Ways of developing pedagogical university students’ English language competence

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SHEE “Donbas State Pedagogical University”

Olena Iaburova

Abstract

Involvement of future specialists into advanced studying of English as the main language of international communication is a relevant problem of modern higher education in Ukraine. This issue relevance is proved by the country's integration into the European educational environment, changes in strategic directions of higher education development in Ukraine, regulations by Ukrainian Government and the Ministry of Education, in particular, the Decree of the President of Ukraine “On Declaring 2016 the Year of English Language in Ukraine”, “Common European Framework on Language Education”.

Essential changes which are now taking place in studying foreign languages, especially English, are also associated with the competency paradigm of education that focuses on achieving certain educational results and orienting scientific research of professional pedagogical education in recent years. An important condition for reformatting process of learning a foreign (English) language is monitoring future specialists' academic achievements in this field, particularly future teachers' ones.

The concept “pedagogical monitoring” is interpreted as a system of measures for collecting and analyzing data to study and evaluate the quality of professional training and to make decisions on further improvement of the educational process.

The purpose of the article is to highlight and analyze the results of monitoring the level of English of State higher educational establishment “Donbas State Pedagogical University” students and reveal the ways of improving future teachers' English communicative competence.

The monitoring stages are assessing the starting level of foreign (English) language of students who are not trained in the field of language-related professions using the tests for A2 level standards of Cambridge Educational Syndicate; reformatting the content of learning English at the university: developing and implementing the course “British Exams” into the practice of training students of primary school teacher training faculty, paying the special attention to the development of English productive communicative skills; retesting students after completing the special course.

Better results of English language skill development (reading, listening, writing, speaking) were shown by students of experimental group who took “British Exams” course.

Keywords: English communicative competence; level of English proficiency, monitoring; testing; future teachers.

Анотація

Актуальність проблеми залучення майбутніх фахівців до поглибленого вивчення англійської мови як основної мови міжнародного спілкування доведена інтеграцією країни до європейського освітнього простору, змінами у стратегічних напрямах розвитку вищої освіти України, нормативними документами Українського Уряду та Міністерства Освіти. Сутнісні зміни, що відбуваються зараз у вивченні іноземних мов, зокрема англійської, пов'язані також з компетентнісною парадигмою освіти. Важливою умовою переформатування процесу навчання іноземної (англійської) мови стає моніторинг наявних навчальних досягнень майбутніх фахівців, зокрема майбутніх учителів.

Поняття «педагогічний моніторинг» тлумачиться як система заходів щодо збирання й аналізу даних з метою вивчення й оцінювання якості професійної підготовки й прийняття рішень про подальше вдосконалення навчально-виховного процесу.

Мета статті - висвітлити й проаналізувати результати моніторингу рівнів володіння англійською мовою студентів Державного вищого навчального закладу «Донбаський державний педагогічний університет» й визначити шляхи вдосконалення англомовної комунікативної компетентності майбутніх учителів.

Етапи моніторингу: оцінювання вихідного рівня володіння іноземною (англійською) мовою студентами неіншомовних спеціальностей з використанням тесту Кембриджського Освітнього Синдикату А2; переформатування змісту англомовної освіти у виші: розроблення й впровадження у практику професійної підготовки студентів факультету підготовки вчителів початкових класів спецкурсу «Британські іспити»; повторне тестування студентів після закінчення спецкурсу.

Результати контрольного тестування засвідчили значно кращі показники сформованості всіх видів навичок володіння англійською мовою (читання, аудіювання, письмо, говоріння) в студентів експериментальної групи, що відвідували заняття спецкурсу «Британські іспити».

Ключові слова: англомовна компетентність; рівні володіння англійською мовою; моніторинг; тестування;, майбутні вчителі.

Аннотация

Актуальность проблемы привлечения будущих специалистов к углубленному изучению английского языка как языка международного общения доказана интеграцией страны в европейское образовательное пространство, изменениями в стратегических направлениях развития высшего образования Украины, нормативными документами Украинского правительства и Министерства образования.

Важные изменения, происходящие сейчас в области изучения иностранных языков, в частности английского, связаны также с компетентностной парадигмой образования. Главным условием переформатирования процесса обучения иностранному (английского) языку становится мониторинг имеющихся знаний в этой области будущих специалистов, в частности будущих учителей.

Понятие «педагогический мониторинг» определяется как система мероприятий по сбору и анализу данных с целью изучения и оценки качества профессиональной подготовки и принятия решений о дальнейшем совершенствовании учебновоспитательного процесса.

Цель статьи - изложить и проанализировать результаты мониторинга уровней владения английским языком студентов Государственного высшего учебного заведения «Донбасский государственный педагогический университет» и определить пути совершенствования англоязычной коммуникативной компетентности будущих учителей.

