The problem of using fairy-tailes to teach pupils English at primary school

кандидат психологічних наук, викладач кафедри практики англійської мови, Рівненський державний гуманітарний університет

Антюхова Наталія Ігорівна,

кандидат психологічних наук, доцент кафедри германської філології та перекладу, Інститут філології, Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка

ПРОБЛЕМА ПРАВИЛЬНОЇ ПІДГОТОВКИ НАВЧАННЯ УЧНІВ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ В ПОЧАТКОВІЙ ШКОЛІ

У статті показано, що вивчення іноземної мови постає неможливим поза формуванням у учнів соціокультурної компетентності. Іншомовна соціокультурна компетентність - це знання культурних особливостей носіїв мови, їх звичок, традицій, норм поведінки, етикету, а також здатність розуміти та адекватно використовувати їх у міжкультурному спілкуванні, залишаючись фіксованою моделлю поведінки людини іншої культури. Соціокультурна компетентність формується на матеріалах казок, що визначають успішність спілкування з представниками іншомовної культури, дозволяючи учням початкової школи відчувати себе впевнено та зручно в іншомовному середовищі. Було показано, що різні види казок, кожна з яких розкривала б певний аспект культури іншомовної країни, має бути для вчителя способом допомагати йому формувати соціокультурну компетентність учнів. Вибираючи казки, вчителю слід враховувати навчальні цілі уроку, адже саме казка має стати успішним засобом вивчення іноземної мови. Показано, що мовний матеріал казок базується на принципах легкого та творчого навчання. У початковій школі тематичний підхід поєднується з вивченням граматики та лексики, а мовленнєві моделі поступово ускладнюються. Одна і та ж сама схема речення може використовуватися в різних ситуаціях, оскільки для розмови з дитиною є досить зручними казкові сцени, які не перешкоджають виникненню великої кількості аналогічних висловлювань, які, в свою чергу, можна використовувати у повсякденному спілкуванні.

Ключові слова: казки, соціокультурна компетентність, іншомовне середовище, мовний матеріал, мовні моделі, мовленнєві зразки, процес спілкування.

The applicability of the article. The problem of teaching fairy-tale's materials has always been one of the key problem in the methodology of teaching foreign languages, because it is the main means of implementing this or that principle and approach. In the light of communicative and socio-cultural approaches to the teaching of foreign languages, special attention is paid to the authenticity of educational materials. Inclusion of it into the educational process allows us to create conditions for a full-fledged acquaintance of pupils with another culture [3].

At the elementary school the problem of educational materials has its own peculiarities, including the impossibility of incorporating full-fledged authentic texts into the content of instructions through lack of communicative, linguistic and socio-cultural competences of pupils. In addition, the introduction of authentic narratives at elementary school has its own specificity, which is associated with psychological and pedagogical characteristics of children of this age. Thus, educational materials has to contain an element of fiction, a certain game with a purpose to develop the imagination and thinking of any child.

That is why the subject-matter of the given article are different types of fairy-tales for teaching English pupils at primary school, which not only help teachers to use methods and approaches to teach English, but influence the development of schoolchildren's person, to form their socio-cultural competence.

The tasks of the research are:

1. To single out types of fairy-tales for teaching English.

2. To describe stages and methods of the activity with a fairy-tale at the English lessons at primary school.

3. To propose exercises for pupils from primary school to teach them to read and understand fairy-tales.

Among the wealth of accumulated folk material, we have to choose only a few ones, because we can not overcome the child with all folklore, which scientists try to preserve for scientific purposes. We have to remember that the material must be selected in accordance with the age-specific characteristics and interests of children.

A fairy-tale is a kind of narrative, mostly prose folklore, which includes multi-genre monologues, in the content of which, from the point of view of the folklore characteristics, there is no equal probability. We've to notice that a fairy-tale carries a great informational component, passed from generation to generation, faith based on respect for its ancestors.

There are different types of fairy-tales: folk ones and literary fairy-tales. The folk tale, based on the traditional plot, refers to a prose folklore (so called fairy-tale prose). The literary tale, or a tale which imitates a folk component (literary fairy- tale, written in folk poetic style), or a tale that creates a didactic product, based on non-folklore plots. The folk tale historically favors the literary one. The myth, having lost its functions, has also become a fairy-tale [6].

