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Перспективы Науки и Образования
Международный электронный научный журнал ISSN 2307-2334 (Онлайн)
Адрес выпуска: pnojournal.wordpress.com/archive19/19-06/ Дата публикации: 31.12.2019 УДК 372.881.111.1
Н. А. Мартынова, В. Н. Шдшковд, К. А. Власов
Особенности преподавания английского языка в непрофильных образовательных организациях: анализ мнений обучающихся
Введение. В наши дни изучение английского языка является составной частью профессионального образования. Актуальность проведённого исследования определяется тем, что в области изучения моделей формирования иноязычной коммуникативной компетенции накоплен достаточный теоретический материал, дальнейшее изучение которого требует разработки технологии преподавания английского языка, которая бы интегрировала в своей основе базовые представления о современных методах обучения английскому языку при внимании к тем факторам, которые влияют на успешность освоения языка для профессиональных целей.
Материалы и методы. В ходе исследования использовались общенаучные методы теоретического познания: анализ, синтез, обобщение, а также методы эмпирического познания: анкетирование и статистический анализ. В анкетировании приняли участие 4 группы респондентов: курсанты Орловского юридического института МВД России имени В.В. Лукьянова, иностранные слушатели Орловского юридического института МВД России имени В.В. Лукьянова, студенты Орловского государственного университета имени И.С. Тургенева, изучающие юриспруденцию в качестве профильного предмета, а также иностранные студенты Орловского государственного университета имени И.С. Тургенева, специализирующиеся в юриспруденции и экономике.
Результаты исследования. Сложность для всех категорий опрошенных представляют два вида речевой деятельности, наиболее комплексных по задействованным механизмам мышления, в их рецептивной и продуктивной разновидностях, а именно: аудирование и говорение. С другой стороны, для иностранных обучающихся проблему представляет работа с фонетическим и лексическим оформлением речи, что связано с изучением специальной терминологической лексики, а также с тем, что обучающиеся являются инофонами. Для иностранных обучающихся усвоение лексического материала в условиях трёхъязычия неизменно оказывается связано с проблемой интерференции.
Обсуждение результатов. Успешность работы над развитием иноязычной коммуникативной компетенции средствами английского языка опирается на четыре группы факторов: 1) личностные факторы, в первую очередь мотивационные, 2) социокультурные факторы и их этносемантические аспекты, 3) когнитивные факторы, предопределяющие определённые модели и сценарии коммуникативного взаимодействия в разных культурных контекстах, 4) внутриязыковые факторы, обусловливающие избирательность в выборе языковых средств для выражения содержания. Учёт этих факторов в совокупности с использованием современных технологий обучения позволяет задать систему ориентиров как для преподавателя, так и для обучаемых.
Ключевые слова: коммуникативный подход, современные образовательные технологии, коммуникативная компетенция, методы обучения английскому языку, профессиональный словарь, респонденты, иностранные слушатели, образовательные учреждения
Ссылка для цитирования:
Мартынова Н. А., Шашкова В. Н., Власов К. А. Особенности преподавания английского языка в непрофильных образовательных организациях: анализ мнений обучающихся // Перспективы науки и образования. 2019. № 6 (42). С. 142-157. сЬк 10.32744/р$е.2019.6.12
Perspectives of Science & Education
International Scientific Electronic Journal ISSN 2307-2334 (Online)
Available: psejournal.wordpress.com/archive19/19-06/ Accepted: 21 September 2019 Published: 31 December 2019
N. A. Martynova, V. N. Shashkova, K. A. Wlassow
Specificities of teaching English in non-specialized educational organizations: analysis of students' opinions
Introduction. Today, learning English is an integral part of vocational education. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that in the field of studying models for the formation of foreign language communicative competence, sufficient theoretical material has been accumulated, the further study of which requires the development of technology for teaching the English language, which would integrate the fundamental concepts of modern methods of teaching English with attention to those factors which affect the success of language learning for professional purposes.
Materials and methods. In the course of the research, general scientific methods were used, such as analysis, synthesis, generalization, as well as methods of empirical knowledge: a questionnaire and statistical analysis. Four groups of respondents took part in the questionnaire: cadets of Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia named after V.V. Lukyanov, foreign trainees of Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia named after V.V. Lukyanov, students of the Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev, specializing in law, as well as foreign students of the Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev, specializing in law and economics.
Research results. The complexity for all categories of respondents is represented by two types of speech activity, the most complex in terms of the mechanisms of thinking involved, in their receptive and productive varieties, namely listening and speaking. For foreign students and trainees, work with phonetics and vocabulary is clearly a problematic activity, which is conditioned by the special terminological vocabulary they have to master, as well as the fact that students are foreign speakers. For foreign students, the assimilation of lexical material in the conditions of trilingualism invariably turns out to be associated with the problem of interference.