Этапы мониторинга: оценка начального уровня владения иностранным (английским) языком студентами неязыкових специальностей с использованием теста Кембриджского Образовательного Синдиката А2; переформатирование содержания англоязычного образования в вузе: разработка и внедрение в практику профессиональной подготовки студентов факультета подготовки учителей начальных классов спецкурса «Британские экзамены»; повторное тестирование студентов после окончания спецкурса.

Результаты контрольного тестирования показали значительное улучшение показателей сформированных умений и навыков владения всеми видами англоязычной речевой деятельности (чтение, аудирование, письмо, говорение) у студентов экспериментальной группы, посещавших занятия спецкурса «Британские экзамены».

Ключевые слова: англоязычная компетентность; уровни владения английским языком; мониторинг; тестирование; будущие учителя.

Problem setting in general. Orientation of Ukraine to expand international contacts, gradual integration of the country into European political, economic and scientific area, global changes in the strategic directions of modern higher education development require significant changes in teaching foreign languages. First of all, it refers to English as a language of international communication and learning English has become now a priority for the development of our country.

Essential changes, that are taking place in learning foreign languages, especially English, are also associated with the competency paradigm of education that focuses on achieving the certain educational result and supervises scientific research of pedagogical and professional education over recent decades. Developing a group of required pupils' (students') competences, gaining corresponding competencies (interactive foreign language communication, fluent foreign language speaking etc.) give university graduates an opportunity to feel comfortable in today's world and to integrate effectively into the professional sphere of international context.

The latest papers and publications on the problem. Among the fundamental documents concerning issues of improving the quality of the national language education we pay the special attention to the official documents of Ukraine Government and Ministry of Education: the Decree of the President of Ukraine № 641/2015 “On Declaring 2016 the Year of English Language in Ukraine” [1] that outlined the key directions of the new state language policy and “Common European Framework on Language Education: Learning, Teaching, Assessment” [2] as the main documents that are used to describe achievements of foreign languages learners in Europe and gradually in other countries.

The Decree of the President of Ukraine “On Declaring 2016 the Year of English Language in Ukraine” confirms the role of English as the language of international communication, supports its studying to expand public access to the world's economic, social, educational and cultural events that provide learners with the knowledge and experience of using English, it also contributes to the integration of Ukraine into the European political, economic, scientific and educational space, puts forward the Go Global programme, which defines learning English as priority strategic directions of development. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine provides a number of events aimed at enhancing the study of English by citizens, they are primarily university students, postgraduates, doctoral students, teaching, scientific and pedagogical staff. Among the events there are professional competitions, Olympiads, encouraging Ukrainian schools to participate in the educational programme of the European Union “E-Twinning Plus”, expanding the network of language summer camps, launching the project on improving teaching staff's professional skills in English. They plan to attract foreign specialists who are native speakers, including volunteers, for English language teaching [1]. Moreover, according to the qualification requirement university scientific and pedagogical staff have to be fluent speakers and this should be proved by the appropriate certificate. english communication competence teacher

Advanced studying of a foreign (English) language, fluent speaking skills are correlated with the communicative competence as one of the key requirement in the general system of competences set out by the international experts in the programme “Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Bases” (DeSeCo), analyzed and adapted to the realities of national education by Ukrainian scientists (T. Baibara, N. Bibik, O. Ovcharuk, O. Onopriienko, K. Ponomarova, O. Pometun, O. Savchenko and others).

Among the subject competences scientists distinguish the language one that implies gaining the appropriate and necessary amount of language knowledge, the ability to use language tools in the speech according to pronouncing, lexical, grammatical, orthographic, syntactic, stylistic norms of literary language and speech competence as the ability to understand the meaning and the main idea of oral and written speech, engage a dialogue following the rules of speech etiquette, the ability to build a complete, communicatively related, coherent oral and written statements (K. Ponomarova [3]).

An attraction of future professionals, particularly future teachers, to advanced studying of English should start with the reorientation of higher foreign language education into the active and communicative, student-centered and culture-oriented educational process, as this aspect makes versatily rethink approaches to choosing efficient technology and methods of foreign language learning, adjust and test the level of the modern student's knowledge. The relevance of focus on communication in the process of developing future teachers' language and speech competence has been proved by the specialists in language education, they are M. Vashulenko, I. Gudzyk, K. Ponomarova and others. Thus, M. Vashulenko emphasizes on the fact that speech is an activity, a set of a person's practical skills, being formed while listening, speaking, reading, writing, it is the process of communication and a language is a means of communication [4]. That's why language learning should be accompanied with the awareness of the main goal that implies communication.

An important condition for reformatting the process of foreign (English) language learning is monitoring future specialists' academic achievements, particularly future teachers.

