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Practical knowledge of languages (UDC 8124)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18454/RULB.13.02 Чернова Н.А.1, Королёва Н.Е.2, Сахапова Ф.Х.3
1ORCID: 0000-0002-0064-8320, доцент, кандидат педагогических наук, 23 Доцент, кандидат педагогических наук, Набережночелнинский институт Казанского (Поволжского) Федерального университета ВКЛАД КУЛЬТУРНО-ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ТЕОРИИ В ПРОБЛЕМУ УЧЕБНОГО ДИАЛОГА НА ЗАНЯТИЯХ ПРИ ИЗУЧЕНИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО ЯЗЫКА
Аннотация
В статье затрагивается концепция непрерывности воспитательного процесса с учетом взглядов
Л.С.Выготского на процесс познания, который считает, что сотрудничество со старшим по возрасту или более опытным приводит к развитию саморегуляции, а именно способности к само-стоятельному решению проблем. Внимание обращается на тот факт, что изучение языка с использованием культурно-исторической теории и ее принципов в качестве основы позволяет создать на занятиях такое «участие» при котором зона ближайшего развития студента ясно определяется с помощью таких методов как «ролевая игра» и «неподготовленный диалог». Подчеркивается необходимость разработки учебника с использованием вышеперечисленных принципов.
Ключевые слова: познавательная деятельность, изучения иностранного языка, внутренняя мотивация, социокультурный аспект.
Chernova N.A.1, Koroleva N.E.2, Sakhapova F.H.3 1ORCID: 0000-0002-0064-8320, associate professor, PhD inPedagogy,
2,3Associate professor, PhD in Pedagogy, Naberezhnye Chelny Institute of Kazan (Volga region) Federal University THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY TO THE PROBLEM OF INSTRUCTIONAL INTERACTIONS IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
Abstract
The article deals with the concept of a continuum of regulation being also important to understanding Vygotsky's view of cognitive development which clearly suggests that communicative collaboration with adults or more skilled peers contributes to the development of self-regulation, that is, the capacity for independent problem solving and self-directed activity. Attention is drawn to the fact that in the language classroom, using sociocultural theory and its tenets as a framework, we would see a highly interactive classroom, where the students' zone of proximal development is identified through strategies such as portfolios, and dialogue journals. Necessity of compiling a textbook based on the above-mentioned principles is stressed.
Keywords: cognitive activity, foreign language learning, internal motivation, sociocultural domain.
Почта авторов / Author Email: [email protected]
Introduction
Mastering a new language cannot change a person's
thinking due to the universal character of thinking laws, but a person's consciousness can be changed. Information receiving is the cognition process (impossible without thinking) which is true to another language studying as well. Learning a foreign language at any level is a complicated process that directly affects a subject's consciousness. The problem of the relationship between meaning and content has a direct bearing on the field of a foreign language teaching and learning. Meaning is defined as a system quality, acquired by a word content under the condition of the context-forming unity. The meaning is primary, and it is the thing interiorized by the subject consciousness. Culture plays the role of values and life meanings curator. The system-forming factor in this case is the social community activity as a collective subject. In case of one-language speakers, communicating the meaning-making context will be determined by their affiliation to a particular linguistic culture. The thing that appears as a meaning for one-language speakers and is understood automatically due to the same sociocultural context should be revealed as a content to a foreign language learner. This theme is under the investigation of different psychologists [6]. They present a foreign language learning as the struggle of a socially constituted and situated human being for participating in the symbolically mediated life world of another culture. Grammatical, lexical, and phonological forms acquisition plays an important but insufficient role. According to historical and social constructionist theories,
thinking with words unravels, any language as the principal mediation means, and that is why human learning and development are inseparably linked with social relations [8]. However, an ability successful formation of requires appropriate activity, therefore, training should be accompanied by active practice in speech activity in the language of study. Relating human mental operating to the cultural, institutional, and historical settings by means of actual all-group practice in the classroom is being provided with the textbook [3]. The thing is that though dialogue activities are external to the students, they participate in at the lesson. As a result, it brings to transforming such cognitive instruments as attention, voluntary memory, or reasoning into mental activities [1, P. 445-447]. This internalization process in classroom interaction brings to self-possessions mediated by semiotic tools. In this case, a foreign language is a semiotic tool that helps to accomplish communication activities playing the role of cognitive activity and its product.