Discussion and conclusion. Successful development of foreign language communicative competence by means of English is based on four groups of factors: 1) personal factors, primarily motivational, 2) sociocultural factors and their ethno-semantic aspects, 3) cognitive factors which predetermine certain models and scenarios of communicative interaction in different cultural contexts, 4) intralinguistic factors determining selectivity in the choice of language means for expressing content. Consideration of these factors in conjunction with the use of modern teaching technologies allows you to set a system of guidelines for both the teacher and the student.
Key words: communicative approach, modern educational technologies, communicative competence, methods of teaching English, professionally oriented vocabulary, respondents, foreign trainees, educational establishment
For Reference:
Martynova, N. A., Shashkova, V. N., & Wlassow, K. A. (2019). Specificities of teaching English in non-specialized educational organizations: analysis of students' opinions. Perspektivy nauki i obrazovania - Perspectives of Science and Education, 42 (6), 142-157. doi: 10.32744/pse.2019.6.12
_Introduction
he integration of Russia into the world community, as well as the use of English in many
areas of activity, set the task for students to master the language as best as possible.
For many years in our society there is an opinion that the level of language proficiency directly determines the success of a person in a particular industry [1]. Knowledge of English allows specialists in demand to overcome barriers between states. In addition, language-speaking professionals can improve their skills through foreign language literature, even within their own country. Thus the processes of globalization and internationalization have defined the vectors of development of higher education [2, p. 33]. As a full member of the international community, Russian society is aware of the need to learn English in order to be competitive in the global labor market. Our task is to keep up with the world standards of education in the field of English and "to integrate into the modern trend of educating competitive graduates" [3, p. 149].
Learning English in non-linguistic universities depends on school education [4, p. 268]. To successfully master the language in higher educational establishments students need a strong base of skills acquired during school education. Not always does the level of training of school leavers allow you to freely start a program of vocational education in this subject [5, p. 114]. That is why the continuity of school and higher professional education is very important. In many universities three is a successful practice of entrance testing in English. This allows the teacher to determine the level of language proficiency among students, in accordance with which the teacher can choose the optimal technology of teaching in the group and even differentiate tasks for students with different language training. In addition, universities have introduced a division into subgroups, which also significantly increases the efficiency of training [6, p. 79].
Nowadays, the methodology of teaching English has a wide range of technologies and teaching methods. Along with the traditional, there are also innovative methods that adapt to the changing requirements of modern society. Teachers are faced with the choice of a specific method in accordance with the educational tasks facing them. The level of training students as well as the intensity of the training course play a significant role in choosing the technology of training [7, p. 23]. At the same time, each of the teaching methods has its advantages and disadvantages, and the success of their application depends on the specific goals and conditions of training. In recent years, the role of a foreign language as a means of communication has increased significantly, which should be taken into account when teaching a language. The main task of learning a foreign language is mastery of communicative skills, so it is especially important to pay attention to speech practice. The purpose of language teaching is not only to acquaint students with the system of a foreign language, but, above all, to teach how to use the language as a means of communication. Therefore, the whole structure of classes and the methods used should correspond to the real situation of communication, and training should take place in the conditions of interaction of students. Accordingly, the most popular method of training is through the communicative approach, which is successfully used not only in our country but also in the United States and the UK. Of the four main components of language, the focus is on speaking and listening [8, p. 417].
In teaching English, there are a number of typical problems at all levels. The problem of teaching communication is associated with the formation of language and phonetic, grammar and lexical skills and creative abilities in various types of speech activities -reading, speaking, listening and writing. These problems are typical of both non-linguistic and language universities and specialties. There are also a number of problems that are more typical of non-linguistic educational establishments. As teaching a foreign language is realized with highly specialized vocabulary, respectively, students must have the necessary knowledge of the major disciplines in their native language. Without this background, students may have great difficulty in mastering a professional foreign language course, as they will not know specialized terminology even in Russian and, accordingly, will not be able to successfully perform the tasks offered to them. The competence of the teacher in the field of specialization of students is no less important factor for learning a foreign language [9, p. 15]. In this regard, there is one of the key problems of learning, namely, the teacher, in addition to mastery of linguistic knowledge, should be free to navigate in a professional environment and to have professional items in the training and practice of a specialized institution [10, p. 39].
Knowledge of English is an important component of professionalism of any specialist. Modern teaching of English in a non-linguistic educational establishment in most cases is based on the communicative method, or the cognitive-communicative method, although it has its own characteristics that distinguish the learning process from language universities. Despite the variety of teaching methods and technologies, there are problems that are solved directly in the classroom with specific students.
