Theoretical basis for the development of foreign grammatical competence in the process of training of students of philological specialities

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Theoretical basis for the development of foreign grammatical competence in the process of training of students of philological specialities

Olha Mahdyuk, Ph.D.(Pedagogy), Associate Professor of the Foreign Language Practice and Methodology of Teaching Department, Khmelnytskiy National University

Annotation

The article attempts to prove that grammatical competence provides systematic knowledge of the lexical, morphological, syntactic, phonetic and spelling aspects of language for the construction of meaningful and coherent utterances; possession of grammatical notions, as well as means of expressing grammatical categories; skills and abilities to adequately use the grammatical phenomena in speech activity in various communication situations for solving speech-mental problem tasks. The emphasis has been placed on the importance of raising teachers ' awareness about the diversity of methods and approaches offoreign language training of student of philological specialities. The main approaches of the consciously-communicative method have been suggested as an important component ofgrammatical competence development. It was established that the specific features of vocational language education in higher education include the presence of certain time constraints; group work, not individual work; age of students; the inability to directly immerse all students in the language environment in the study of foreign languages. This implies the need to develop new teaching methods, in particular, methods for the formation of foreign grammatical competence with the use of elements of conventional and alternative teaching methods.

Keywords: grammatical competence; students of philological specialities; foreign language studying; methods; approaches.

Анотація

Теоретичні засади розвитку іншомовної граматичної компетентості у процесі підготовки студентів філологічних спеціальностей

Ольга Магдюк, кандидат педагогічних наук, доцент кафедри практики іноземної мови та методики викладання Хмельницького національного університету

У статті зроблено спробу обґрунтувати думку, що граматична компетентність забезпечує систематичне знання студентами лексичних, морфологічних, синтаксичних, фонетичних і правописних аспектів мови для побудови значущих і послідовних висловлювань; володіння граматичними поняттями, а також засобами вираження граматичних категорій; уміння та навички адекватно використовувати граматичні явища в мовленнєвій діяльності в різних комунікаційних ситуаціях для вирішення мовленнєво- психічних задач. Наголошено на важливості підвищення обізнаності вчителів щодо різноманітності методів і підходів у процесі підготовки студентів філологічних спеціальностей з іноземної мови. Основні підходи свідомо-комунікативного методу були запропоновані як важливий компонент розвитку граматичної компетентності. Встановлено, що особливості професійної мовної освіти у вищій освіті включають наявність певних часових обмежень; групова робота, а не індивідуальна робота; вік студентів; неможливість безпосередньо занурити всіх студентів у мовне середовище у процесі вивчення іноземної мови. Це передбачає необхідність розробки нових методів навчання, зокрема, методів формування інземної граматичної компетентності з використанням елементів загальноприйнятих та альтернативних методів навчання.

Ключові слова: граматична компетентність; студенти філологічних спеціальностей; вивчення іноземної мови; методи; підходи.

Introduction. One of the priority tasks facing modern education is the formation of key competencies of training. The study of foreign languages shows that the formation of communicative competence is the most relevant thing and includes linguistic competence, one of the key components of which is grammatical competence.

Grammatical competence is the ability to correctly build phrases and sentences, correctly use and coordinate times, as well as to be aware of parts of speech and how to construct sentences of different types. Characteristic features of grammatical competence are distinguished by the following: the ability to understand and express the meaning, producing and recognizing properly executed phrases and sentences (which is the opposite of learning and the reproduction of their stable formulas), correctly executed according to these principles; unconscious use of grammatical forms of native and foreign languages, according to the laws and norms of grammar (gender, number, case, etc.), the sense of grammatical form, the presence of corrective skills in the correct use of grammatical forms: internal non verbal knowledge of the grammatical system of language, knowledge of the morphological and syntactic language system (typology of forms), as well as a set of rules. Grammatical competence provides systematic knowledge of the lexical, morphological, syntactic, phonetic and spelling aspects of language for the construction of meaningful and coherent utterances; possession of grammatical notions, as well as means of expressing grammatical categories; skills and abilities to adequately use the grammatical phenomena in speech activity in various communication situations for solving speech-mental problem tasks.

Analysis of scientific achievements and publications. Currently, there are a large number of approaches to learning that can be classified for various reasons, for example, by scientific disciplines (psychological, pedagogical, interdisciplinary, etc.), by the organization of analysis (systemic, integrated, structural, etc.), on the object of the application (personal, cultural, activity, etc.). However, as noted by I.A. Winter, “different approaches do not exclude each other”. The pedagogical approach is “a definite position, a point of view, determining research, design, organization of a particular phenomenon, process (in our case, education)” [5, 31].