Monitoring is known to be a mechanism to control and assess quality of the modern system of education, a constant observing tool of the educational process in order to identify its compliance with the educational standards. O. Skubashevska indicates that monitoring is an effective means of obtaining complete, objective, relevant, adequate and accurate information about functioning the educational system and its components [6].

The notion of “pedagogical monitoring”, which is currently used in pedagogy, is interpreted as a system of measures for collecting and analyzing data to study and assess the quality of professional training and make decision on developing the educational process on the basis of the analysis of typical features and trends (Ye. Khrykov [7]); as system diagnostics of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of functioning efficiency and tendencies of educational system self-development that includes objectives, contents, forms, methods, didactic and technical facilities, conditions and results of training, upbringing and self-development of both the individual and group (V. Andrieiev [8]); as an appendant control with current correction of educational interaction between a teacher and a student in the educational process (P. Matviienko [9]).

Monitoring is formed as a multilevel system of diagnostic procedures that are held by techniques which objectively reveal the indicators of quality education [5].

The aim of the study is to highlight and analyze the results of monitoring the levels of English of State higher education institution “Donbas State Pedagogical University” BA students and identify the ways of improving the future teachers' English communicative competence.

Presentation of basic research material. Common European Framework on Language Education singles out six levels of language skills that have been developed by the Association of Language Experts ALTE (The Association of Language Testers in Europe): introductive (Breakthrough or A1), preintermediate (Waystage or A2), intermediate (Threshold or B1), upper- intermediate (Vantage or B2), advanced (Effective Operational Proficiency or C1) and proficiency (Mastery or C2). These are the summarized results of academic achievements, certain levels of skills in each kind of language activity (speaking, listening, reading, writing), which should be achieved by students at every stage of learning.

According to the direction of the global reorientation of Ukraine to expansion of international contacts and integration into the European educational and scientific space, monitoring of future teachers' levels of language (English) and speech competence has been conducted at the State Higher Educational Establishment “Donbas State Pedagogical University” (Sloviansk).

The first step was to assess the initial level of foreign (English) language of students of non-language-related specialties (primary school teachers training faculty, pedagogical, technological, special education, physical education and physical-mathematical faculties). Higher education establishment students have been proposed to do tests made on the base of materials offered by Cambridge Educational Syndicate, the main global promoter of standardization in English. According to the European system of language education this test determines students' skills on level A2 that is considered to be the basic level of oral and written speech. The test has fundamental differences from traditional one, existing at Ukrainian universities, that includes the system of lesson, module, current and final control with the following elements:

- a complex and integrated approach;

- communicative value and adequacy for realizing the goals and tasks of communication within each real-life situation;

- the authenticity of language, speech units, social and cultural illustrative materials used during the test;

- typical speech patterns and their compliance with the modern standards of communication;

- frequency of using communicative patterns in modern speech;

- minimization which enables to organize the successful communication at this level.

Certificate confirming the knowledge of the foreign language at a basic level A2 involves developing certain speech and language skills. Their analysis is presented in Table 1.

Cambridge Educational Syndicate test (level A2) includes three parts: listening, reading and writing tasks. The content of the test covers the tasks to check the levels of receptive (listening, reading) and productive (writing) skills in the foreign language.

Table 1. Developing speech and language competencies at level A2 (Basic user or beginner)

To test the first group of skills (receptive) the tasks to identify and separate the essential information from the general context are provided in a visual or audial form. The second group of skills (productive) is tested by expressing personal opinions in a written form following the given instructions.

134 students of non-language-related specialties at State higher education establishment “Donbas State Pedagogical University” were involved into testing their knowledge of English. The general level of speech and language competences of SHEE “Donbas State Pedagogical University” students after the three stages of tasks is presented in picture 1.

To study the test results the Cambridge Education Syndicate offers to distribute students' personal achievements according to the levels of total percentage success rates after doing three stages of tasks and arrange them in a general result table (see Table 2), so that each student has an opportunity to determine his/her level of speech and language competences and his/her position in the level scale of knowledge.

Picture 1. Indicators (%) of speech and language competences of students of different faculties at SHEE “Donbas State Pedagogical University”

Table 2. Testing Level Scale

Here are the test results of 134 students at State higher education establishment “Donbass State Pedagogical University” according to the distribution of their successful performance (see Table 3).

Table 3. The general results of SHEE “Donbas State Pedagogical University” students' testing

It should be noted that the vast majority of students who have demonstrated the level of A2 Elementary and B1 Intermediate (above 70%) have additional English classes during the study at higher school, while the others showed only school English language skills and knowledge acquired while learning the foreign language at the university.

Comparative analysis of receptive and productive skill formation shows a steady advantage of the first group representatives and demonstrates insufficient communication and interactive types of class activities while teaching students both at school and university. Visualized indicators of forming English skills of different types are presented in picture 2.