Method
A teacher's task is to help a learner to enter a new semantic world into his individual context. The achievement of this aim is very complicated if you take into account basic theories of language development [2]. А meaningful character of а foreign language studying needs exposing to the internal laws of a foreign language, and the content world of it in comparison with the corresponding laws of a native language, which should become the matter of reflection. It follows that a foreign language must be acquired not through simple mechanical repetition of single words, word
combinations, patterns, sentences, set-phrases or whole texts, but by training students in speech activity with a preliminary awareness of certain language features. The aim of the article is to present the reader with some necessary information on the sociocultural theory that seems to be the only way of organizing the instructional interaction in class. A lot of preliminary knowledge for investigation have been received by means of five basic theories of a foreign language learning [11, P. 10-14]. The following four themes, studied in full detail, turned out to be of great importance to formulating an approach to the solution of the task in hand: 1) language, cognition, and communities; 2) language-based theories of learning and semiotic mediation; 3) private speech; 4) activity theory. In English Foreign Language (EFL) classes, the students' interactions provided the author with the opportunity of analysing their discourse formation [9]. Such learning instruments as a role-play task, a communicative interview task, and a translation task were obligatory activity elements compiling every lesson schedule. In the role-play task, the learners are guided to use the necessary language structures in real circumstances. They are not just repeating the same phrase for many times. The translation task involves no relationship to the real world but its assessment is measured by the grammatical correctness. The communicative interview task is based on the lesson wordlist. As a result, the structures and the vocabulary used in the translation task are revised in the following communicative interview task.
Discussion
The references to the classes are empiric but not experiential. According to N.F. Talyzina's point of view, the content of the foreign language material should become clear to the subject, i.e. he/she must understand the role and place of this material in the language system as a structural element of the foreign language world picture [2]. The subject must know exactly why he/she needs a particular language unit and what value it expresses being used in a particular speech context. Under the existing methods of foreign languages teaching, only a few of the most gifted intuitively reach the foreign language content in the end. Every student should take an active part in the process of discursive interactions and instructional dialogues. The Textbook is helpful in showing the sociocultural theory necessity for providing the skeleton of better understanding the language classroom facilities, including the discursive interactions [3]. Since the specific character of the language world reflection is most clearly and systematically supported in this language grammar, the grammatical complex of structural and functional units representing grammatical categories as the unity of their forms and meanings should be the key point of the teaching process. The above-mentioned theoretical provisions required a review of a foreign language teaching (in our case it is English). Different presentation of linguistic material is reflected in the textbook written by the author. Another novelty is to understand the contribution of classroom interaction to second language development in the zone of proximal development. Collaboration helps to accomplish what is initially difficult to do without assistance. Social interaction helps a foreign language vocabulary, grammatical and communicative structures appear on two psychologically real planes, the interpsychological or "between people" plane first, and then on the intrapsychological, or mental plane, which are dynamically interrelated and linked by language. Determining a student's zone of proximal development is of great assistance in understanding engagement between a learner and a teacher,
and discovering the limits of the learner's accomplishments achieved without help and with assistance. J. Smith examined direct instruction in full detail during a grammar lesson. Thus, problem-solving tasks are accompanied with constructing a meaning and a content in L1 or L2. This study contributes significantly to understanding the intersubjective nature of teaching in the process of the problem-solving talk.
