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IMPROVEMENT OF RESEARCH COMPETENCE OF STUDENTS IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
1 2
Buribaeva A.I. , Askarova K.E. Email: Buribaeva680@scientifictext.ru
1Buribaeva Aziza Ismatullaevna - Teacher; 2Askarova Komila Ergashevna - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES THROUGH FACULTIES, PHILOLOGY FACULTY,
GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY, GULISTAN, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the purpose of the article is to observe the formation of students' research competence in the higher educational institutions within the framework of the scientific-research seminar and in research projects. The object of analysis is the research competence, and the subject is its formation and difficulties in the process. The article is going to describe ways of the formation of the students' research competence: within the framework of the scientific-research seminar in higher educational institutions and with students' involvement in research projects (extracurricular). The tasks of the article are: a definition of the research competence and its composing items; a description of the forming ways of the research competence within the framework of the scientific-research seminar aimed to the analysis of concepts; scan of the research projects done by students for the Olympiad in English; review of reasons of difficulties which appear in the formation of the research competence in project work. The theoretical results can be applied in scientific-research seminars or in an optional course in higher educational institutions, in writing courses in different scientific projects.
Keywords: a research competence, the project and research activities, the reasons of difficulties in the formation of the research competence, the scientific-research seminar, students ' Olympiad in English.
УСОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЕ НАУЧНО-ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКОЙ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ СТУДЕНТОВ ПРИ ОБУЧЕНИИ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ В ВУЗАХ Бурибаева А.И.1, Аскарова К.Э.2
1Бурибаева Азиза Исматуллаевна - преподаватель; 2Аскарова Комила Эргашевна - преподаватель, кафедра иностранных языков между факультетами, факультет филологии, Гулистанский государственный университет, г. Гулистан, Республика Узбекистан
Аннотация: целью статьи является наблюдение за формированием исследовательской компетентности студентов в высших учебных заведениях в рамках научно-исследовательского семинара и исследовательских проектов. Объектом анализа является исследовательская компетентность, а предметом - ее формирование и трудности в процессе. В статье будут описаны пути формирования исследовательской компетентности студентов: в рамках научно-исследовательского семинара в высших учебных заведениях и с привлечением студентов к исследовательским проектам (внеклассным). Задачами статьи являются: определение исследовательской компетенции и составляющих ее элементов; описание способов формирования исследовательской компетентности в рамках научно-исследовательского семинара, направленного на анализ концепций; проверка выполненных студентами исследовательских проектов для олимпиады на английском языке; обзор причин трудностей, возникающих при формировании
исследовательской компетенции в проектной работе. Теоретические результаты могут быть применены на научно-исследовательских семинарах или на факультативных курсах в высших учебных заведениях, при написании курсов по различным научным проектам.
Ключевые слова: исследовательская компетентность, проект и исследовательская деятельность, причины трудностей в формировании исследовательской компетенции, научно-исследовательский семинар, студенческая олимпиада по английскому языку.
The Decree of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary-Specialized Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan on approval of the State educational standard of higher education in the section "Characteristics of professional activity of graduates" states that the graduate must be ready for various types of professional activity, including research, i.e. conducting applied scientific research in accordance with the profile of their professional activity, which is an integral part of the professional competence of the graduate.
Thus, research activities of students should be an integral part of teaching and training of qualified specialists who are able to solve professional problems independently. Research activity of students is a process that forms a future specialist through individual cognitive work aimed at obtaining new knowledge, solving theoretical and practical problems, self-education and self-realization of research abilities and skills. Successful research competency is determined by the presence of a formed research competence (hereinafter referred to as RC). Research competence is usually understood as a set of personal and meaningful research knowledge, skills, experience, value orientations, behavioral models formed in the course of research activities.
The content of research competence is determined by the content of its components-cognitive (a set of knowledge and concepts necessary for setting and solving research tasks), motivational (the researcher's awareness of the importance of research activities), indicative (the ability to establish the need for some knowledge and create an algorithm for obtaining this knowledge), and finally, operational or technological (ability to perform certain research actions to solve problems) components [1].
Let's consider in detail what specific knowledge, skills and abilities make up the research competence. These are, first of all, bibliographic skills, skills of working with reference literature, the ability to systematize theoretical material and present it logically, the ability to find and observe phenomena, the ability to analyze a problem situation, establish and form a problem, find ways to solve a problem, the ability to accurately and fully record the obtained data, analyze the work done in order to identify the most significant results, ability to formulate generalizing conclusions in accordance with the set goals and objectives, ability to evaluate results of the study in terms of their validity and practical significance. In higher educational institutions, the formation of research competence should be included in the content of each academic discipline, especially special courses and scientific research seminars (hereinafter referred to as SRS). Students should also be actively involved in external projects where they should demonstrate their research abilities [2].