In the framework of our research, we evolve the following traditional and alternative methods of foreign languages teaching: grammar-translational and textual-translational methods, communicative and consciously-communicative methods, conscious- practical and conscious-comparative methods, the direct method and its variety - natural method, audiovisual, oral (situational) teaching methods, suggestopathic method, method of enhancing the reserve capabilities of the individual and the team (Kitaygorodskaya method), method Schechter, the method of “community” (the method of “advisor”), the method of “quiet” learning (method of K. Gatteno), the method of reliance on physical actions. Along with the traditional methods of foreign languages learning, alternative or non-traditional methods of mastering one or more foreign languages are becoming increasingly relevant. There are also a large number of copyright techniques, some of which are based on the use of mnemotechnical techniques, neuro linguistic programming, the use of non-standard combinations of various traditional techniques of mastering foreign languages (T. Baytukalov, N. Demina, T Enalieva, G. Kitaygorodskaya, I. Kolker, Vi Kozarenko, K. Lomb, G. Lozanov, T. Mukhleva, O. Savelkova, Y. Schechter, E. Umin, E. Ustinova, N. Zamyatkin, M. Ziganov and others) [1 - 9]. However, the authors of many alternative methods and methods of mastering a foreign language refuse to study the grammatical structure of the language as such, arguing that focusing on this language aspect slows down the process of learning a foreign language as a whole. The purpose of most non-traditional methods and methods of teaching or self-study of foreign languages is the practical acquisition of a language, that is, a process in which speech is pon the firsr place and grammar is on the second one.

Purpose and task of the article is to study theoretical b asis for the development of foreign grammatical competence in the process of students of philological specialities training.

The main part of the article. The teacher is faced with the task, in the context of cooperation, to ensure maximum mental activity of students throughout the lesson. The teacher must have goals in class that correspond to the real goals of communication, provide students with an understanding of these goals and ways to achieve them, provide students with the opportunity to choose their own way of solving the problem. A major role is also played by the functional representation of the linguistic units under study and the need to assimilate certain linguistic phenomena consciously at the level of knowledge. Students should understand why they perform certain tasks, what benefits they will receive from their performance. The consciously- communicative method is based on the methodological principles of consciousness and communication. According to the latter, the training should be organized in such a way that all language aspects contribute to the achievement of the main goal, i.e. the use of a foreign language as a means of communication.

The main approaches of the consciously- communicative method include the following [2, 68- 70]:

- Acquaintance with the rules precedes the working out of an action in practice, while consciousness and communication do not exclude each other. However, the term “communicativeness” should not be understood narrowly, purely pragmatic”.

- An important role is played by a cooperative relationship between teacher and students.

- The learning process is aimed at developing the ability of students to learn independently, habits of self-analysis and the search for individual methods of work.

- The transition from training to speech practice and the formation of communication skills is carried out using communication supports.

- Formation of skills and abilities takes place in a given communicative situation that involves taking into account the conditions of communication (time constraints, (not) the official nature of communication, immediacy or mediation of communication), as well as the characteristics of communication participants (their social status, level of cultural development, mood, attitude of each to a friend and to the object of the statement).

- Intensification of learning from the point of view of a consciously communicative method implies the development of as many speech skills as possible, allowing one to realize the maximum possible number of communicative intentions with maximum strength and flexibility in the use of language material.

- The complexity of the lesson, the student' understanding of the subject and purpose of learning, as well as the communicative importance of each language unit are important means of optimizing the learning process.

- The use of various methods of explanation when meeting with new language material contributes to a more effective learning of this educational material.

- The compilation of a study notes containing the date, topic, purpose of the lesson and the sequence of tasks and presented to each student at the initial stage of the classroom is welcomed.

- The grammatical construction of the utterance implies a number of restrictions: starting a sentence in a certain way, the student must make a choice from a finite number of possible options for completing the utterance [2].

Comprehension, which helps to connect individual words in a message heard or read into a single thought and involves a large number of operations to establish lexical and grammatical relationships within a sentence or text, is one of the main mechanisms of speech from the standpoint of a consciously communicative approach. The mechanism of comprehension and the mechanism of anticipation or anticip ation of what follows in a further communication have a close relationship. The basis of the natural method, which is a type of the direct method, is the inerrancy of speech and the repetition of the finished structures for the teacher.

