Khaleeva defines presupposition as "a nonverbal component of communication, as a sum of conditions preceding an utterance and as a national specific indicator of the intracultural communi"ation' [7: 310-312].
We propose to introduce the term "emotional presupposition" because a significant layer of emotive meanings have a national cultural character. These meanings can be presented in the forms of linguistic and non-linguistic signs.
Thus, the consideration of the lexical background as an important element of the knowledge included in the content of foreign language teaching indicates the necessity for teaching of going beyond the semantic system of a language and of expanding it towards the national cultural meanings (including emotive meanings of the national cultural character), forming a wide presupposition and providing a high degree of understanding of partners in the intercultural communication.
An attempt to present the composition of the content of foreign language teaching systematically was undertaken by G.V. Rogova, F.M. Ra-binovich and T.E. Sakharova. They consider it in the unity of the following components: 1) the linguistic component including the linguistic and speech materials; 2) the psychological component containing a variety of skills and abilities and 3) the methodological component associated with methods of learning [8: 39].
We believe that this approach to the selection of the components of the content of foreign language teaching is not very successful because the methodological component is one of the subcomponents of the psychological component and, accordingly, it cannot be regarded in one line with it. Moreover, after E.I. Passov we believe it to be erroneous to use the term "methodological" because the methodology as a science about the methods of scientific cognition as "a phenomenon of a higher level" cannot be an element of the content of foreign language teaching [9: 58].
In our opinion, it is possible to consider in the framework of the psychological component a technological subcomponent including the skills and abilities of independent work, a work with a book, a dictionary and illustrative material forming the basis of the learning competence.
The results of the overview above show that none of the models of the content of foreign language teaching reflects the emotional and evaluative elements in their components. Meanwhile emotions are an integral part of the individual and his / her speech activity; they are one of his / her most important characteristics; the individual as a language personality cannot be taught out of his / her verbal representation of emotions [10]. Ignoring the emotional factor in teaching foreign languages leads to a decrease of the motivation of students to learn a foreign language, on the one hand, and to the
emergence of cultural and emotional gaps, on the other hand, which can cause serious problems of the intercultural communication: from a cognitive confusion to a cultural conflict.
In all fairness it has to be added that N.D. Galskova together with N.I. Gez note that "in the methodological interpretation of the content of foreign language teaching the experience of the emotional attitude is often limited to an emotional assessment by the students of their speech partners, their perception of the necessity of learning a foreign language and their assessment of its role in a society. Obviously, this approach demonstrates the underestimation of the factors contributing to the development of the students empathic abilities, actualization of their language personalities in the situations of the intercultural communication and their identification in a foreign language environment" [11: 124].
S.F. Shatilov considers the following components of the content of foreign language teaching: 1) the linguistic material; 2) rules of formation and usage of linguistic phenomena; 3) skills and abilities to use different types of the speech activity; 4) texts and themes and 5) an emotional aesthetic aspect (the emphasis is added by us) [12: 51-52].
Nevertheless, the author does not reveal the content of the last component, but the fact of its inclusion by a well-known scientist proves the importance of the emotional aspect in the methods of teaching foreign languages. It is essential for the achievement of the strategic goal of foreign language teaching - the developing students' features of the multicultural personality, which includes an extensive emotional sphere of the national cultural character.
Thus, we can come to the conclusion that, as a rule, in the works of many researchers involved in designing of the content of foreign language teaching, the emotional and evaluative aspect is ignored, or mentioned without revealing its content.
We believe that the lack of representation of the emotional component in the content of foreign language teaching is explained by its vagueness in the structure of the content, by complexity of its separate representation. Obviously, the elements of the experience of the emotional-value-relations are found in all aspects of the content of foreign language teaching. Meanwhile, its separate allocation in the content of foreign language teaching is caused by the necessity of a more systematic and more complete representation of the emotional knowledge at the lessons of a foreign language, of the development of student's motivation and of the formation of his / her emotional intelligence, providing an opportunity to adapt to conditions of a foreign language reality.
In our opinion, comprehensive coverage of national cultural emotive meanings, breadth of the representation of emotional presupposition and, more generally, the depth of emotional aspect of the foreign culture in the
process of teaching foreign communication can be provided through inclusion into the content of foreign language teaching of emotional concepts, integrating the amount of both universal and nationally specific meanings.
N.A. Krasavsky gives the following definition of the emotional concept: "It is a complex, ethnically and culturally determined mental construct that is verbalized lexically and / or phraseologically, based on a conceptual basis. It includes the following components: a notion, an image and a cultural value, and it identifies the real objects of the world in the process of human reflection with a definite emotional attitude to them" [13: 60].
The emotional concepts as didactic units can be represented in a variety of verbal and non-verbal emotional means of their explication in the content of foreign language teaching.
To verbal explication of emotional concepts we refer both lexical and phraseological units and the whole emotive texts of different genres and styles. From the point of view of methods of foreign language teaching, the emotional texts of small forms have the greatest importance because they ensure motivation and creativity of the students at the lessons of foreign language (especially aphorisms, sayings, proverbs, fables, poems, songs, sonnets, anecdotes and etc.).
Nonverbal explication of emotional concepts can be presented by a variety of works of painting, music, sculpture, etc. in the content of foreign language teaching. They have a huge cognitive and acting potential and provide the formation of non-explicational part of emotional concepts.
So, the wide explication of emotional concepts allows representing more systematically the emotional part of the content of foreign language teaching in the forms of different categories that are typical for foreign language picture of the world.
We believe that emotional concepts can become a productive basis for the formation of the emotional component of the personality of students and provide them a success in learning of foreign language culture.
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