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576UDC 378.046.4
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER'S COMPETENCE IN USING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
P.V. Sysoyev, M.N. Evstigneev
Moscow State Humanitarian University named after M.A. Sholokhov (Moscow, Russian Federation), Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin (Tambov, Russian Federation) E-mail: psysoyev@yandex.ru; maximevstigneev@yahoo.com
Abstract. This paper addresses the issue of foreign language teachers' ICT competence development. The author (a) states the importance of the problem; (b) defines terms "ICT competence" and "ICT competency" of foreign language teachers; (c) suggests components and content of ICT competency of foreign language teachers; (d) develops criteria, indicators, and levels of ICT competence of foreign language teachers.
Keywords: ICT competence; ICT competency; informational competence; structure of foreign language teacher's ICT competence; components and content of foreign language teacher's ICT competency; criteria and indicators; levels of ICT competence of foreign language teachers.
Nowadays computerization is one of the dominant trends in the development of the modern society. The rapid development and spread of Internet technologies in Russia has been reflected in the state education policy. The informatization of education has become one of the priorities of modernization of Russian educational system, and has aimed at developing a methodology, technologies, methods and organizational forms of education to improve the educational system control mechanisms in today's informational society [1-5]. Over the past 5-10 years such Federal programs as Electronic Russia, Computerization of rural schools, Computer in every school were implemented in Russia. Their aim was the computerization of general secondary, special and higher education, in particular the creation of the information and education environment where pupils and students could intensively use information and communication technologies (ICT) in the educational process.
However, the incompetence of high school teachers to use the entire didactic potential of modern ICT hinders the process of informatization of education in general, and the intensification of teaching specific subjects in particular. It should be noted that at present in the pedagogical literature the properties and methodical didactic functions of many common Internet technologies are described (blogs, wikis, podcasts, concordances, educational Internet resources, Internet reference resources, etc.) [5-7]. Depending on the discipline, given its specific set of ICT and the extent of their use in the educational process may vary. It is necessary to consider the use of specific ICT techniques exclusively within specific subjects, as the same tool can be used to develop different skills and competences and in different forms, depending on the learning objectives (within a particular subject).
Foreign language is one of the required subjects in all curricula (bachelor's degree). One of the main goals of foreign language teaching in high school is to develop students' foreign language communicative competence in all its manifold
components (linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, sociocultural, strategic), needed for students to communicate in social and professional areas. That is why the use of ICT in foreign language learning will be focused on the development of verbal skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening), language skills (vocabulary, phonetics, grammar) and the formation of socio-cultural and intercultural competences, and ICT competence of foreign language teachers is the ability to use the entire arsenal of ICT in learning a foreign language aspects and kinds of verbal activity [4, 7].
The key concepts in this paper are the terms "competence" and "competency". According to A.V. Khutorskoy under the competency we mean "a set of interrelated personality traits (motivation, knowledge, skills, ways of working), defined with respect to a particular range of subjects and processes necessary for high-quality and productive activities in relation to them". And the competence is "a possession of a certain competency by a qualified person, including his personal attitude to it and to the subject of activity" [8]. In other words, competence is the level(s) of formation of competency as a theoretical construct.
Thus, under the ICT competency of the foreign language teacher we understand a construct consisting of theoretical knowledge of modern information and communication technologies and practical skills to create and use Web-based educational resources, Web 2.0 social networks and other ICT in the process of the development of students' language and verbal skills in learning language and culture of the target country [9, 10].
Moreover, it should be noted that in recent years there are a number of studies in which scholars revealed methodological potential of Internet training resources and social services and online services of the new generation of Web 2.0 in the development of language skills and verbal abilities of students to develop their intercultural and foreign language communicative competences. Taking into account the results of these studies, we suggest a list of components of foreign language teacher's ICT competency (table 1).
T a b l e 1
The components of foreign language teacher's ICT competency
Knowledge of Skills and abilities
- the basics of students' information security in the implementation of Internet projects [11]; - the major search engines and the general rules of search and selection of information in a foreign language in the Internet for academic purposes [12]; - criteria for evaluation and selection of information obtained from the Internet in a foreign language for teaching purposes [Ibid]; - structure of five types of author's educational Internet resources (in a foreign language and about L2 culture) (Hotlist, Multimedia Scrapbook, Subject Sampler, Treasure Hunt, WebQuest) and their teaching potential [Ibid]; - types of synchronous and asynchronous Internet communication used in learning a - to provide students with the basics of information security while Internet projects implementation [11]; - to search and select the Internet resources in a foreign language for academic purposes [12]; - to evaluate the information obtained from the Internet for teaching purposes [Ibid]; - to create five types of author's educational Internet resources (in a foreign language and about L2 culture) (Hotlist, Multimedia Scrapbook, Subject Sampler, Treasure Hunt, WebQuest) and use them in the educational process [Ibid]; - to use the types of synchronous and asynchronous Internet communication in
Knowledge of Skills and abilities
foreign language and culture of the target language (e-mail, web forum, chat, ICQ, Skype, etc.); - Web 2.0 technologies used in learning a foreign language and L2 culture (blogs, wikis, podcasts, bookmarks, etc.) and their teaching potential [12-14]; - concordances, contributing to the development of grammatical and lexical skills of speech [15, 16]; - reference resources in the Internet (online encyclopedias, dictionaries, translators, etc.); - the main types of online tests to monitor student performance and self-control; - basic pedagogical technology of organizing interaction between the participants of the educational process [17] learning a foreign language and culture of the target language (e-mail, web forum, chat, ICQ, Skype, etc.); - to use Web 2.0 technologies in learning a foreign language and L2 culture (blogs, wikis, podcasts, bookmarks, etc.) [12-14]; - to use concordances in the development of grammatical and lexical skills of speech [15, 16]; - to use reference and information resources of the Internet to develop verbal skills and the formation of socio-cultural and intercultural competences; - to use online tests to monitor student's performance and self-control; - to organize interaction between the participants of the educational process by ICT [17]
The specific use of this components of foreign language teacher's ICT competency lies in its knowledge and ability to form certain language skills and develop students' verbal skills on the basis of a certain technology. In particular, the ability to use blogs in teaching can be a universal skill, which is a part of the specialists' ICT competency in various disciplines. However, the ability to develop specific writing skills based on a particular type of blogs is already a hallmark of foreign language teacher's ICT competency.