The difference is very significant when we are going to learn a foreign language. Without an understanding of what we need to learn and why, we risk being dragged into an endless learning process that may never lead us to the desired result. Higher education should necessarily be strategically oriented [11].
Speech is a specific human tool that allows us not only to convey to each other information about the present, the future and the past, but also to think. Human thinking is based on inner speech and does not exist outside speech.
Language is a system of encoding information. No wonder there are programming languages, but there is no "speech programming". With the help of a certain system of signs and symbols people and even animals convey to each other a variety of information. Human language is clothed in speech as a form.
Speech is the skill, practical tools of communication, language is the knowledge system. Speech is oral, written and internal. Oral speech includes auditory comprehension and speaking, written speech incorporates both reading and writing, inner speech is thinking, a person's conversation with himself.
To learn a foreign language, it is important to understand that the components of speech are physiologically connected with each other in a certain system and sequence. It is impossible to learn to speak without hearing it. At the same time, the better and more correctly you speak, the better you understand by ear: this is how the human auditory-speech system works, reinforcing itself on both sides.
In natural conditions, the language follows the speech. When we learn our native language, we actually start it only at school, that is, when we already speak. In the classical approach to the study of foreign languages, this principle is always violated: we are first taught the language, and then we need to somehow, "reverse", get to the speech. This catchy way is not easy to overcome for everyone. Especially to get close to the oral speech
is not easy. More precisely, to learn to say something is not so difficult, but to understand what they say to you in response is a daunting task.
Research methods
Teaching English within modern functional framework is based on the cognitive-communicative approach. That is why when modeling the process of teaching English a teacher must take into consideration ethnic idiosyncrasies of a particular people and its language structure to be able to use all the means at their disposal to their maximum efficiency and to differentiate the methods of teaching English in a diverse multicultural environment.
For this reason we addressed different categories of students to elicit their language background, key motivational factors underlying the process of learning English and their evaluation of the tasks they are set. There were 4 major groups of respondents in our study, all of them learning English for professional use in the spheres of jurisprudence and economics.
The first group was represented by cadets learning English at Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior during the first and the second years of studying. The total number of respondents representing this group was 288 people. Their specialty is Legal Maintenance of National Security.
The second group was composed of foreign trainees studying at Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior and learning English according to the general curriculum and special work programme worked out for foreign trainees. The specificity of this group is their studying in a multilingual environment and learning English without direct reference to their mother tongue. The language of instruction is basically English, though taking into account the fact that some of the trainees only start learning English as a foreign language at the Institute having learnt French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese or any other language as a foreign one, Russian is the auxiliary language helping the trainees to acquire semantics and to understand definitions and explanations. The overall number of foreign trainees who took part in the questionnaire was 20. All of the respondents are trainees of the first year and the second year of studying. Their specialty is Legal Maintenance of National Security.
The third group, consisting of 1582 respondents, was represented by to-be-lawyers being educated at Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev. This group was chosen as the litmus test to the success in mastering the English language in a civil educational establishment of higher education.
The same principle refers to the fourth group of respondents consisting of 110 foreign students who have English as part of their general educational curriculum in a civil educational institution.
The overall number of respondents tallied 577 people. Given the different quantitative indices of the respondents we made the groups relatively proportional in their percentage, namely 91 % of Russian-speaking respondents (441 student out of 485 respondents in the federal state-funded educational institution and 72 cadets out of 92 respondents in the federal state public educational institution) and 9 % for foreign trainees (44 out of 485 respondents in the federal state-funded educational institution and 20 foreign trainees out of 92 respondents in the federal state public educational institution).
To identify the motivational needs of respondents in mastering the English language as well as to pinpoint their strong and weak sides for further development of strategies to
work at different aspects of speech activity a questionnaire was conducted in each group which allowed to reveal some important psychological and didactic facets of organizing the teaching process.
1. Had you had any experience of learning English before you entered the educational institution of higher education where you study?
A. Yes.
B. No.1
2. For how long had you learned English before you entered the educational institution of higher education where you study?
3. What kind of education was it?
A. School education in your country.
B. School education abroad.
C. University (college) education.
D. Special language courses.
E. Self-education.
4. How many times a week did you have English classes?
A. Once a week.
B. Twice a week.
C. Three times a week.
D. Any other variant (specify it, please)._
5. Have you ever learnt any other foreign languages apart from English and Russian?
A. Yes, I have. Indicate which language(s):_
B. No, I have not.
6. Which of the following tasks are the most
difficult? interesting?