Results
Experimental training was conducted for a few years in groups of students on the specialty of "Sociocultural Service and Tourism". The following criteria were considered as efficiency ones: correctness of translation, correctness of oral speech in English, and the language rule understanding. [4]. The only opportunity of following the received results is to provoke private and social speech in a study dialog. Under these conditions, it is made public for a teacher, group-mates and a speaker him/herself. Attempts were made to avoid incomprehensible utterances, which prevent from shared understanding and problem-solving [6].
Some scientists put forward a new term Instructional Conversation as a mediation tool in their works (D. Wood, J. S. Bruner, and G. Ross). At the helm of the whole idea Vygotsky's assertion of learning, development, and human action origins. The thing is that their coming back to conversation and the semiotic mediation provide the novice [10]. Vygotsky's theoretical justification of Instructional Conversations considers two urgent aspects of language and learning. First of all any language serves as psychological tools of intercourse and common understanding of cultural meanings (the interpsychological plane). Secondly, this instrumental method affects the process of learning and cognitive development (the intrapsychological plane) [8]. The main task any highly skilled ESL teacher faces is to make a conversational classroom episode with all this going on taking into account attention to coherence and fresh information, distributed turn taking, ingenuousness and unpredictability. These episodes of free talk can be regarded instructional on the strength of shaping the discussion toward a curricular goal providing the students with background knowledge [2]. Direct instruction or modelling are used to promote more complex language expressions, at the same time, questions help students to expand, elaborate or restate their statements and replies. Instructional conversations are the way of socializing into language learning on the part of the students in rich contexts in order to help students with facilitating language growth and development [7, P. 52-56]. The current models of input, output, and interaction prevent students from realising the possibilities of using a language outside the classroom, but a wide introduction of communicative and cognitive talks provide the possibility of making it a reality. The convergence of thinking with culturally created mediation artefacts, above all those which are linguistically organized (for example, conversations, metaphors, narratives, poetry, writing, etc.) occurs in the process of internalization, or the reconstruction on the inner, psychological, plane, of socially mediated external forms of goal-directed activity. The data received in a PhD scientific study by the author apparently demonstrate the urgent need of instructional conversations in elementary and intermediate foreign language classes. Unfortunately, they emerge from time to time and the purpose of the article is to point out the basic circumstances, such as management talk and extension activities. [10].
Conclusion
Teaching must become much more flexible than it currently is. It must break from the notion of ready-made
lessons that are rigidly adhered to in favour of improvisation. This does not mean an 'anything goes' approach. There is no doubt that the effective second language learning depends upon a variety of factors, including teacher's experience, the goals of the participants, the developmental level of the learners, and the nature of the task. The final aspect was worked over by the textbook's author. The productivity of learner interaction is necessarily determined by the tasks themselves. Instructional conversations being the mostly wide-known Vygotsky's instrumental method help learners to understand a foreign language as a psychological tool to communicate and realize cultural meanings on the one part and to be instrumental to cognitive development on the other one. That is to say, a conversational classroom episode can also be instructional due to a curricular goal, background knowledge building, direct instruction and promoting language that is more complex. Compiling such a textbook gives every student the opportunity to receive help that is
responsive to interlocutor bids. It can be considered an instrument including many tasks to provide the collaborative interaction of language learners. Language practice with the ready-made study texts associated with foreign language classrooms was minimized [5]. Instructional conversations being brought to the forefront let the students practice in management talk and extension activities. The accomplished results witness to the teacher having a talk with the leaners on a role of a co-participant in the direct interaction [4, P. 264265]. All necessary EFL material and teaching techniques for conducting the pattern are available in the Textbook. An outline of the forthcoming studies includes responding to comments of one student and possessing questions of another on the part of a teacher. Self-selected turns are not neglected. Further investigation of EFL methodology is needed. Such studies are likely to help in understanding the second language acquisition.
Список литературы / References
1. Гальперин П. Я. Развитие исследований по формированию умственных действий. Психологическая наука в CCCH: т.1. / П. Я. Гальперин. - М. : Наука, 1959. - С. 441-469.