Next, we would like to share our experience and consider how we can work on the formation of RC in the framework of SRS and involving students in external projects. SRS aims to develop and consolidate students' competencies in conducting scientific work, such as searching and working with sources, planning research activities, using general and special research methods, structuring and formatting scientific texts, presenting the results of scientific work in written and oral form, as well as participating in discussions.
Within the framework of research seminars, students learn to identify the scientific essence of problems in the professional field, solve problems in professional activities based on analysis and synthesis, assess the need for resources and plan their use in solving problems in professional activities.
Scientific-research seminars allow students to master teamwork, competently build professional communication, and present the results of their own and group research.
The objectives of the SRS developed by the scientists "Through language to the mentality of the nation" are:
- the message of the fundamental theoretical aspects (historical background, basic terminology, methods, and algorithm analysis) is the main/basic part of the theoretical course;
- expanding theoretical base through ten-minute reports on selected additional issues-additional/optional part of the theoretical course;
- organization of practical work in mini-groups for the formation/development /improvement of specific research skills - practical part of the course;
- organization of design and research activities of students in mini-groups (analysis of the same concepts in different linguistic cultures in order to establish their national specificity) - the final part of the practical course (part of the final control of the discipline) [3].
After the presentation, the research group is required to answer questions of the experts (3-4 people, selected from the strongest students) and the audience (the remaining part of the student audience) within 10 minutes. In conclusion, anyone can express their opinion on the submitted project, note strengths, weaknesses, express criticism, etc. Thus, within the framework of the SRS, a continuous work is carried out on all the main components of the research competence.
The peculiarity of this event was its team nature (the team consisted of three participants) and the presentation of its results in the form of a research project. The logic of the competition was to allow creative participants with well-formed communicative competence to develop projects. Therefore, the first stage was aimed at controlling the formed knowledge of the linguistic component of the communicative competence, i.e. knowledge of the system of the studied language and the skills of operating language (in particular, lexical and grammatical) means of communication formed on their basis.
Here it is necessary to emphasize the relationship between foreign language competence and research. Following by O.M. Kozarenko, we believe that the success of foreign-language research activity is determined by the degree of formation of components, research competence and foreign-language competence. According to O.M. Kozarenko, a student's foreign language research competence (hereinafter referred to as FLRC) is formed based on 1) knowledge of the specialty and foreign language knowledge, 2) foreign language skills that expand the students' cognitive capabilities in their professional training, and 3) personal values that take into account the peculiarities of intercultural understanding.
According to the scientist, the SRS "is expressed in the ability to formulate and express the content of the study in a foreign language, both orally and in writing (namely, research problems, cause-and-effect relations, critical assessment, assumption, logical connections, arguments, conclusions)" [4].
The creative part of the contest was to create a video clip (60-100 sec.) on one of the topics: "A story about his professional field", "A country-specific perspective", "Efficiency of team works in project implementation", "Emphasis on the history of Uzbek - English relations).
Analyzing the results obtained, we can say with confidence that all the examples met the formal criteria - the length of the story (60-100 seconds) and the presence of two components in the video-the image and the sound. Most of the participants also managed to build the plot compositionally correctly (introduction, main part, conclusion), convey the main message to the viewer and reflect the main idea in accordance with their level of language proficiency, but not everyone managed to make the video original (many limited themselves to participants' monologues) and harmonious (the presence of music, acting, original presentation of the topic, colorful presentation) [4].
The third stage of the contest showed that the formation of the creative component is insufficient when it comes to solving the problem of creating an intellectual product. There is a lack of originality, both at the stage of the idea and at the stage of its implementation. The insufficient presence of the creative component undoubtedly affects the overall result of the research project. A creative approach to solving a research problem is the key to its successful implementation.
At the next stage of the contest, teams have to demonstrate their research talent and submit a mini-project to the jury, which is subject to expert evaluation upon completion. Each project was analyzed by the jury on the following points:
1. Topic
2. Topicality and importance. Why the project is topical? What input does this project make in this sphere? What is theoretical and practical importance of the project?
3. Aims and expected results.
4. Brief staged description of the project.
5. Bibliography.
Experts, evaluating projects according to the proposed criteria note, first of all, the low relevance of the proposed research idea.