On the basis of these methods, C. Krashen and T. Tarell developed the natural Krashen method in the 1980s. Distinctive features of this method are orientation to immersion in the language environment through hours of listening and the distinction between unconscious language acquisition and conscious learning of a foreign language based on the rules. At the same time, the main emphasis is made by the creators and followers of this method on the study of vocabulary. Correction of errors of students is not a prerequisite [8, 134]. This method is characterized by the predominance of factors of emotional impact over cognitive processes. One of the theoretical principles of this method, which are of interest for work with philologists and linguists particulary, is the theory of “emotional filter”, according to which there is a need to identify the difficulties of mastering multilevel language material and developing special exercises to overcome them.

T.A. Baytukalov developed a methodology based on neuro-linguistic programming, which describes a non-traditional way of learning a foreign language, which is based on “modeling” (copying) the speech of native speakers using video and audio recordings. From the point of view of T.A. Baitukalova, from the very b eginning of learning a foreign language, emphasis should be placed on video materials in a foreign language, since the language includes a large number of non-verbal means of communication. The author considers books in a foreign language (preferably with a translation into the native language), television, radio, Internet resources and some computer programs (electronic dictionaries, speech synthesis programs, etc.) as additional educational materials. According to this methodology, the efficiency and speed of learning a foreign language directly depends on a person's ability to enter a particular “state of ignorance”, “complete immersion” in the language, “absolute involvement”, and also a willingness to abandon analytic activity in the modeling process, which means observing native speakers and the most accurate copying of their actions (verbal and non-verbal) [1, 5 - 10].

Modeling is a multi-level process that allows you to simultaneously master phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and non-verbal means of communication. In this case, learning takes place on both conscious and subconscious levels. During classes, there should b e as few references to the native language as possible. It is necessary to form links not between words in two languages (in foreign and native), but between foreign words and phenomena or objects [3, 74 - 77]. According to T.A. Baytukalova and N.F. Zamyatkin, grammatical information is unnatural for the brain, and it will reject it in every possible way. For this reason, the methods developed by the authors do not involve the conscious study of grammatical rules: students acquire grammar automatically as a result of daily classes.

The goal is to learn to “think” in the target language, which, in the opinion of the authors of the methods described above, will allow, without resorting to the help of the native language as an intermediary, to construct the necessary utterance in a foreign language in a certain communication situation. Hungarian translator K. Lomb, who speaks sixteen languages, describes her own experience of learning foreign languages by intensive reading of literature in a foreign language and using mnemotechnical techniques to memorize new vocabulary, which is the construction of an artificial context and the search for associations with already known lexical units. The factors determining the effectiveness and success in learning any foreign language, according to K. Lomb, are a positive attitude in the process of learning a language, the regularity of classes and the independent rationing of the academic load [7]. The study of grammar takes place in the process of intensive reading of literature through the independent derivation of grammatical rules and self-examination using existing textbooks.

The methods developed by modern scientists are based on the thesis of the need to organize the process of learning foreign languages, in analogy to how students learn their native language by constant observation, repetition of sounds, words, phrases, copying behavior, facial expressions and gestures. At the same time, the authors of the methods emphasize the need to block any attempts at analytic activity on the part of the learner and focus on direct, natural, or automatic assimilation of the language (s). Literacy, in their opinion, will come by itself [6, 220 - 223]. The study of grammar is called an “unnecessary stage”, which can have a negative impact on the further process of learning a language. However, in our opinion, it is unreasonable to abandon the exp erience gained by previous generations and described in various reference books and sets of phonetic, grammatical and other rules. This is the “quintessence” of the results of the analysis of a huge number of examples and the synthesis of linguistic phenomena, embodied in brief formulations of the basic linguistic patterns. The intensification of the process of foreign languages learning in the conditions of a university implies the activation of cognitive processes; the training of professional philologists should proceed with maximum mental effort on the part of the trainees. At the same time, the combination of various types of analytical activities contributes to the effectiveness of training future specialists.

Knowing the grammatical rules and basic principles of constructing statements in a foreign language, you can quickly understand the logic of the message, see the meanings conveyed by grammatical structures, and significantly reduce the likelihood of errors in understanding and interpreting the original message. The previous epoch of studying dead languages proved the inefficiency of self-directed grammatization, but one should not go to the other extreme and refuse to study the grammatical structure of the language. Grammar is an integral component of any language, which, undoubtedly, should be given due attention, especially in the process of professional language training. Often, students who do not know the general grammatical principles of constructing a sentence, the basics of the syntax of the language being studied, are not able to competently express their thoughts in a foreign language.