Reading
Translation
Grammar exercises
Lexical exercises
Retelling texts
Listening comprehension
Discussions in English
Writing (letters, compositions, essays)
Making up dialogues
Watching movies or documentaries in the original
Case studies
7. Which of the following comes easy to you?
1. Memorizing words after writing them down
2. Memorizing words after listening to them
3. Doing grammar exercises following a model
4. Doing grammar exercises without a model after clear understanding of the grammar structure
5. Doing lexical exercises including finding a lexical item suiting a definition or matching words and particular contexts for using these words
6. Doing lexical exercises including finding English equivalents for the Russian words and word combinations
7. Reading and doing multiple choice tests
1 If you answer in the negative, skip questions 2, 3 and 4.
8. Reading and finding answers to the questions in the text
9. Listening and filling in the gaps
10. Listening and doing multiple choice tests
11. Listening and rendering the content of the audio text
12. Doing translations (both from Russian into English and from English into Russian)
13. Retelling professionally related texts in English
14. Discussing professionally related topics in English
8. Which skills should be paid special attention to at English classes?
A. Reading.
B. Writing.
C. Listening.
D. Speaking.
9. Is the material used for teaching you acute and professionally useful?
A. Yes, it is.
B. No, it is not.
C. Not always.
D. Your comments if any:_
10. The material used for teaching you is
A. Complex and difficult to understand.
B. Easy to understand and interesting at least in parts.
C. Too easy and therefore uninteresting.
11. Which of the following has the greatest practical value in your future professional activity as you see it?
A. Writing (letters, notes, carrying out professional correspondence).
B. An ability to negotiate over the phone.
C. An ability to interview people.
D. An ability to read and understand professionally related texts.
12. Do you think English will be useful in your future career?
A. Yes, most likely it will be useful at least as a source of professionally related information.
B. No, I don't see any value of it. It is just part of my higher education, a subject I need to pass.
C. I see its use as part of my leisure activities: watching movies, reading books, listening to music.
D. I see its use as something which makes me culturally educated.
As can be seen by the questions themselves, the questionnaire was aimed at revealing the language experience of respondents and their own assessment of efficiency in mastering English.
Results
The questionnaire revealed a number of obvious problems which manifested themselves in all the groups of respondents and pinpointed the weak spots in teaching special categories of learners.
The survey allowed us to draw the following conclusions. At the beginning of the study of English at the higher educational establishments, the overall level of mastering English meets the following requirements:
a) respondents have mastered the basic lexical, grammatical and phonetic skills;
b) respondents have had practice in such types of speech activities as listening, speaking, reading and writing;
c) respondents in the course of work on various sources have come across different types of texts.
All of the Russian-speaking respondents had had the experience of learning a foreign language before entering the educational institution of higher education as part of their general secondary education. Yet not all of them had learnt English. In Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior the number of cadets whose first foreign language was German or French tallied 14. Such respondents had to individually undergo a remedial course to integrate into the unified curriculum. In Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev streaming is organized according to the first foreign language, so all of the respondents are known to have originally learnt English as their first foreign language with different levels of mastery.
The same refers to foreign students in the federal state-funded educational institution. All of them had had school education in their own country. The group of respondents consisted of 29 people with secondary education and 15 students who either had a diploma of higher education or had not graduated before moving to Russia. So, the period of learning English varies from 6 to 15 years.
In Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation named after V.V. Lukyanov nineteen out of twenty foreign trainees had had the experience of learning English before entering the institute. The period of learning English varies from 1 year to 11 years. Eighteen trainees received secondary education in their home country, three trainees were educated abroad: one trainee studied for 3 years in an English-speaking country and two trainees studied in European countries for terms of 3 to 6 months. Five trainees had had the experience of attending higher educational establishments of their home country where English was part of the curriculum. Four trainees highlighted self-education as the factor determining their level of mastering English. Three trainees had the experience of attending language courses in their home country. Thus, the question concerning the initial level of language mastery allows a wide range of variants which indicates the heterogeneous level of the group since for one trainee learning English as a foreign language started in the institute, while there are those who are fluent in English in everyday communication.
The frequency of English classes in the experience of the trainees varied depending on the type of educational establishment they attended. On average, most of them had English classes twice a week. In some cases English was taught only during the last two years of the secondary school. Then students had classes 3 times a week. There are also trainees who finished private schools. They had English classes 5 times a week. Despite minor variations and odd variants the overall tendency pertinent to this question was clear: the standard variant was twice a week.
The question about other foreign languages mastered by the respondents did not prove to be definitive for all the groups of our selection of respondents. The Russian-speaking cadets in the federal state public educational institution gave valuable answers because the group consisted of people who have had different language experience. Fourteen cadets who had acquired the basics of German and French as their first foreign language coupled with two cadets learning Italian for pleasure pointed out both skill transfer and interference as factors assisting / halting their progress in English.