According to the jury, research is highly significant, as following:
- relevant public issues;
- having a value in the framework of a large-scale government projects;
- performed as part of the implementation of the CLIL method;
- offering solutions to the problems of teaching deaf and blind children;
- related to the protection of the environment;
- putting the spotlight on issues of international relations;
- devoted to the preservation of health;
- containing questions of formation of financial literacy of students;
- investigating the problem of objectivity of information in the media;
- offering productive methods of teaching a foreign language;
- relevant issues of language development and changes;
- focused on the problems of intercultural communication, in particular the adaptation of students in a foreign language environment [4].
In addition to relevance, the material of the study was important for experts, which did not always give an objective picture, did not reflect the actual diversity of views on the problem, which caused the study to lose its significance, and its results could be distorted.
Furthermore, some projects did not differ in the originality of the idea and offered to do what has long been created and successfully operates. Sometimes the goal of the project was not sufficiently justified: why should it be so, what is the feasibility of the proposed idea?
The final test is a presentation of research projects in the form of a poster (similar to poster presentations). When evaluating a research project, the jury took into account the following criteria: poster design according to certain requirements, creativity, the ratio of visual and verbal components; content; oral presentation of research results; answers to questions from the jury. We have tried to present the analysis of the complexities of this stage of the research project in tabular form (table. 3). As follows from the above, every step in preparing your project can be problematic for novice researchers - from choosing a topic to developing an algorithm for implementing the project and predicting possible results. How to solve the problem of determining the prospects and relevance of the project? A beginner in science can cope with this by carefully reading the literature on the topic of interest. But, in our opinion, in this case, he needs a mentor. It will draw a circle or set the search scope in such a way that the novice researcher has formed a multi-dimensional vision of the problem [3].
After the actual problem is discovered, you should try to present its solution in an original way (the creative component of the research competence), making sure that it is
unique. Of course, the project should be appropriate, and its significance should not be limited to a narrow framework, but should be associated with more mass events taking place in the city, country, and world. It is very important to think through the specific steps of implementing the project step by step and give them a concise and at the same time accurate description with the correct emphasis on its strengths. At the last stage, it is necessary to predict the desired results and once again emphasize their importance.
Concluding the description of the Olympiad, which we have considered as one of the ways to form students ' research competence, we will focus on the following important conclusions:
- knowledge of the language, the formation of communicative competence, the presence of a creative component in many ways contribute to the successful implementation of the research project;
- insufficient formation of such components of research competence as cognitive (lack of knowledge and concepts necessary for setting and solving research tasks), indicative (establishing the need for some knowledge and creating an algorithm for obtaining this knowledge), technological (performing certain research actions to solve problems), as well as motivational (the importance of research activities for a particular researcher) negatively affects the performance of research and its quality.
In conclusion, it should be noted that for effective education of researchers in higher education, it is necessary, first, as early as possible and as often as possible to put the student in the conditions of research search, starting with the collection of a bibliography on the proposed problem, since this first step will largely determine the success of the project in the future. Keeping in mind the importance of initial immersion in research activities, the teacher-mentor should constantly monitor and guide the novice researcher, while leaving him room for independent decision-making.
It is necessary to keep in mind the content components of the research competence that should be worked on, both separately and in their logical unity:
- the body of knowledge in a particular area;
- ability to see and solve problems based on hypotheses;
- ability to set goals and plan activities;
- ability to collect and analyze necessary information;
- ability to choose the most optimal methods;
- ability to perform an experiment;
- ability to present research results;
- the ability to apply this knowledge and skills in a specific activity.
Secondly, it is possible and necessary to develop the researcher's personality, going beyond the limits of their educational institution. The success of this activity is evidenced by the experience of the Olympiad described in this article, which, in our opinion, is unique, since for many it was the first dive into the world of design and research work, the results of which are seen by both colleagues and experts in their field, who are ready to provide objective criticism and give advice necessary for a novice researcher.
References / Список литературы
1. Guskova N.V. Linguistic and socio-cultural aspects of learning a foreign language (in Russian example of the English language) // Eurasian Scientific journal, 2015. № 12.
2. Lazarev B.C., Konoplina N.V. Activity approach to the formation of the content of pedagogical education / / Pedagogy. Moscow: Pedagogy, 2000. Pp. 27-34.
3. Popova Z.D., Sternin IA. Cognitive linguistics / Z.D. Popova, I.A. Sternin. Moscow: ACT: VosTok-Zapad, 2007. 314 p.
4. Chernyaeva L.A. Formation of research competence of students of pedagogical College: autoref.dis kand. PED. Sciences / L.A. Chernyaeva. Novokuznetsk: Kuzbass state pedagogical Academy, 2011. 25 p.
