Future philologists’ language competence formation on the basis of aspect integration

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

FUTURE PHILOLOGISTS' LANGUAGE COMPETENCE FORMATION ON THE BASIS OF ASPECT INTEGRATION

L.V. Kalinina

T.Yu. Grygorieva

L.M. Chumak

Abstract

The characteristics of the 4 C's components (content, communication, cognition, culture) of the integrated language module on the topic «Meals» and the integrated skills for each of them are described.

The effectiveness and expediency of integrated language competence formation both for university teachers and students were experimentally proved. The results of interviewing and incomplete tests presented in the article speak about the qualitative growth of students' language knowledge, habits and skills.

Key words: language competence, aspect integration, integrated language module, incomplete sentence test, future philologists, foreign languages, Higer Education Institution, methods of teaching.

Анотація

ФОРМУВАННЯ МОВНОЇ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТІ МАЙБУТНІХ ФІЛОЛОГІВ НА ОСНОВІ АСПЕКТНОЇ ІНТЕГРАЦІЇ.

Л.В. Калініна, Т.Ю. Григор'єва, Л.М. Чумак.

Стаття розглядає можливості формування мовної компетентності студентів-філологів мовного закладу освіти. Автори наголошують на важливості підготовки висококваліфікованих конкурентоздатних спеціалістів нового типу, які здатні швидко адаптуватися у новому полікультурному інформаційному суспільстві, готові до співробітництва з представниками інших країн, до самоосвіти та навчання впродовж життя.

Зосереджено увагу на вимогах Болонської конвенції, Загальноєвропейських рекомендаціях з мовної освіти, нових освітніх стратегіях України до професійної підготовки майбутнього вчителя-філолога у мовних закладах освіти. Проаналізовано різні підходи до професійної підготовки майбутніх філологів. Розглянуто переваги інтегрованого формування мовної компетентності студентів, як такої, що дозволяє їм самостійно розвивати свій загальнокультурний і лінгвістичний кругозір, формувати власну ресурсно-інформаційну базу для подальшого самовдосконалення та використовувати знання сучасних наук у відповідності до своєї спеціальності.

Автори вбачають важливість міжаспектної інтеграції у можливості відійти від крайньої диференціації предметного навчання, усунення дублювання у вивченні однакових явищ з різних спеціальних предметів і зведенні нового комплексу мовних знань, навичок та вмінь до органічного зв'язку з майбутньою професією, що сприяє формуванню у студентів відчуття розуміння цінності отримання лінгвістичних знань.

Розкрито особливості формування даного виду компетентності на першому курсі мовного закладу освіти, на якому студенти вперше отримують професійно значущі мовні знання, навички та вміння, що значно відрізняються від шкільної програми.

Висвітлено необхідність створення пакета навчальних матеріалів у межах певної теми інтегративного мовного модуля з метою ефективного формування мовної компетентності студентів. Розглянуто компоненти інтегративного мовного модуля з теми «Meals», надано характеристики 4 «C» content, communication, cognition, culture та визначено інтегративні вміння у кожному з них.

Експериментально доведено успішність міжаспектної інтеграції для формування мовної компетентності студентів як для викладачів англійської мови ЗВО, так і студентів-філологів. Представлено результати опитування викладачів ЗВО та тесту «незакінчених речень» студентів, які свідчать про якісний зріст мовних знань, навичок та вмінь майбутніх вчителів-філологів.

Ключові слова: мовна компетентність, міжаспектна інтеграція, тематичний інтегративний модуль, тест незакінчених речень, вчитель-філолог, інозені мови, заклад вищої освіти, методи навчання.

Introduction of the issue

The extension of cooperation with European countries, rapid development of politics, economy and science in Ukraine requires training of highly qualified, competitive specialists who are capable of rapid adaptation to a new multicultural information society, can solve professional problems independently and are ready for self-education and lifelong learning.

New educational strategies of Ukraine the Law «On Education», the Law of Ukraine «On Higher Education», «The State Standard of Basic and Complete General Secondary Education», «New Ukrainian School Concept» and others also put forward new requirements for both: the preparation of secondary school students of the new generation, as well as for future teachers' professional training, who are responsible for the implementation of state educational reforms [9; 10].