In myths the early elements of religion, philosophy, science and art are intertwined. The myths of different peoples are characterized by similar and repetitive themes and motives. The most typical myths about the origin of the world and a man are anthropological myths; about the origin of the sun there are solar myths, about the moon - lunar myths, according to the description of stars there are astral myths. Also in the literature we can find myths about animals; calendar myths, etc. A special place is occupied by myths about the origin and the introduction of cultural goods (firefighting, invention of crafts, agriculture), as well as the establishment of certain social institutions, marriage rules, customs and rituals. In a primitive society myths are the main way of knowing the world based on a kind of logic (not dismemberment, based on the identity of the subject and the object, the subject and a sign, some being and his/her name). Myths have features of mythological consciousness - the establishment of relationships between different phenomena. Elements of mythological thinking are preserved also in a modern mass consciousness (for example, racial and class myths, the cult of the leaders, the rituals of mass meetings, etc.). Myths in their figurative meaning are false, uncritical, detached from reality, consciousness of the person and concepts in general [1, p. 30-31].

Literary fairy-tale is a literary epic genre in prose or poetry, based on the folk tales' tradition. Folk fairy-tales are often sources of copyright. Miraculous in a literary tale, as in a folk tale, is not the end in itself, it is not a way to surprise the reader, but a means to create an ideal fairy-tale world where generosity, kindness and selflessness prevail. But there is so interesting fact that the literary fairy-tale also often consists of an oral genre. There are, therefore, many examples. First of all, of course, L.Carroll. Everyone knows that “Alice in the Land of Wonders” he had told at first and only then wrote. And Hans Christian Andersen, who only went to school and learned literacy only nineteen years ago, had told everyone his tales long before. And Astrid Lindgren's first fairy-tale about Peppi Long stocking had told her daughter in the evenings, and then on her request recorded.

As among the literary and among the folk fairy-tales we can distinguish: fairy-tales about animals; household fairy-tales; adventure fairy-tales; humorous tales; romantic ones; fables; storytelling tales; anecdotal fairy-tales; charming ones.

Novelistic fairy-tales are such tales that have the same composition with magic tales, but a lot of differences in quality. In the fairy-tale of this genre there are truly magical events. The trick is a man in a novelist tale. He is from a democratic environment, he fights for justice and power that he succeeds in. Anecdotal tale differs from the jokes by the fact that the fairy-tale is an unfolded narrative of an anecdote.

Absurd ones are these fairy-tales, built on the absurd, small in scope and also called formulaic fairy-tales, because they are inserted into the text of a big fairy-tales. The function of these tales is to capture the viewer with a future fairy-tale.

Magic in British fairy tales is traditionally associated with representatives of the “other” world: elves, fairies, giants (in “The Red Ettin” the giant turns the first of the brothers into a stone).

Adventurous tales are very close to the magic ones, but their main difference is that the hero solves the hardest tasks, thanks to ingenuity and intelligence, and not to some magical powers.

Humorous fairy-tale appears when people talk about the enemy, about a great social evil, there he fights acutely striking weapon of satire, which strikes each opponent and turned it into the spot. Human weaknesses, abnormalities at home, deviations from common sense, anti-social behavior are accompanied by a laugh that has many nuances - from condemnation to a benevolent humorous smile.

In household fairy-tales the time reflects in events in which they were invented. They are distinguished by their cocktail satire, laughing at social injustice. Household tales usually have one-line plot, not too long in content. Heroes of household fairy-tales demonstrate so simple experiences. Usually in such fairy tales there are no descriptions of any adventure or travel, and all actions takes place in one city or a village, and the heroes of fairy-tales are quite ordinary people. Household fairy-tales were often written in the era of romanticism [2].

The fairy-tale about animals is the oldest one, because our distant ancestors were completely dependent on nature, on how lucky they were to trample on some kind of prey for living, and to hunt in such a way that they would not become someone's prey. Animals for humans were just like such humans, and therefore they were easy and relaxed to feel the characters of such fairy tales, speaking in a human language, living by human laws. The same people in the fairy-tales about animals say that they are episodic ones.

Fairy-tales about animals are sometimes called even fables. First of all, it relates to fairy-tales with a pronounced instructive content, although in the vast majority of such direct healing they are deprived. But what not to take away from the fairy-tales about animals, this is a huge linguistic wealth: perfectly completed dialogues, numerous canvases, rhythmic poems, songs [4]. The example of such tale is “The Tortoise and the Hare”.

A romantic tale reflects emotions, and can describe adventures and scenic landscapes; here it is possible to meet the dreams of the characters, the unknown countries where the leg of a man has not yet stepped. The purpose of such a fairy tale is to awaken the reader's emotions, pity for the heroes or influence understanding of their heroism. It is often expressed by means of exaggeration. For example, “Cinderella” is a good example of an old romantic fairy-tale. The main character is so attractive to children of all peoples of the world because she has as many as 345 versions [5, p. 34].

Thus, various kinds of fairy-tales, each of which reveals a particular aspect of the culture of a foreign-language country, become to a teacher a method in helping him/her to form socio-cultural competence of pupils. Choosing a fairy-tale a teacher should take into account the educational objectives of the lesson, so that it becomes a successful means of learning a foreign language.

Let us described stages and methods of the activity with a fairy-tale at the English lessons at primary school.