2. Талызина Н. Ф. Управление процессом усвоения знаний / Н. Ф. Талызина. - М., 1975. - 344 с.
3. Чернова Н. А. Учебник английского языка / Н. А. Чернова, З. М. Кузнецова. - М.: ФЛИНТА: Наука, 2013. -464 с. + CD.
4. Чернова Н. А. Взаимосвязь формирования субъектных качеств личности и повышения качества знаний в символико-коммуникативной сфере деятельности / Н. А. Чернова, З. М. Кузнецова // Научное обозрение. - 2015. -№1. - С. 263-268.
5. Chernova N. A. The problem of encouraging educational activity as a way of investigating some interplay between sociocultural theory and second language acquisition / N. A. Chernova, J. N. Mustafina // Russian Linguistic Bulletin. - 2016.
- № 2 (6). - P. 50-51.
6. Leontiev A. A. Psychology and the Language Learning Process / A. A. Leontiev. - Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981.
7. Rotter J. W. Social learning and clinical psychology / J. W. Rotter. - New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954.
8. Vygotsky L. S. Thought and Language / L. S. Vygotsky. - Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.
9. Smith J. A seven-minute slice of chaos or I am puzzling through now. Unpublished research report. / J. Smith. -University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh PA, 1996.
10. Wood D. The role of tutoring in problem solving / D. Wood, J. S. Bruner, G. Gross // Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. - 1976. - Iss. 17. - P. 89-100.
11. Yaroshevsky M. G. Lev Vygotsky / M. G. Yaroshevsky. - Moscow: Progress Press, 1989.
Список литературы на английском / References in English
1. Galperin P. Ya. Razvitie issledovaniy po formirovaniju umstvennyh deistviy. Psyhologicheskaya nauka v SSSR. Vol.1 [Mental activity investigations development. Psychological sciences in the USSR. Vol.1] / P. Ya. Galperin. - Moscow. : Nauka, 1959. - P. 441-469. [in Russian]
2. Talyzina N. F. Upravlenie processom usvoenija znanij [Management of process of knowledge assimilation] / N. F. Talyzina. - Moscow, 1975. - 344 p. [in Russian]
3. Chernova N. A. Uchebnik anglijskogo jazyka [Textbook of English] / N. A. Chernova, Z. M. Kuznetsova. - Moscow: FLINTA: Nauka, 2013. - 464 p. + CD. [in Russian]
4. Chernova N. A. Vzaimosvjaz' formirovanija sub#ektnyh kachestv lichnosti i povyshenija kachestva znanij v simvoliko-kommunikativnoj sfere dejatel'nosti [Interrelation between formation of subject personal qualities and improvement of quality of knowledge in symbolic and communicative field of activity] / N. A. Chernova, Z. M. Kuzntsova // Nauchnoe obozrenie [Scientific review]. - 2015. - №1. - P. 263-268. [in Russian]
5. Chernova N. A. The problem of encouraging educational activity as a way of investigating some interplay between sociocultural theory and second language acquisition / N. A. Chernova, J. N. Mustafina // Russian Linguistic Bulletin. - 2016.
- № 2 (6). - P. 50-51.
6. Leontiev A. A. Psychology and the Language Learning Process / A. A. Leontiev. - Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981.
7. Rotter J. W. Social learning and clinical psychology / J. W. Rotter. - New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954.
8. Vygotsky L. S. Thought and Language / L. S. Vygotsky. - Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.
9. Smith J. A seven-minute slice of chaos or I am puzzling through now. Unpublished research report. / Smith J. -University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh PA, 1996.
10. Wood D. The role of tutoring in problem solving / D. Wood, J. S. Bruner, G. Gross // Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. - 1976. - Iss. 17. - P. 89-100.
11. Yaroshevsky M. G. Lev Vygotsky / M. G. Yaroshevsky. - Moscow: Progress Press, 1989.