According to the Bologna Agreement, the participating countries, including Ukraine, seek to expand educational and cultural ties, integrate experience, knowledge, skills and abilities in higher education institutions, and intensify students' academic mobility. To do this, students of a language university must have a high level of foreign language proficiency of an experienced user, which is indicated in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages; have the skills of foreign-language communicative competence in order to «successfully solve the problems of mutual understanding and interaction with native speakers, in accordance with the norms and cultural traditions in direct and indirect contacts» [2].

The mentioned above causes to reconsider the essence of modern approaches to future teachers' professional training in the institution of higher education; to prepare him / her as a linguistic and language personality, who manifests himself / herself in foreign-language communication on the basis of knowledge, skills and abilities gained.

Current state of the issue. The issues of a foreign language teacher's professional training are highlighted in a number of Ukrainian and foreign scientists' publications: S. Y. Nikolayeva, O. B. Bigich, N. F. Borisko, V. O. Kalinin, V. G. Redko, N. V. Tuchina, J. Harmer, M. Wallace. Professional training of a future philologist is presented in the works of O. S. Humankova, Y. Y. Klimovich, L. M. Chumak, R. Dekeyzer, B. Ellis, H. Battarkman, S. Joewen and others. philology student language competence

The analysis of these works shows that their authors single out two main approaches to professional training of future philologists as a linguistic and language personality: a traditional approach that is based on explicit learning of a foreign language, and integrated approach, which in its turn is based on implicit language proficiency.

Outline of unresolved issues brought up in the article. Without reducing the merits of the analyzed scientific works, we believe that the challenges of the 21-st century require from language universities the necessity of training new generation specialists of philology those, who are able to broaden their general cultural and linguistic horizons independently; form their own resource and information base for further self-improvement; use knowledge of modern sciences in accordance with their specialty; systematize, generalize and use the best experience of Ukrainian and foreign scientists.

We see the implementation of the above-mentioned ideas in the integration of subject knowledge, professionally significant skills and abilities of future teachers-philologists.

Aim of research. The aim of this article is an attempt to substantiate the possibilities of aspect integration in language university students' language competence formation on the basis of an integrated language module.

Results and discussion

The issues of the integrated approach are widely represented in the pedagogical literature, particularly in N. F. Borisko, O. A. Nikitenko, E. R. Chernyshova, M. Wallace and others. Dictionary of Foreign the works of L. O. Konoplyanko, L. V. Kalinina, D. Marsha, «The Explanatory Languages» gives the following definition of the concept `integration': «mastering of the development process parts, elements and aspects, that are associated with their combination into a single unity» [8]. However, in modern sense, an integrated approach means not only the «combination» of knowledge, skills and abilities obtained from different disciplines, but also the possibility to avoid extreme differentiation of subject learning; the elimination of duplication in the study of the same phenomena in different subjects but bringing together the whole complex of knowledge, skills and abilities to a natural, organic connection with life and future profession. Our working experience at a language university has shown that mastering students' ability to integrate general professional competences with highly specialized ones, contributes to the formation of their understanding the value of gaining knowledge and increases the motivation of educational activities.

We believe that integration of subject knowledge and professionally essential habits and skills will lead students to mastering three basic competences:

· general, which will enable them to develop their cultural and linguistic outlook, gain knowledge of teaching learners of different age groups, cooperate with other teachers borrowing their experience and finally plan their future self-education;

· didactic, which presupposes students' readiness to make decisions independently in any teaching situations and take responsibility for them; use knowledge according to their specialty; systematize, generalize and use the best teaching experience of Ukrainian and foreign teachers;

· special, which points at the ability to share experience, participate in professional discussions and conferences, plan learners' individual mastering a foreign language programme regarding their interests and guide their self-preparation for State Final Examination and Independent external evaluation.