Nine foreign students from Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev indicated in the form that had learnt French, Spanish and Pashto languages. Only two foreign trainees
out of 20 respondents in Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation named after V.V. Lukyanov had had an experience of learning another foreign language, namely Japanese and Korean. Both of the languages refer to the isolated types according to the genealogical classification of the languages.
Thus, apart from German, French, Italian and Spanish, all referring to the Indo-European Family of the Languages, it is impossible to speak about any potential transfer of the skills to the process of mastering English. Yet we make a stipulation that a larger-scale research focus might have revealed details pertinent to the influences of other foreign languages on the process of mastery of English.
Table 1 reflects the summarized answers of the respondents to the question about the most difficult and the most interesting types of tasks. With regard to the value of statistical analysis [12] we supply the numerical data and the percentage.
Table 1
The Qualification of the Tasks
Task Type difficult interesting
Number of responses % Number of responses %
Reading 17 3 35 6
Translation 81 14 17 3
Grammar exercises 29 5 12 2
Lexical exercises 23 4 29 5
Retelling 40 7 11 2
Listening Comprehension 208 36 17 3
Discussions 64 11 35 6
Writing (letters, essays, compositions) 23 4 29 5
Dialogues 23 4 23 4
Watching fiction films and documentaries 17 3 323 56
Case study 52 9 46 8
The following question was aimed at pinpointing the task types which come easy to respondents either due to the acquired level of mastering English or due to its representation in the teaching materials or frequent use at English classes. Table 2 reflects the quantitative indicators of the degree to which the tasks set for the respondents of all the groups are commensurate with their abilities and skills. The calculation here was different. The respondents were allowed to mark as many answers as they thought necessary. That is why the total of answers was 1974.
Table 2
The Qualification of the Feasibility of the Tasks Set
Task Type Number of Responses %
Memorizing words after writing them down 276 14
Memorizing words after listening to them 158 8
Grammar exercises according to the pattern 237 12
Grammar exercises done without any pattern but with full understanding of the relevant material 99 5
Lexical exercises including finding a lexical item suiting the definition given, matching words and their speech contexts 40 2
Lexical exercises including finding equivalents in English for the given Russian words and word combinations 79 4
Reading and doing multiple choice tasks which reveal the level of comprehension 195 10
Reading and finding answers to the questions in the text 237 12
Listening and filling in the gaps 40 2
Listening and doing multiple choice tasks which reveal the level of comprehension 138 7
Listening and summarizing the content of the message in English 119 6
Translations (from English into Russian, from Russian into English) 158 8
Retelling work-related texts in English 119 6
Discussion of work-related topics in English 79 4
The questionnaire has revealed that memorizing lexical items comes easier to the respondents after putting them down; doing grammar exercises with maximum effect requires presentation and detailed explanation of the pattern. Besides, reading and multiple choice tasks to control the comprehension level are the most developed skills as well as pointing out the key sentences in the text which are answers to the questions.
The most difficult tasks, according to the opinions of the respondents, are tasks aimed at accumulation of lexis and lexical skill-building including matching the lexical item with its definition, matching words and the speech contexts for their use as well as listening coupled with filling in the gaps which requires both the development of the skill of identifying the language form of the nominative item and meaning recognition. The next in the hierarchy of tasks comes finding equivalents with discussion of professional topics in English, which requires not only mastery of language forms but also the adequate choice of communicative strategies and tactics to achieve the aims of interaction, as the most complicated task topping the hierarchy.
The results pertinent to this question require a comment. On the one hand, the most difficult for the respondents appear to be two tasks dealing with two different speech activities, listening and speaking, which are intrinsically complex by the thought mechanisms activated in the receptive and productive types of speech activity. Additionally, there is listening and comprehension which intrinsically involves a complex of thought mechanisms.
On the other hand, work with the lexical component of speech is clearly a problematic type of work, which, in our opinion, is associated with both special terminological vocabulary. Besides, this aspect is aggravated when it comes to foreign students and foreign trainees. Therefore, for foreign speakers, the assimilation of lexical material under the conditions of trilingualism invariably turns out to be associated with the problem of interference. Hence the search for equivalents and correlation of vocabulary in two foreign languages is a natural difficulty in working conditions without relying on the mother tongue of foreign trainees.
Four hundred and twenty two out of the 577 respondents noted speaking as the type of speech activity that needs to be paid more attention to in the classroom. Correspondingly, as a necessary focus of training or as a type of speech activity that requires increased attention, students noted writing (75 respondents), reading (33 respondents) and listening (47 respondents). Thus, we can conclude that there is an urgent need for access to professional communication in a foreign language and a clear lack of conditionally-communicative and communicative tasks in the learning process.