The construction of lessons of a foreign language based on fairy-tales leads to a high efficiency of the educational process. The linguistic material of fairy-tales is based on principles of easy and creative learning. Here the thematic approach is combined with grammatical and semantic ones, and language models and speech patterns are gradually becoming more complex. One and the same sentence scheme can be used in different situations, since talking with a child uses fabulous scenes that do not prevent the emergence of a large number of analogous expressions.

Each new child's speech unit must be included into well familiar context so that complex elements for perception or reproduction are not encountered in a single chapter of the text. Due to the fact that a child who is 6-8 years old does not understand why he or she should learn a foreign language, the whole process of studying should be based on satisfaction of cognitive gaming, personal psycho-physiological needs and opportunities of the child.

Among the numerous pedagogical possibilities of a fairy-tale, the teacher should note those that most closely correspond to the psychological development of the subject of extinction. Since the English fairy-tale is an element of syncretic culture, it suggests:

? a rich palette of attendants, adequate to the artistic example of a fairy-tale of aesthetic activity (drawing, song, dance, drama, etc.);

? variability of creative tasks (making own stories, authors' fairy-tales, improvisations, etc.).

So, we'll offer such a sequence of activity with a fairy-tale (Picture 1).

Picture 1. The stages of doing the analyses of a fairy-tale

Pretext activity is the first step in motivating pupils from primary school to do some activities according to the thematic block and understanding a fairy-tale in parts, during which the atmosphere of interest for all children in the group / class is created. Thus, the means of its creation may be the use of a cross-cutting character Gingerbread Boy, whose appearance in the classroom immediately sets the children to the fact that a lesson will sound (or be read) by a fairy-tale.

Among the functions of the first stage it is necessary to allocate organizational methods of teaching (pupils are organized to different types of the activity), updating methods (actualizing educational linguistic - lexical, grammar material, and also lexical material with the national-cultural component), motivational methods (pupils have a motive before hearing/reading the text), stimulatory ones (stimulating cognitive activity of pupils).

When choosing how to present a fairy-tale (by listening or reading), the teacher has to keep in mind the special requirements for each of these types of speech activity. In the case of listening, pupils should be provided with required amount of visibility and carefully monitor the pace of speech and pupils' feedback on what they hear. The teacher's speech must be clear enough, correctly arranged by intonation, with organizing the activity of children with the aim to understand the text by a certain number of pauses. In a case of reading it is necessary to provide children with texts. Among the functions of the second stage, we can distinguish informational and activating ones (new information is provided, pupils' mental processes and attention are actualized).

It should be noted that the task of the teacher after reading/listening to the fairy-tales is not only to find out how children understood the text or liked it, but also to ensure the awareness of socio-cultural information contained in the fairy- tale. After reading/listening to the tale it is important to isolate general socio-cultural moments of the fairy-tale and to include them into productive speech activity of pupils at the English lesson.

Methodists always developed a set of exercises, designed a step-by-step activity with fairy-tales. It is known that according to the criterion of orientation, the exercises of perception the information is determined by receptive, reproductive, productive exercises, and the communicative criterion is defined by communicative, conditional communicative and non-communicative exercises. Therefore, in the proposed complex of exercises, at various stages of processing the fairy-tale the corresponding exercises are used. Thus, at the pretext stage, receptive and receptive-reproductive, non-communicative and conditional-communicative exercises are proposed, with the aim to revise studied information and memorize new linguistic material. During reading/listening to the fairy-tale, reciprocal communicative listening/reading and receptive-reproductive conditional and communicative exercises are performed, with the aim to test pupils' understanding of the content of the fairy-tale. At the last stage, conventional and communicative exercises of reproductive and productive character are dominant, the purpose of which is to include socio-cultural information into productive speech activity of pupils of primary school.

We'll illustrate the formation of socio-cultural competence of pupils by the help of English-language tales on the example of a fairy-tale “Fish and Chips” written by D.Bissett [5, p. 65].

The topic of hospitality and courtesy, which focuses on social rules of this tale, the use and selection of greetings for reception of guests at home which relates to the programmatic thematic block “Accommodation”, is a leading theme in the fairy-tale “Fish and Chips”. In its content pupils can also get acquainted with the traditional English-style dish “fish and chips”, recall the features of the design of letters and leaflets. In order to make the best use of this fairy-tale about two bird-friends who are in turn invited to each other for dinner, it is necessary to prepare such visibility: the image of Cormor Denis and Alice, the sea, fried fish oil with fish, as well brightly decorated letters from Denis to Alice and from Alice to Denis.

During the pretext activity for the perception of this fairy-tale, pupils are encouraged to perform receptive, as well as communicative and conditional exercises. So, we'll present the stages of the activity with a fairy-tale.