In this respect, integration means not only deepening and specification of general concepts, but also enables students to see the interrelation of the same notions from different aspects and sciences. From our point of view, integration forms the basis of overall idea and understanding about the language and laws of its development, enables to use systematic learning within new interrelations.

Scientists single out the possibilities of integrated approach in terms of:

• content (when we integrate the content of different fields of knowledge);

• method (using all fields of knowledge in a creative developing paradigm);

• technology (integration of various means of activities);

• mode of teaching (interaction in different communicative modes: student - student, teacher-student etc.).

The specific character of the subject «Foreign Language» determines the specific possibilities of content integration, which allows to combine the components of linguistic competence (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary), speech competence (listening, speaking, reading, writing) within the framework of a certain topic. Such integration, in our opinion, involves the integration of the 21-st century skills and technologies, including media-educational and information-communicative technologies. And since the main goal of mastering a foreign language at a language university is to form a foreign language communicative competence, the integration of methods of communicative interaction will be based on the technologies of cooperative learning in different modes.

We share the opinion of Professor N. F. Borysko that the traditional distribution of a foreign language into aspects is artificial, contrary to the functioning and use of language in the process of communication, and makes it impossible to implement the principle of communication, because linguistic phonetics and grammar dominate as an object of learning. Aspect teaching does not create conditions for foreign language communication, because in such classes students gain only some language knowledge, and this fact cannot motivate students' speech activity [7].

We are absolutely confident that the overall integration of all aspects of the language competence has huge methodical opportunities when organized as a whole set of teaching materials within each topic, and which is called «Integrated Language Module».

Our observations and the experiment carried out on the first course of studies in the Institute of Foreign Philology in Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University proved the effectiveness of the students' language competence formation on the basis of aspect integration.

The first course of studies was chosen not accidentally since first-year students gain their first professionally essential language knowledge, habits and skills which differ from school studies. Furthermore, the students have an opportunity to enlarge basic knowledge of Phonetics, Linguistics, Grammar that they lack on the basis of Integrated Language Module. The example on the topic «Meals» is presented in the following table.

Table 1. INTEGRATED LANGUAGE MODULE 4 (MEALS)

According to the structure and content of the Integrated Language Module, not only the aspects of language competence, which are presented horizontally, but also the so-called 4 «C» Content, Communication, Cognition, Culture, presented vertically, are studied in unity and this provides a clear picture of integrated skills in each of 4 «C»-s. Thus, for example, in terms of communication within the given topic the students are to learn not only how to ask their groupmates about taste preferences but also speak about their food preferences with the help of modal verbs, different types of questions (general, disjunctive, alternative), grammar structures (would you / what about), describe their favourite dishes and if it is necessary share the recipes using active topic vocabulary. They should be also aware of pronunciation, intonation, stress and rhythm of all types of questions and statements within the topic studied.

Besides, we assume that such integration provides an opportunity to integrate different methods of teaching. For example:

· communicative-problem methods (e. g. participation in cross-cultural taskoriented discussion);

· problem-solving / searching methods (independent information search under the instruction of the teacher);

· the use of innovative technologies of the 21^st century in the teaching process of all aspects of language competence: ICT, QR codes, electronic dictionaries;

· media-educational technologies (white board, smart phone, word cloud, scavenger hunt, branding);

· technologies of blended learning (flipped classroom, rotation modes);

· technologies of cooperative learning (the whole group techniques, jig-saws etc.).

Integration of content, methods and technologies is a set of teaching materials for the formation of linguistic competence that is phonetics, vocabulary and grammar within a particular topic.

We believe that having acquired the basic skills of intonation and pronunciation during Introductory Course, students continue to upgrade their phonetic competence by means of such phonetic phenomena as assimilation, reduction, elision, palatalization etc. In this respect we speak about knowledge of linguistic phonetics. Due to receptive and reproductive phonetic exercises that each module contains, the students familiarize themselves with pedagogical phonetics.