Only 64 respondents (11 %) noted that the authentic material used in the training is not always relevant and professionally useful. One hundred and sixty two people (28 %) found the material used in the classroom difficult to understand, the rest of the respondents (71 %) rated the material as accessible for learning and interesting to at least some topics. This question did not reveal any notable variations among groups. The majority in all the groups of respondents marked the value of professionally oriented stance of their education.
In response to the question of what, in the respondents' opinion, is of the greatest practical value in their future professional activity, 140 people singled out one dominant skill, other respondents answered with a combination of options. The most frequent response was the ability to conduct interrogation in a foreign language (254 answers, representing 44 % of the total, all given by to-be-lawyers). The following in frequency are two abilities: the ability to read and understand professionally oriented texts in English, as well as the ability to freely conduct professional correspondence in English (69 answers each, i.e. 24 % of the total number of answers). The following is the ability to conduct business negotiations in English by telephone (46 responses, representing only 8 % of the total, given by future economists mostly).
The question of assessing the potential usefulness of the English language in future professional activities gave a total result of 577 answers. Of these, 462 answers, accounting for 80% of the total, confirm the importance of learning English as a source of professional information. For 58 people (10 % of the answers), English is just a discipline that must be passed in the course of training. In addition, 36 answers were noted (6 %), according to which respondents consider learning English as part of their general cultural education, as well as 23 answers (4 %), considering learning English as a form of leisure activity.
Conclusion
Traditional approaches to language teaching often depend on the congestion theory too much in the question of the detriment of the practice, i.e. skills. As a result, the output of such training is people who have a good command of grammar, however, they do not know how to use it practically. This lack of speech practice in education has been outlined as the first pressing problem acute for all the categories of students who took part in the questionnaire.
The next problem while learning a language is the lack of understanding of oral foreign speech. Misunderstanding of oral foreign speech is connected not only with a lack of practice. The fact is that most teaching methods pay too little attention to one of the most important components of communicative competence: listening comprehension. Unlike music ear, phonematic hearing gives us the ability to perceive and understand speech. This is the basis provided for us by the nature and physiology of the brain, by which speech is built in the future. There is no basis, and there will be no free communication.
The most common advice for understanding a foreign language is more regular practice (listening), listening to songs, watching movies and TV. This option really works, but with advanced students who have overcome a certain level in the understanding of a foreign language by ear. That is, with those who have formed speech skills, the language is used in practice, and now it is enough either to maintain it at a good level only through practice, or to add language practice to the usual training sessions.
Yet for beginners learning the language from scratch or those students who have not yet overcome a certain critical level in the understanding of oral foreign language, that is, the skills
of understanding a foreign language are not yet formed, this "recipe" is not suitable. You can listen to the stream of unfamiliar sounds, but it will not turn into a meaningful speech.
Many teachers of foreign languages do not distinguish between the on-going training and language practice. Some are afraid of practice and always postpone it until better times, while others try to completely replace the training with practice. Both variants are bad as effective learning of a foreign language is based on balance of these two indispensable things.
Another piece of advice is to break through this barrier of difficulty in understanding a foreign language by immersion. In fact, it is again a matter of practice, but it should be differently organized. First of all, you should know that this method is not easy to use. Immersion means that for some time you do not speak your native language at all, not half a word. If you imagine for a moment what it is like, you will realize that this situation is extremely stressful. There were cases when even well-trained people came out of the language immersion with a severe headache and other problems. That is why the present method of immersion is unlikely to be found somewhere now. In most cases communicative language training is offered under the brand of immersion. This format often helps training fans to talk, but it has nothing to do with the elimination of the problem of understanding foreign language and mastering listening comprehension.
One more mythical but widespread point of view is connected with the difficulties of listening comprehension. There is an opinion that you need to have musical ear to know foreign language well. Humans naturally have two kinds of hearing - musical and phonemic. Unlike music, phonemic ear gives us the ability to perceive and understand speech. These abilities are localized in different hemispheres of the brain and have no direct connection with each other. People with musical ear are receptive to the melody and intonation of the language, which is a big plus for learning a foreign language. Besides, music lessons have a beneficial effect on the brain as a whole. Speech areas of the brain of musicians allow communication through fine motor skills. However the root of the problem of understanding the English language is the lack of phonemic awareness.
Phonemic ability is highly developed during infancy and early childhood. This is the first and most basic of all existing human abilities to speech, which is included in the work. The level of development of phonemic awareness is a criterion by which the presence or lack of human capacity for language as a whole is determined. Applicants to serious language institutions are sometimes rejected because of the absence of phonemic skills. The absence or lack of elaboration of phonemic ear as a basic step in the study of a foreign language entails other difficulties, and this is the foundation of the language as a whole. Every person has this skill, except for deaf people.
