CC BY
30Pedagogy
UDC 378.2
candidate of pedagogical Sciences, associate Professor Ageenko Natalia Vladimirovna
Samara State Technical University (Samara)
ESP: TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR
Annotation. The article discusses new approaches to the implementation of the main goals of teaching foreign languages in non-linguistic universities. A functional approach to teaching English grammar in higher education creates the conditions for the specialist to master the skills of professionally oriented foreign language communication. Sociocultural, communicative, informational, socio psychological competencies can be formed in the process of teaching a foreign language at a university. A significant role in solving this problem is played by the functional approach, which is understood as the study of grammatical units from the standpoint of their functionality in the language.
Keywords: functional approach, the principle of communicative orientation, competence, reflective principles, speech training.
Аннотация. В статье рассматриваются новые подходы к реализации основных целей преподавания иностранных языков в неязыковых вузах. Функциональный подход к преподаванию грамматики английского языка в вузе создает условия для овладения специалистом навыками профессионально ориентированного иноязычного общения. Социокультурные, коммуникативные, информационные, социально-психологические компетенции могут формироваться в процессе обучения иностранному языку в вузе. Значительную роль в решении этой проблемы играет функциональный подход, который понимается как изучение грамматических единиц с позиций их функциональности в языке.
Ключевые слова: функциональный подход, принцип коммуникативной направленности, компетентность, рефлексивные принципы, речевая подготовка.
The ongoing process of globalization has led to a variety of different approaches to teaching English as a foreign language in universities. According to the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Education (undergraduate level), requirements for foreign language proficiency by students of non-linguistic specialties are increasing. This means the possession of the main ways of implementing the current communicative context and the system of language knowledge, which includes knowledge and skills of working with grammar material of a foreign language. A.A. Mirolyubov claims that difficulties in teaching grammar "depend on the complexity of the phenomenon itself, the richness and diversity of morphological forms, the presence of homonymic phenomena; from the interfering influence of the native language, the presence or absence of similar or related phenomena in the native language; from the complexity of mental operations necessary for the use or recognition of a grammatical phenomenon" [7, p. 112].
The traditional principles of teaching grammar, derived within the framework of the concept, are known, but reflective principles tested in practice and built on the analysis of the real experience of teachers are more valuable. Their difference can be represented by the following provisions: traditional - reflect the state of ideas in the scientific community, rely on the scientific experience of researchers, derived from theoretical discourse, are of general abstract nature, prompted by theoretical logic; reflective - reflect the beliefs of teachers, rely on the practical experience of teachers, derived from teaching experience, are specifically applied in nature, prompted by teaching practice.
The formation of grammar skills in the process of teaching a foreign language can be organized in terms of various methodological approaches. The modern methodology of teaching a foreign language offers ambiguous definitions of the term "approach to learning":
• (I.L. Bim) initial conceptual position, starting from which the researcher considers most of his other conceptual positions [1];
• (I.A. Zimnaya) global and systemic organization of the educational process, which includes all its components on a par with the subjects of pedagogical interaction - teacher and student [4];
• (E.I. Passov) one of the methodological principles of the learning process [8].
In accordance with the objectives, it is customary to single out five approaches to learning: personality-oriented, communicative, competency-based, sociocultural and a relatively recent functional approach [10].
Personally-oriented teaching of a foreign language is based on the use of educational communication, immersing the student in real language communication, creating a language environment around him. From a methodological point of view, this approach assumes the presence of tasks of different volumes and levels of complexity in the process of classroom and extracurricular learning activities, the variability of the rate of assimilation of educational material, the help of a teacher in the process of pair work of shift staff.
A communicative approach to learning involves the convergence of the learning process in terms of its nature with the process of real communication. E.A. Melnikova defines it as follows: "A communicative approach is an approach that is aimed at the formation of students' semantic perception and understanding of a foreign language, as well as the mastery of language material for constructing speech utterances" [6, p. 208]. The main goal of this approach is considered to be the formation of communicative competence of students.
The competency-based approach to teaching a foreign language arose due to the need to form a number of students' competencies: mastering the skills and abilities necessary for independently setting goals and making decisions for actions both in typical and non-standard situations. The sociocultural approach to learning is based on an understanding of culture as "a wide interconnection of social phenomena that are the results and means of social activity and development" [5, p. four]. In the framework of this approach, the educational process is carried out by immersion in various cultural spheres and areas of the country of the studied language. The functional approach associated with the direction of language learning from the meaning to the form and function of certain linguistic phenomena has become a relatively recent approach to teaching a foreign language. Studying grammatical units from the standpoint of their functionality in the language not only allows us to show the interaction of these units at different language levels, but also to form in students certain skills for using them depending on the purpose of communication.