While forming grammar competence, we suggest using communicative grammar exercises which require learners' awareness of grammar functions rather than forms, knowledge of grammar meanings especially of the structures on the borderline with vocabulary as they may convey lexical meaning. As a result, this will lead to so-called intuition in use of grammar. In other words this is implicit knowledge of language structure which is as a rule subconscious but leads to fluent use of grammar while speaking or writing and to better understanding while listening or reading.

Lexical content of each Integrated Language Module corresponds to its topic. First of all, the vocabulary is enlarged due to the components of sociocultural competence which means the ability to choose, use and understand the language and ways of communication with cultural semantics in accordance with situational context and style of communication. The next factor of enlarging students' vocabulary is cognition which implies: a) the ability to distinguish multi-syllable words and word-building elements from the point of view of morphology; b) working with derivatives; c) use of synonyms and antonyms and others.

As it can be seen from the structure and content of the Integrated Language Module, due to such integration the principles of integrated approach and didactic integration are observed. They are:

The principle of cultural awareness. In phonetics it deals with pronunciation of difficult words either of British or American national cuisine; in terms of lexis the students enlarge their vocabulary both with topical and nonequivalent lexical units; concerning grammar students study such grammar structures that convey different communicative functions while either discussing culinary advantages or ordering a meal in a cafe, etc.

· The principle of self development and self-education. It presupposes that future teachers do not only enhance their sociocultural knowledge and develop their language skills on the topic using all available resources including the Internet, but also improve their professional skills such as selecting teaching methods and learning modes for learners with different level of English proficiency ranging from A1 to B1+, or B2 etc.

· The principle of the communicative approach. It is based on the idea that the whole utterance should sound correct and natural in terms of intonation and in accordance with the communicative function in order to gain more information (special questions; polite requests with the word «please» at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the sentence; the correct use of modal words to express a personal view, differentiation between words and speech patterns that can be easily mixed up while transferring information which is either heard or seen).

· The principle of creativity. It allows a teacher to use creative activities (writing a menu, an announcement for the restaurant opening, reviews, an advertisement of favourite dishes, roleplaying). While performing these activities students can reveal their creativity on the basis of the comprehensive study of the topic to the maximum.

Our observation shows that the Integrated Language Module that is designed within every topic studied during the first year in Higher Education Institution on the basis of didactic integration principles will enable a foreign language teacher to see what integrative skills students must acquire when studying the topic in accordance with all 4 «C»-s.

Our experimental research proved that such integration was useful and effective both for University teachers and students. The interview, conducted for university teachers who had been working within the Integrated Language Module, enabled us to generalize the qualitative results of the experiment and vary planning the teaching process in terms of:

• improving the contents of language disciplines;

• changing the order of grammatical notions depending on the topic of the module;

• shifting logically the topics of the University discipline “Practical course of the English language»;

• introducing new conversational situations within a familiar topic with some specifications and additions due to current changes and individual students' needs;

• enlarging the volume of intensiveness of language components' interconnection as they are topically combined and aimed at solving a common task;

• using various teaching methods (communicative, problem) and innovative techniques (mixed, hybrid, problemsolving and others);

• systematizing students' cognitive and learning activity;

• enlarging linguistic sociocultural consideration of the language competence components (phonetics, linguistics, grammar);

• providing all-round language personality development of the students of the University of Foreign Languages who are regarded as future professionals in the field of Philology.

All respondents appreciated the effectiveness of the integration that allowed them to create the whole language environment in which a language personality, that is a teacher, a philologist, is formed. Such kind of a teacher masters a foreign language with great awareness in order to teach it to his potential students.

While working on Integrated Language Module, the future teachers of foreign languages of the experimental group were offered to do «a test of incomplete sentences» the aim of which was to assess the quality of their personal language competence formation. In our opinion, this test provided students with the opportunity to conduct proper selfevaluation.

A few examples, summarized in accordance with specific language competence components, are illustrated further in the article.

Phonetic competence

• I have managed (to enlarge my

own phonetic competence by means of getting to know different shades of constructing the language such as assimilation, reduction, palatalization (61 %); to understand the difference in the pronunciation of words in the English and American variants (54 %); to realize that intonation in the English language conveys different shades of meaning (67 %)).