We also face the problem when foreign words are forgotten faster than learned when we are trying to remember them by mechanical memorization. Rote memorization, memorizing words with flashcards or, in a more modern version, applications in the phone, and even the use of mnemonics (special techniques of memorization) in relation to learning is also often a bare mechanics. As a result of such memorization, foreign words are settled in short-term memory, where they disappear very quickly. Naturally, words in our memory and consciousness are united in a kind of family-semantic (semantic) fields, and this is how they are laid in long-term memory. The secret of establishing direct associative links is the frequent use of the unit of speech. Though it is not enough. The global task in teaching a foreign language is to form the semantic fields of a new language in the student, starting from the native language. One more problem to be mentioned is difficulty in constructing sentences. This problem arises when language is taught "by elements".
Besides, we cannot avoid mentioning language barrier. Language barriers are very different. One of the most common barriers arises when we think in Russian, and then try to translate our thoughts into foreign languages. It is also necessary to distinguish between linguistic and psychological language barriers. If you cannot communicate the language you are learning, it is possible that you have not formed the skills of speech in this language. It is pointless to solve psychological language barriers without solving the problem of the linguistic barrier.
Interest in teaching English is acute both from the standpoint of instructional techniques of introducing material and from the perspective of reflecting the concepts of the language in the mindsets of the students.
If you just want to be able to communicate using a language, you do not have to make a thorough study of its peculiarities. First, because in practice, native speakers use simple language. At all times, colloquial speech tends to simplicity, and in our information age it happens even more. Secondly, when you practically use the language, the depth of your knowledge and the complexity of the structures increases gradually, and that is quite natural. There is no need to use all the complexity of the language at once.
It is necessary to build speech skills gradually. In this process, the theory should be built into practice exactly to the extent that it is necessary. Skills are not obtained from simple addition of memorized words and grammatical structures, they are quite different laws.
No one can give you skills without your own activity and sometimes system of the development of skills in traditional forms of learning does not work. That is why there are so many people around who have been learning the language for many years, but cannot use it in a simple everyday communicative situation, to say nothing about communicative interaction for professional purposes.
You can develop speech skills anyway only in a language environment, and even then not always, if we are talking about an adult with already established psycho-informative features.
Learning English is impossible without the use of modern educational technologies. The following educational technologies are known to be effectively used in teaching a foreign language:
• Technology of communicative teaching;
• Technology multilevel (differentiated) learning;
• Technology of modular training;
• Information and communication technologies (ICT));
• The technology of individualized learning;
• Project technology;
• Learning technology in cooperation;
• Game technology;
• Technology of critical thinking development [13].
Each of the above technologies can be implemented within the framework of a communicative approach. Any technology has its own characteristics and techniques and can be aimed at achieving a particular goal. The choice of a particular technology depends entirely on the teacher who decides what will be most effective for this group of students. Despite the differences in these technologies, they are united by the effectiveness of modern realities of English language learning. Each of these technologies is focused on the individual approach to education, the student being a direct subject of educational activities.
From general conclusions pertinent to all the groups of respondents we turn to the most problematic category in terms of developing language skills, which is represented by foreigners. There are generally four groups of factors determining the specifics of teaching foreign trainees English. These are 1) personal factors, among which the prominent role belongs to motivational factors, 2) socio-cultural factors and their ethno-semantic aspects, 3) cognitive factors determining definite patterns and scenarios of communicative interaction in different social contexts, and 4) intralinguistic factors underlying the selectivity of language means chosen for expressing a certain type of content [14].
Motivation is the primary personal factor. With regard to motivation mastering English as a foreign language for foreign trainees studying at the special course of preparing staff for foreign states is complicated by the fact that English is the second foreign language for most part of the trainees. Russian is the first foreign language. Since the rest subjects constituting the curricular are taught in Russian, the external motivation for studying Russian is notably higher than for studying English. Success in mastering English can be propelled due to increasing the meaning of motives underlying the trainees' professional activities by introducing vocational tasks into the teaching-learning process as well as by working out a set of tasks contributing to intellectual satisfaction such as cognitive educative tasks by language means of English.
Sociocultural factors exerting a significant impact on the process of mastering English are connected with different interpretations of communicative situations by representatives of different national lingua-cultural communities as well as with different semantics associated with interlanguage synonyms. The interpretation of lexical items and cultural concepts underlying them is complicated as a result of interference of three languages, namely, the mother tongue of a trainee, Russian and English. That is why work with foreign trainees should be organized so that it could minimize the interlanguage interference. It can be carried out through tasks requiring trainees to find a lexical item suiting a particular social or sociocultural context, or to illustrate verbally those contexts which are a typical medium for a particular nominative unit, or to analyze identical texts in Russian and English.