Grammatical skill is determined by G.V. Bokareva as "a synthesized action performed in skill parameters and providing adequate morphological and syntactic design of a speech unit of any level in speech" [2, p. 51]. In other
words, a grammatical skill is an automated use of grammatical phenomena to express communicative intent in a given situation, and a functional approach involves the movement of thought from meaning to how it is expressed and what communicative purpose it pursues. This implies the basic principles for teaching grammar as part of a functional approach:
1) speech orientation, in which training should be based on communication and have a practical orientation;
2) functionality, when grammatical phenomena and constructions are assimilated from the point of view of their function, which they perform in speech;
3) situationality, i.e. organization of training based on situations and communication problems that are relevant for students of different levels of languageproficiency and areas of interest;
4) novelty that provides the dynamics of the forms of work, the variability of the materials used, the alternation and combination of various types and forms of organization of classes, creating all the conditions for the appearance of in voluntary memorization in students.
In the framework of the communicative-functional approach, N.D. Galskova and N.I. Gez reduce the requirements for learning grammar to the following [3, p. 312]: 1) maximum authenticity of the educational material, without artificial examples and far-fetched situations of communication;
2) distinction between formal, functional and semantic aspects to facilitate the task of establishing links between them in certain contexts for students;
3) sufficient volume for the most effective assimilation and consolidation of grammatical material in new contexts;
4) reliance on previously learned material using illustrative clarity;
5) most concise, accurate and simple form of presentation of the material, adequately reflecting the essence of the grammatical phenomenon, the absence ofter minological congestion;
6) variety of types and forms of work, including individual, pair and group.
As the main stages of work on a new grammatical phenomenon, the authors distinguish: familiarization, initial fixing, development of skills and abilities to use grammar in oral and written communication.
Explanation (familiarization) of the grammatical phenomenon, according to N.D. Galskova and N.I. Gez includes the disclosure of its formal characteristics and semantics, an explanation of the function performed in the speech context, and the initial consolidation of this phenomenon. For example, the grammatical forms presented in sentences are considered in comparison with another form in order to demonstrate cases of their use in accordance with the communicative intention of the speaker. For example, the difference between Past Continuous and Past Perfect Continuous is explained by the difference in the completeness or incompleteness of long-term action in the past:
James was cooking dinner when somebody knocked on the door.
James had been cooking that night and that's why he was so tired and couldn't come to the party with us.
After explanation is given for a new grammatical phenomenon, students are invited to highlight it in a specific context, to jointly reveal its form and meaning, and also to determine the main features of its use. The explanation ends with the formulation of a generalizing rule containing a number of differential features of a given grammatical phenomenon, characterizing its features in oral and written communication. And the final stage of the explanation is to check the understanding of the new material and its primary consolidation, which includes simple exercises:
a) I met Steve at the train station. He ... (had been waiting, was waiting) for his mother's train to come from New York.
b) The sun was shining brightly when I left my apartment in the morning, but the grass was wet and there were puddles all over the place. It ... (was raining, had been raining) all night.
E.I. Passov gives his classification of the stages of work on grammatical material: perception, imitation, substitution, transformation, reproduction and combination [8]. A huge role in the stage of perception is played by a preliminary hearing. With a well-organized pre-hearing (demonstration of a grammatical phenomenon in the speech flow using an intonation pause, stress, voice emphasis), students are able to perceive the same type of phrases that have been emphasized, and to understand what function these phrases realize. As a result, students have a speech stereotype, which is the basis for a grammatical skill.
At the imitation stage, the foundations of the connection between the auditory and speech-motor images of the grammatical form are laid, the understanding of how the speech model is formed and what function it performs in speech is strengthened.
The substitution stage begins to form the operation of designing speech units, which fills one or another communicative model. A generalization of the model appears, the ability to reproduce by the principle of analogy develops (determine the meaning of the grammatical form in the situations presented; choose the grammatical form from several presented; indicate the grammatical phenomena in the text that express ...; indicate the grammatical form that is used in the sentence during translation into English).
One of the main advantages of the functional approach is "speech training," which, as a rule, is not used at all in traditional methods when forming a grammatical skill. In a functional approach, grammar training takes place on a fairly significant amount of material when considering a large number of diverse situations. The action by analogy in speech conditions involves the construction of phrases and sentences not by the rule, but by analogy with the sample and in accordance with the speech task. The correctness of speech acts is achieved by regular reinforcement, the frequency of similar phrases. The disadvantages of this kind of tasks include the underestimation of the principle of consciousness in learning and the cognitive processes characteristic of mastering a foreign language, in addition, there is the difficulty of creating a genuine "speech environment" when conducting conditional speech exercises.