Picture 2. Indicators (%) of forming students receptive and productive skills in English testing

Testing levels of BA students' knowledge of English that took place at State higher educational establishment “Donbas State Pedagogical University” showed quite low performance indexes. According to the criteria of European language education only 30% of the students who took part in the testing confirmed the knowledge of the foreign language at level A2, while the university graduates should have B2 level, this fact is stated in the national educational regulations in the sphere of language education. Moreover, students' receptive skills prevail over productive ones that proves insufficient development of future teachers' communicative and foreign language competence. Students' inability to express their thoughts in written form can be a barrier to a successful transition to the higher education Bologna process.

The conducted testing was the first stage of students' English knowledge monitoring at SHEE “Donbas State Pedagogical University”.

The next step was an attempt to reformate the content of English language education at the university. As a result, the course “British Exams” was designed and put into practice of students' training at one of the university faculties - Primary School Teachers' Training Faculty.

The content of the course was built on the immersing in different types of speaking, reading, writing and listening activities. The goals of the course are the following:

- teaching students to understand informative or fiction texts, everyday documents, articles and reports on contemporary themes;

- teaching students listening comprehension of authentic fragments of different complexity levels of simple short texts (ads, brochures, menus, schedules) as well as complicated ones in structure and language means (textbooks, specialized articles and fiction works) and demonstrate their understanding during test performance;

- developing the skills of writing simple text messages, linked texts on familiar topics or personal interest ones, preparing reports to justify or disprove certain thoughts, letters with personal attitude to the events;

- teaching students to communicate on simple everyday topics, communicate about social, cultural, economic and political spheres of society using appropriate vocabulary.

The course “British Exams” includes 90 academic hours, distributed in the following way:

- teaching to read (articles from periodicals, personal and business letters, advertisements, schedule, transport timetables, menus, recipes, TV programmes, personal notes, messages) - 20 hours;

- teaching to write (autobiography, questionnaires, forms, reports, personal letters, background information, descriptions of a person, an object, a place, a situation and an event, etc.) - 20 hours;

- teaching to speak (using the formula of speech etiquette, news message, story about certain facts and events of students' lives, expressing personal reasons, statements and feelings, describing future plans, encouraging partners to provide the necessary information, transferring simple business messages) - 25 hours;

- teaching to listen to dialogue and monologue texts, ads (at the airport, railway stations, etc.), fiction descriptions, teaching to define the meaning of unfamiliar words based on guessing due to resemblance to their native language - 25 hours.

As a result we can mark a significant increase in the number of interactive forms of work, special attention to forming future teachers' foreign language communication skills, the approximation of their context of English classes to real academic and everyday communicative situations.

After completing the course “British Exams” by future primary school teachers (two experimental groups of 15 people were made) retesting students was conducted. To identify the efficiency of the proposed methodology, 30 students, who had not been the participants of the mentioned course and learned English according to the regular curriculum, were invited to take part in testing as a control group. Now the test consisted of four types of tasks: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

The indicators of formation of different types of English language skills of experimental group students who took the course “British Exams” and control group students who attended English lessons according to the regular curriculum are disclosed (see Picture 3).

Picture 3. Indicators (%) of English skill formation of the students tested at the controlling stage.

The test results showed significantly better performance indexes of all kinds of English skills formation of the experimental group students who took the course “British Exams” classes, especially in speaking English.

Conclusion

The organization of monitoring BA students' English communicative competence at SHEE “Donbass State Pedagogical University” proved the efficiency of the course “British Exams” development and its implementation into educational process according to the principles of language education in Europe. Introducing the interactive communicative methods, paying special attention to the developing the productive skills of English communication, choosing interesting lesson themes and original lesson forms contribute to arising students' interest, increasing their motivation to learn English and, in general, are aimed at forming English communicative competence, that is the ability to communicate in English on themes and situations using the appropriate language and speech material at high levels of proficiency.

References (translated and transliterated

1. Ukaz Prezydenta Ukrainy №641/2015 Pro oholoshennia 2016 roku Rokom anhliiskoi movy v Ukraini [The Decree of the President of Ukraine № 641/2015 On announcement the year 2016 as the year of English in Ukraine] (2016, November 16). Retrieved from http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/6412015-19560 [in Ukrainian].

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6. Skubashevska, O. (2008). Monitorynh yakosti osvity: poniattia ta realnist zdiisnennia [Monitoring education quality: concept and the reality of implementation]. Vyshcha osvita Ukrainy - Higher education in Ukraine, 3, 37 - 42 [in Ukrainian].

7. KHrykov, Ye. M. (2005). Monitorynh yakosti osvitnikh posluh vyshchoho navchalnoho zakladu [Monitoring the quality of educational service of higher educational establishment]. Tekhnolohiia navchannia doroslykh: zmist, struktura, osnivni kharakterystyky, 6 - 9 [in Ukrainian].

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