Sociocultural factors are inextricably linked with the cognitive aspects of learning a foreign language because they activate in the mindsets of students relevant cognitive models of knowledge representation containing general cultural knowledge, the consolidated knowledge of situations of social interaction and the knowledge of such situations through the prism of personal experience. It is the question of admissible ways of social behaviour and of conventional sequence of actions carried out to fulfill the pragmatic aims of communication. A communicative situation and the pragmatic intention of communicative subjects in such a situation predetermine the macro-intention and the set of communicative tasks necessary to fulfill the needs of a communicative subject. Thus, cognitive factors are directly linked with the realization of the communicative programme of a text in English. The realization of the communicative programme of a text presupposes decoding a linear development of a text as a sequence of communicative acts. That is why typical situations of social interaction in the professional sphere of communication (interrogation of a suspect, questioning of a witness, filing a report, etc.) should be viewed from the standpoint of comparing the communicative programmes associated with a particular situation in different national language-cultural communities.
Intralinguistic factors are contingent on the language structure and bring forth a natural heterogeneity of expression of similar or identical content in relevant pragmatic contexts. With regard to language means of expressions it is possible to speak about the selectivity
of compositional, syntactic, morphological, lexico-semantic and stylistic ways of expressing certain types of content characteristic of a particular discourse type. For example, in Russian, English and Mongolian both methods and means of expressing similar grammar meanings are different. It adds difficulties to teaching Mongolian trainees. Explanations cannot be given in Mongolian, explanations in Russian do not always justify themselves as they give priority to Russian as another foreign language in teaching English. Therefore grammar work cannot but include voluminous illustrative material in English which serves as a basis for generalizations on the part of trainees which are made under the teacher's guidance. Work with new lexical items must be employed through a wide variety of techniques, including definitions, illustrations, the inner form analysis, semantization through synonyms, antonyms and contextual deduction.
In addition, the trainees' motivational attitudes include the realization that full communication in English is impossible without mastering the specific ways of organizing speech in various communicative situations (and, accordingly, the types of discourse).
Effective teaching foreign trainees the English language is impossible without the following aspects of training:
a) intensive communicative practice in various types of speech activity: reading, listening, speaking and writing;
b) close attention to lexical and grammar means, providing a communicative orientation and information value of printed educational texts and listening materials;
c) mandatory laying down strategies and tactics for working with authentic material to facilitate further activities in processing samples of oral and written speech;
d) taking into account the characteristic features of a different articulation base and, accordingly, the need for intensive work with foreign phones on the phonetic-rhythmic component of speech;
e) a conscious attitude to the close relationship of language and culture and the ability to actively extract (with receptive speech activity) and appropriate (with productive) cultural-specific information.
Thus, the survey has provided information about the experience of studying English by foreign trainees, it has also allowed us to identify the main problem areas in language learning that require attention, as well as potential prospects for using the language in the future. By fair remark, L.V. Molchanova states that "the creation of a unified system of teaching several foreign languages needs further research, especially when studying linguistically unrelated languages" [15, p. 26]. Based on the obtained data, a workflow can be further developed on the formation and improvement of skills in each type of speech activity: speaking, writing, reading and listening, as well as on consolidating lexical and grammatical skills with special attention to the accumulation and expansion of professionally oriented vocabulary.
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Информация об авторах Мартынова Наталия Анатольевна
(Россия, Орёл) Кандидат филологических наук, доцент Заведующий кафедрой иностранных и русского языков Орловский юридический институт Министерства внутренних дел Российской Федерации имени В.В. Лукьянова E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3191-111X
Information about the authors
Nataliya A. Martynova
(Russia, Orel) PhD in Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Foreign
and Russian languages The Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation named after V.V. Lukyanov E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3191-111X
Шашкова Валентина Николаевна (Россия, Орёл) Кандидат филологических наук, доцент Доцент кафедры иностранных и русского языков Орловский юридический институт МВД России имени В.В. Лукьянова E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0977-3061
Valentina N. Shashkova
(Russia, Orel)
PhD in Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the
Department of Foreign and Russian Languages The Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation named after V. V. Lukyanov E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0977-3061
Власов Константин Алексеевич
(Россия, Орёл) Кандидат филологических наук Доцент кафедры иностранных и русского языков Орловский юридический институт МВД России имени В. В. Лукьянова E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4873-4305
Konstantin A. Wlassow
(Russia, Orel)
PhD in Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the
Department of Foreign and Russian Languages The Orel Law Institute of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation named after V. V. Lukyanov E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4873-4305