At the transformation stage, the above processes go to a higher level, the operation of registering speech units is consolidated and the operation of independent use of the model is born. The stage of reproduction completes the formation of the operation of independent use of the model, as well as the internal image of the model (express your opinion, give examples from your life; prove, explain, formulate recommendations, arguments, advice on different situations, topics, etc.). The most advanced in the strategy of forming grammatical skills of E.I. Passov is the combination stage. It begins with a repetition of the stages of transformation and reproduction, but already with the use of new grammatical material and new exercises, which can significantly strengthen the grammatical skill. Then controlled combination follows: the studied model is alternately combined with those basic models that are used together with it in the flow of natural speech. The methodological value of performing such exercises is associated with the ability to move from grammar ability to skills.
Transformation, reproduction and combination are performed, for example, using:
• tasks of problematic speech thinking, which are formed on guesses, on the search for similarities and differences, on the exclusion of superfluous, on the sequence of actions, etc.;
• exercises of verbal interaction, when tasks are not feasible without a partner (partners), respectively, are the tasks in pairs, small groups (for example, using all studied constructions of the past tense to model a communicative situation that is not thematically limited and present it in the form of dialogue or polylogue);
• exercises involving "informational inequality" of students (for example, interviewing).
Based on pedagogical experience, we will try to formulate the following directions for improving the process of teaching the grammar of students of nonlinguistic specialties. Firstly, professionally-oriented foreign language communication of students will be more effective if the basis for their training will be the comprehensive formation of grammatical competencies and skills of speech activity in a foreign language. Secondly, teaching grammar as part of a functional approach should be based on the professional needs of students. Thirdly, the formation of grammatical competence is achieved by gradually consolidating the functions of grammatical phenomena, selected on the basis of professionally significant situationality. Fourth, higher results in teaching grammar are determined by the implementation of a set of grammatical tasks.
Practical work with students of non-linguistic specialties has revealed a number of problems, each of which requires a binding solution. Students had difficulty situationally using grammatical phenomena. Many students learned to use only very simple grammatical structures in speech, it was difficult for them to use various connecting elements of the language, which makes speech, utterances naturally sounding and logically constructed.
Since the functional approach as a modern method of teaching grammar goes through the stage of active development, in domestic practice, teachers are working on creating effective teaching and methodological complexes, the content of which will contribute to the active learning of functional grammar. The need to correct the educational literature is noted by such specialists as I.L. Bim, A.V. Volovik, O.Yu. Iskandarova, N.N. Boldyrev, A.A. Verbitsky, N.A. Corbina et al. The set of exercises presented in textbooks, teaching aids, educational and methodical complexes, on Internet sites intended for teaching a foreign language in non-linguistic specialties, absolutely ignore the stages of learning grammar as part of a functional approach. There are violations of basic didactic principles from simple to complex and consistent, systematic job offer. A mix of tasks is noted, which is a negative point for students in the framework of independent work on the study of a foreign language (including English grammar). All of the above determines the need for selection of tasks by the teacher. The selection of exercises for teaching grammar as part of a functional approach really does require special attention from the teacher, since the task formulation and the creation of a language context should also be consistent with the objectives of the lesson, taking into account the number of hours of practical exercises devoted to the study of certain topics and sections [9].
References:
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2. Bokareva G.V. Functional approach to grammar teaching / G.V. Bokareva // Scientific Herald of the International Humanitarian University. - 2012 - № 5 - P. 50-52.
3. Galskova N.D., Gez N.I. Theory of teaching foreign languages. Linguodidactics and methodology: textbook for students of linguistic universities and foreign language faculties of higher pedagogical educational institutions / N.D. Galskova, N.I. Gez. - 3rd ed., ster. - Moscow: Publishing Center "Academy", 2006 - 336 P.
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6. Melnikova E.A. Language game as an effective way to realize the communicative intention of a linguistic personality / E.A. Melnikova // Breakthroughscientific research: Sat. Art. winners of the VI International scientificpractical conf., 2017 - Penza / under the general. ed. Gulyaeva G.Yu. - Penza: ICSN "Science and Education", 2017 - P. 208-209.
7. Mirolyubov A.A. Learning to write // Methods of teaching foreign languages in high school / N.I. Gez, M.V. Lyakhovitsky, A.A. Mirolyubov et al. - Moscow, 1982
8. Passov E.I., Kuzovleva N.E. Foreign language Class. Rostov on Don: Phoenix; - Moscow: Glossa-Press, 2010 - 640 P.
9. Sinitsyna, N. Electronic textbook of a new generation ITRAINIUM - new format for the organization of educational activities (for example, teaching English grammar) // Rector of the university, 2017 - №. 3 - P. 48-53.
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