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ОСНОВНОЙ РАЗДЕЛ
UDK 808.5
Abbasova N.K. senior teacher Ferghana state University Uzbekistan, Ferghana city THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNIQUES IN DEVELOPING CRITICAL ABILITIES OF THE LEARNERS IN TEACHING ENGLISH PROVERBS
AND SAYINGS
Annotation: Nowadays there are a huge number of techniques designedfor the development of language skills, but it is also very important to develop students' critical thinking in order to prepare them for adulthood. This article discusses various techniques for developing students' critical thinking through the study of proverbs and sayings, and also analyzes the effectiveness of their use in English lessons.
Key words: critical thinking, analytical thinking, oral folk art, proverb, saying, efficiency, experience, language skills, role playing.
One of the most common genres of oral folk art in any country are proverbs and sayings, the time of occurrence of which is not known, but the fact that this is the most fertile material for learning a foreign language remains an indisputable fact. Early sources describe the use of proverbs in England as one of the effective tools in teaching Latin. In proverbs and sayings a large part of human experience is formed. Owing to its generalized nature, proverbs and sayings can be used at all levels of foreign language teaching in teaching the art of allegory, the ability to illustrate one's thought and summarize it in a short form. The use of proverbs and sayings in a foreign language lesson will certainly contribute to a better mastery of this subject, expanding knowledge of the language, vocabulary and the developing of critical thinking of the learners. The purpose of this work is to analyze and summarize the experience of working with proverbs and sayings in English lessons and its efficiency in elaboration of critical thinking.
The modern school, foreign teachers - practical workers are working on the problem of developing students' cognitive activity by introducing new teaching methods, ideas and approaches to the learning process, influencing the formation of students' motivation, increasing it by strengthening the communicative orientation of the educational process. This contributes to the creation of a favorable atmosphere in the classroom for students, an increase in student interest in the subject and the development of a desire for practical use of a foreign language. Learning content consists of knowledge, skills, abilities, competencies, the mastery of which provides the ability to use language as a means of communication, the formation and development of personality. In teaching a foreign language, expressive means play a huge role. There is a need to develop a child's linguistic intuition, which helps him to select language tools for figurative utterance. Fiction and folklore play an important role in learning a foreign language. In the process of
learning English, proverbs and sayings are the expressive means that promote the development of linguistic intuition. The terms "proverb" and "saying" are always nearby. Longman Contemporary English Dictionary defines the 'proverb' as follows: "proverb -a short well known statement that contains advice about life in general". Proverbs and sayings have common properties that make them irreplaceable in the learning process: exact rhyme, simple balanced form and conciseness. Proverbs and sayings are fertile material in teaching any aspect of any language. In this article, the author considered the possibility of using proverbs and sayings in developing critical thinking of the learners. It cannot be argued that it is possible to build critical thinking entirely on the material of proverbs and sayings, however, in order to increase the motivation to learn English, improve the degree of memorization and to develop the level of critical thinking of the learners it seems appropriate to use them. Proverbs and sayings can greatly increase the level of critical thinking, but it is important to choose appropriate techniques for teaching them. The meaning of proverbs and sayings does not lay just beneath the surface, which makes students think logically. In order to include proverbs into the English lesson it is beneficial to make posters with popular proverbs and sayings and hang them on the wall. Each lessson you may discuss one proverb with your pupils in order to reveal hidden meaning and relying on the experience of past generations to infuse children to distinguish bad from good. For instance, the proverb: 'Measure thrice and cut once' can teach pupils to take the time to make serious decisions and be responsible for their actions. The teacher may tell them the story from real life or from literature where injudicious actions lead to irreversible consequences and thereby consolidate the meaning of the proverb and develop the critical thinking of children. The teacher may also divide the class for several groups, give each group one proverb and ask them to role play the situation which will show the meaning of the proverb. It will develop not only the critical thinking of the learners but also there communicative and speaking skills. While role playing in front of their classmates shy learners may gain confidence in themselves and their abilities. For example you may give one group a proverb: "When in Rome, do as the Romans." This proverb will explain the learners that we should act the way that the people around you are acting. This phrase might come in handy for your pupils when they are traveling abroad and notice that people do things differently than used to. While working on organizing the role play for this proverb learners will improve there language skills and develop their critical thinking. They will also find out a lot of new facts about some customs and traditions not only of their own culture but the culture of target language, this will help the learners to avoid culture shock in future. Another effective technique of teaching proverbs is to give your pupils a list of different proverbs and ask them to create a story based on these proverbs. You may divide your class into pairs, groups or ask pupils to work individually. In order to include the proverbs into their story they should understand the meaning of each proverb and while analyzing them they will highly increase the level of critical thinking.