It should be noted that ICT competency is not static, but dynamic construct that is in constant progress under the influence of technical progress and the development of methods of foreign language teaching. Components of foreign language teacher's ICT competency proposed in this paper, with the development of information and communication technologies will inevitably undergo objective changes, and go to the next level of educational opportunities.
Under the foreign language teacher's ICT competence we mean the ability to use Web-based educational resources, Web 2.0 social networks and other information and communication technologies in order to create the language skills and to develop students' verbal abilities in learning foreign language and culture.
Structurally, the foreign language teacher's ICT competence includes the following five interrelated components: value-motivational, cognitive, operational, communicative and reflective components. The value-motivational component involves awareness of the importance and necessity of using ICT in teaching, taking the initiative in the use of ICTs to achieve educational and professional goals, self-improvement in the use of new ICT while learning a foreign language. The cognitive component is characterized by the presence of certain knowledge of how to use a range of modern ICT in learning a foreign language and culture of the target language. The operational component is determined by the implementation of knowledge into practice in the foreign language teaching. The communicative component involves the ability of the teacher to share their knowledge and skills, and to discuss with colleagues the experience of using ICT in the foreign language teaching. The essence of reflective component is the ability of the teacher to carry out
self-esteem and self-awareness of his or her activities on the use of ICT in the educational process for continuous improvement of innovative methods [7, 10].
The problem of measuring ICT competence of the teacher is related to the question of defining criteria-attributes on which adequate assessment can be made in this type of ownership competence. In the academic literature, there are requirements for the allocation and justification of criteria: 1) the criteria should reflect the basic laws of identity formation and dynamics of ICT competence; 2) using the criteria should be established between all components of the system studied (ICT competence structure); 3) the criteria should be revealed through a collection of qualitative features - indicators on which to judge a greater or lesser degree of this criterion; 4) the need for definitions of indicators and levels of their display; 5) the system must meet the criteria of sufficiency condition for correct fixing qualitative certainty state ICT competence of the teacher (ICT competence levels).
The criteria and indicators of formation of foreign language teacher's ICT competence, based on the components of ICT competence, are presented in table 2 [7].
T a b l e 2
The criteria and indicators of foreign language teacher's ICT competence formation
ICT component Criteria Indicators
Value-motivational Teacher's awareness of needs and interest and motivation formation to use ICT in their professional activities Awareness of the importance of using ICT in foreign language teaching
Activity in the use of ICT in foreign language teaching
Cognitive Theoretical knowledge of the use of ICT in foreign language teaching Representations of modern ICT
Formation of theoretical knowledge of the use of ICT in foreign language teaching
Operational Ability to choose and use modern ICT in teaching Use of modern ICTs to achieve professional goals
Organization of foreign language teaching through ICT
Creativity in solving professional activities through ICT
Communicative Professional activity in receiving and disseminating among teacher's colleagues the existing knowledge and experience in the use of ICT in foreign language teaching Study experience of colleagues in the use of ICT in foreign language teaching (self-education )
Participation in the discussion and dissemination of methodological building their own experience of foreign language teaching through ICT with colleagues
Reflexive Evaluation and self-evaluation Implementation teacher self-ownership methods of using ICT in foreign language teaching
Implementation of teacher assessing the effectiveness of the methodology of foreign language teaching through ICT in a particular class
Due to the fact that competence is a tier category defining specialist's ownership of relevant competency, including his / her personal attitude to it and an activi-
ty, foreign language teacher's ICT competence levels can be distinguished. It should be emphasized that in psychological and pedagogical literature according to the allocation of competence levels, researchers traditionally divide competence into three levels: low, medium and high. However, the division of possible qualitative characteristics of the personality into three groups, in many cases simply do not provide an adequate picture of competence formation. In particular, experts who have some skills refer to the lowest level of competence formation, along with those who do not own any knowledge in this area. Therefore, we can identify not three but five levels of foreign language teacher's ICT competence formation that clearly show the qualitative stage of the development of foreign language teacher' professional competence in the field of ICT.
In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed components of the foreign language teacher's ICT competence the experiment retraining 72 hour course for inservice teachers was conducted. The experiment took place on the base of Sholo-khov Moscow State University for Humanities, Derzhavin Tambov State University and National Research Tomsk State University. Upon completion, the majority of teachers developed ICT competence levels to 4-5 at five-point scale. The results indicate that the formation of foreign language teacher's ICT competence allows the following:
- use well-known and widely-spread Internet technologies in practice, thereby improving students' motivation to learn a foreign language;
- show a significant amount of material studied in extracurricular form of work that seems relevant in reducing hours into a foreign language teaching;
- put into teaching practice a technology of "cooperative learning";
- develop the students' skills of independent learning through ICT activities necessary for self-education throughout life;
-- teach students a foreign language on individual ICT-based trajectories, depending on their interests, needs and abilities.
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