1. The pretext activity of pupils.

Before reading a fairy-tale, the teacher should have a conversation with pupils in order to find out what “foreign” dishes and what traditional dishes of their country they know. Among the possible variants, pupils in a great emphasis tell that they like remember kebabs, hot dogs, and also vareniks, borscht, cabbage pies, after which it is advisable to submit a linguistic-ethnographic commentary on fried potatoes with fish - a popular English dish. The teacher suggests to distribute the text of the comment to each pupil before reading the most fabulous tale and to find out the meanings of the concepts “fish and chips”, “take away”, “french fries”, “crisps” and other unfamiliar words with the help of clarity (cod, haddock, plaice, flour batter, slabs) or by explanation and translation. Fish (cod, haddock, plaice) deep fried in flour batter with chips (fried potatoes) dressed in malt vinegar is England's traditional take-away food. Fish and chips are not normally home cooked but bought at a fish and chip shop (“chippie”) to eat by “taking away”.

British English, on the one hand, and Canadian and American English, on the other, differ in their use of the word “chips”. People from the United Kingdom refer to eat fried, chipped potatoes as “chips”, whereas most people from the United States of America and Canada may call any kind of long-cut fried potato “French fries” or “fries”. The British usually serve thicker slabs of potato than the “French fries” popularized by major multinational American hamburger-chains.

The most American restaurants which serve the fish dish the combination of strips of potato-flesh still have the name “fish and chips”. But the snack as Americans term “potato chips” means “crisps” in the UK.

2. Reproductive is not a communicative exercise of Word Webs, using by the teacher with the aim of repeating studied lexical units, the semantization of new ones (cormorant, grouse, buoys, harbor) and stimulating interest in a fairy-tale.

Time: 10 minutes.

Task: Dear kids, what do you know about “chips”? What other words of traditional meals do you know? Now let's record these words in the form of a word web so that we can revise the words easily when hearing them in the story.

The Word Web may loo like this:

After the necessary vocabulary will be updated, the linguistic-national commentary is used and it will be understood that the children have adjusted to the perception of the fairy-tale, it is possible to go to the audience to listen to the fairy- tale. It should be based on the prepared visibility. (Before the lesson the teacher places on the board pictures which depict the main characters, fairytale scenes) [7, p. 78].

3. Audition of a fairy-tale "Fish and Chips".

At the stage of listening of a fairy-tale by the children, it is expedient to the teacher to stop the speech at certain intervals and apply the Predicting exercise, an example of which is given below.

Exercise is receptive-reproductive and communicative by its character, it is based on the mechanism of anticipation of events. It helps pupils to focus on the text and stimulate interest of them in the further development of the plot.

Time: 5-7 minutes.

Task: Listen to the story and try to guess what can happen next. Will Denis like eating raw fish? Will Alice come to Denis to tea?

4. Testing of listening comprehension. Receptive-Reproductive conditional-communicative exercise "Answer my questions".

Time: 5-7 minutes.

Task: Dear kids, what are the main characters of the story? Where does Denis/Alice live? Where did Denis meet Alice? Did Denis like eating raw fish? What did Denis buy for Alice?

5. Test of pupils' understanding of socio-cultural information.

The following questions are offered: “What do you know about fish and chips now? Where can you buy fish and chips in Great Britain? In the USA? Why do we need to send a letter to a person?”

6. Application of extracted socio-cultural information in productive speech activity. Exercise Sending a letter is a receptive- productive communicative exercise and the aim of it is to develop the skills of self-writing letters. In addition, pupils will be able to match the notion of traditional Ukrainian and British dishes, as well as proposing different ways of writing letters in two languages and cultures.

Time: 10-15 minutes.

Task: Dear children, Gingerbread Man has got a letter from his friend Denis. He wants to know more about Ukrainian national meals. Let's help him write a letter. Here is Denis' letter on the blackboard. Have a look and try to write your own letter. Finish this task at home [7, p. 84].

The moor, near the Golf Court Galway England Tuesday

Dear Gingerbread Man, I remember that you are good at cooking, and you are in Ukraine now.

Can you tell me anything about Ukrainian traditional meals?

Are there any meals like our pudding or peas porridge?

Conclusions. Studying a foreign language is not possible without the formation of pupils' socio-cultural competence (it includes knowledge of the geographical location and economic situation, historical development and the peculiarities of the cultural values of the country, the language they study). Foreign-language socio-cultural competence is the knowledge of the cultural features of native speakers, their habits, traditions, norms of behavior, etiquette, and the ability to understand and adequately use them in intercultural communication, while remaining a model of behavior of a person of another culture.

Socio-cultural competence is formed on the materials of fairy-tales determined the success of communication with representatives of foreign language culture, allowing pupils from primary school to feel confident and convenient in a foreign-language environment. Therefore, socio-cultural competence and help pupils to overcome cultural barriers.