Intelligence and understanding of what we do and why, play an important role in the process of language learning. However, if a solid grammatical “foundation” is not laid at the initial stage of learning a language, then the student will have nothing to address in case of difficulty; his / her long-term memory will not have the “knowledge base” necessary to prevent or correct errors in a foreign language language; Moreover, without such a base, a student may not even be aware of the fact of making a mistake or causing an unnatural utterance in a foreign language.

Grammar is considered a secondary linguistic aspect, which students master gradually (often at a subconscious level) in the process of working on the main (primary) linguistic aspects. Such an approach to the grammatical side of speech is inadmissible in the process of preparing professional philologists, particularly linguists. It should also be noted that the specific features of vocational language education in higher education include the presence of certain time constraints; group work, not individual work; age of students; the inability to directly immerse all students in the language environment in the study of foreign languages. All this leads to the fact that loading foreign-language content into the mind and waiting until the subconscious self begins to produce the right constructions is not possible.

grammatical competence philologist

Conclusions

Thus, in a pure form, alternative methods cannot be applied within the framework of vocational language education and are unlikely to achieve the level of development of foreign language grammatical competence necessary and sufficient for the implementation of professional philological activities. Nevertheless, in the alternative methods and techniques described above, there are some valuable topical techniques that can be successfully used in the preparation of philologists, linguists particulary and for developing a number of necessary professional competencies, including foreign language grammatical competence.

At the same time, traditional educational concepts often no longer meet the requirements of the new reality, and the generally accepted methods of teaching foreign languages do not meet the modern requirements of future philologists. The modern stage of development of society is characterized by a transition to an “innovative” type of education, focused on the future, and to a lesser extent on the experience of the past and present; the student is now actively involved in the collaboration and decision-making process. This implies the need to develop new teaching methods, in particular, methods for the formation of foreign grammatical competence with the use of elements of conventional and alternative teaching methods.

Література

1. Вовк О.І. Сучасна стратегія формування англомовної граматичної компетенції у студентів- філологів. Психолого-педагогічні проблеми сільської школи. 2008. № 27. С. 5-10.

2. Стеченко Т.О. Формування професійно орієнтованої англомовної граматичної компетенції майбутніх філологів: дис. канд. пед. наук:13.00.02. Київ, 2004. 200 с.

3. Тригуб І.П. Формування граматичної компетенції у студентів ВНЗ у процесі вивчення англійської мови. Науковий вісник міжнародного гуманітарного університету. Сер.: Філологія. 2014. №10. С.74-77.

4. Gerngross G., Puchta Н. Creative Grammar Practice. Getting learners to use both sides of the brain. Longman Group UK Limited, 1992. 133 p.

5. Harmer J. How to Teach English. An introduction to the practice of English language teaching. Pearson-Longman, 2001.198 p.

6. Harmer J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Fourth Edition. Pearson-Longman, 2007. 448 p.

7. Hirsh A.D. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston, 1998. 619 p.

8. Spratt M., Pulverness A., Williams W The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 Second edition (book). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011. 256 p.

References

1. Vovk, O. I. (2008). Suchasna stratehiia formuvannia anhlomovnoi hramatychnoi kompetentsii u studentiv-filolohiv [The modern strategy of formation of Engli sh grammar competence for students- philologists]. Psychological-pedagogical problems of rural school. No. 27, pp. 5-10. [in Ukrainian].

2. Stechenko, T. O. (2004). Formuvannia profesiino oriientovanoi anhlomovnoi hramatychnoi kompetentsii maibutnikh filolohiv [Formation of professionally oriented English grammar competence of future philologists]. Kyiv, 200 p. [in Ukrainian].

3. Tryhub, I. P. (2014). Formuvannia hramatychnoi kompetentsii u studentiv VNZ u protsesi vyvchennia anhliiskoi movy [Formation of grammatical competence of students of university in the process of learning English]. Scientific Herald of the International Humanitarian University. Series: Philology. No.10, pp.74-77. [in Ukrainian].

4. Gerngross, G. & Puchta, Н. (1992). Creative Grammar Practice. Getting learners to use both sides of the brain. Longman Group UK Limited, 133 p. [in English].

5. Harmer, J. (2001). How to Teach English. An introduction to the practice of English language teaching. Pearson-Longman, 198 p. [in English].

6. Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Fourth Edition. Pearson- Longman, 448 p. [in English].

7. Hirsh, A. D. (1998). The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston, 619 p. [in English].

8. Spratt, M., Pulverness A. & Williams, W (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 Second edition (book). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 256 p. [in English].

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