• I can (explain to my future students why certain English words are pronounced in such a way, in what cases one and the same sound will be pronounced differently (72 %);

participate in interaction with friends using correct intonation (66 %)).

Grammar competence

• I realize (that communicative intentions can be expressed with the aid of grammar patterns and structures (74 %); that some prepositions in the English language, except lexical ones, convey grammatical meaning, while some meanings do not coincide with the prepositions in the Ukrainian language or do not exist at all (86 %)).

• I am able (to define the communicative functions of many grammatical structures (58 %); differentiate the correlation of meanings and the cases of using grammatical structures which correspond to Ukrainian and the English languages (84 %)).

Lexical competence

• I am satisfied because I (acquired linguistic sociocultural knowledge (words with no direct equivalents in Ukrainian / culturespecific lexis, background lexis) which I didn't learn at school (67 %); learned a lot of idioms, proverbs and collocations on each topic (87 %); enlarged my vocabulary with the help of derivatives (73 %)).

• I find it easy (to recognize multisyllabic words and word-building elements prefixes, suffixes and others (48 %); to use synonyms and antonyms on each topic (72 %); linking phrases (53 %)).

The number of incomplete sentences with negative answers was far fewer, as a result they did not affect general evaluation of the experiment. For example:

• I do not always manage (to use lexical units correctly in different contexts (31 %); to pronounce stressed and unstressed words in the sentence to build proper rhythm (24 %) and others).

Conclusions and research perspectives

The research which was conducted on the first-year students' language competence formation at the University of Foreign Languages on the basis of aspect integration proved its effectiveness and was positively evaluated both by teachers and students. Everything mentioned above allows us to come to the conclusion about the expediency of using aspect integration on the basis of the Integrated Language Module as a means of language competence formation of future teachers of foreign languages.

References (translated & transliterated)

1. Bebyk, V. (2004). Bolonskyi process: perspektyvy i rozvytok u konteksti integracii Ukrainy v Yevropeiskyi prostir vyschoii osvity [Bologna process: perspectives and development in the context of integration of Ukraine into European environment of higher education]. MAUP, 200 [in Ukrainian].

2. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. (2003). Cambridge University Press, 257 [in English].

3. De Keyzer, R. (2003). Implicit and Explicit Learning. In C. Doughty, M. Long (Hrsg). The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Maldew: Blackwell, 313-348 [in English].

4. Ellis, R., Basturkmen, H., & Joeken S. (2002). Doing Focus on Form. System 30, 419-432 [in English].

5. Konoplenko, L. (2014). Mizhpredmetna intehraciia u vyschomu navchalnomu zakladi [Subject integration in higher education institution]. Retrieved from: https://ela.kpi.ua/bitstream/123456789/785971/Konoplenko.pdf [in Ukrainian].

6. Marsh, D. (2002). Content and Language Integrated Learning: the European dimension actions, trends and foresight potential. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 204 [in English].

7. Nikolayeva, S. (2011). Metodyka formuvannia mizhkulturnoii inshomovnoi komukatyvnoii kompetentnosti: Kurs lekcii: [navch.-metod. posibnyk dlia studentiv movnyh specialnostei osvitnyo kvalifikaciinoho rivnia «Mahistr»] [Methodology of crosscultural foreign communicative competence formation: Course of lectures: [a course book in teaching methodology for language students of educational qualification degree «Master»]], 344 [in Ukrainian].

8. Terminolohichnyi slovnyk z osnov pidhotovky naukovykh ta naukovopedahohichnykh kadriv pisliadyplomnoi osvity [Dictionary of terminology for training scientific and pedagogical staff of post-graduate education]. (2014). 56-57 [in Ukrainian].

9. Zakon Ukrainy «Pro Vyschu Osvitu» [Law of Ukraine on Higher Education]. (2002). Uriadovyi kuryer Government courier, № 86, may 15, 15 [in Ukrainian].

10. Zakon Ukrainy «Pro Osvitu» [Law of Ukraine on Education]. (1996). 36 [in Ukrainian].

Размещено на Allbest.ru