In this article we want to describe the results of using one of the above-suggested techniques for developing critical thinking through proverbs and sayings in an English class in a secondary education school. During the training in secondary school #2, we conducted a lesson for 9th grade students on the topic: 'My future profession'. The aim of this lesson was not only to improve their language skills and to enrich students' vocabulary with new words related to the theme of profession and career, but also to analyze the efficiency of using proverbs and sayings for developing the critical thinking of the students. At the beginning of the lesson we didn't tell the students the theme, instead we wrote a following proverb on the board: 'If a job is worth doing it is worth doing well.' we asked the students to guess which topic we would discuss. We think it was a good way to introduce the topic because the students actively started to express their opinions and found out the theme very quickly. After that we asked what other English proverbs or sayings about professions and job they know, it was a kind of brainstorming in order to recognize whether they are familiar with oral folk art and how often proverbs and sayings are used in their everyday life. It was an efficient way of developing their critical thinking as they tried to remember some background information which made their brains work. Then we divided the students into groups of three people and distributed to each group 3 proverbs about different professions., such as 'A lovelorn cook oversalts the porridge', 'A barber does not shave himself, 'Lawyers' gowns are lined with the wilfulness of their clients', 'The shoemaker's wife is the worst shod', 'Painters and poets may have leave to lie'. Each member of a group had to show the profession that is described in the proverb without verbs and the team who first guessed it, got the score. This technique will help students develop not only language skills such as speaking and listening, but also to develop their critical thinking as they had to create the scenario of their role play and make it understandable for their classmates. So this technique will improve students' creative thinking, it may also help shy students to overcome their modesty and demonstrate their abilities. This technique is also a good way for teachers to involve to the learning all students, even inactive and low level students. Each team wanted to win and this competitive atmosphere made students be active and sharp-witted. According to the results of this survey, we can infer that the learners were satisfied with the organization of the lesson, they got a lot of new knowledge and realized the value of proverbs and sayings not only in the educational process but also in life. Most of all, they liked the technique where they needed to explain the meaning of proverbs through mime, gestures and role play. They also noted that they had learned many new proverbs and were interested in the topic of oral folk art. Some active students suggested organizing extra-classes where we could continue to develop critical thinking through proverbs and sayings.
In conclusion we can see that the use of proverbs and sayings in the development of critical thinking of students is quite effective. This can help the teacher to create a friendly and comfortable atmosphere in the classroom and to rally all students. And also to develop in students such components of critical thinking as curiosity, desire for new knowledge, openness to new ideas, interest in the learning
process, responsibility for their own education and to use acquired skills in everyday life. The modern world requires a person not only to master various knowledge and skills, but to be able to use them in life, not just to possess information, but to be able to analyze it and to distinguish truth from falsehood. Developing critical thinking will allow students to cope with difficulties, collaborate with people, discover something new and find their place in society.
Bibliography:
1. Edward M. Glaser. "Defining Critical Thinking". The International Center for the Assessment of Higher Order Thinking (ICAT, US)/Critical Thinking Community. Retrieved2017-03-22.
2. Harnish, Robert M. (2003). "Communicating with proverbs". In Wolfgang Mieder (Ed.), Cognition, Comprehension and Communication. A Decade of North American Proverb Studies (1990-2000). Hohengehren: Schneider-Verlag.
3. Mieder, Wolfgang. (1993). Proverbs Are Never Out of Season. Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age. New York: Oxford University Press.
4. Norrick, N.R. (1985). How Proverbs Mean? Semantic Studies in English Proverbs. Amesterdom: Mouton.
