Means to increase the innovation-information culture level of intending foreign language teachers

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Department Donbas State Pedagogical University

Means to increase the innovation-information culture level of intending foreign language teachers

Valentyna Kovalenko, Senior Teacher of Foreign Languages

Sloviansk, Ukraine

Abstract

The innovation information level of a modern teacher is defined by some standard of acquisition in innovative Electronics. The information culture in its nature acquires some certain knowledge and its implementation into some activity, especially, related to the information sphere. This human being's activity is a natural psychological characteristics of an individuality is known as “information culture”.

Scientists and researchers treat the new innovation-information technologies of education in methodology and technology of bringing-up with the necessity of making use of based computer programs.

Teachers' information culture is a set of certain algorisms of pedagogical activity with wide involvement of new information and computer based technologies.

Nowadays the teachers' information culture is a compulsory must for their professional competence.

The sphere of computer based programs is considerably widened and is not limited only to Maths or Physics.

The choice of foreign languages study in the terms of modern of NIT is enormous: lexis-grammar tests, texts, songs, videos, etc. Computer-assisted learning helps to master any language more efficiently and modules professional competence among intending teachers, developing valuable professional skills and techniques.

The most popular and successful means of NIT of FLT:

Multimedia textbooks;

CD-ROM TOEFL;

Internet resources;

Electronic libraries;

Electronic method of “PORTFOLIO”.

With the help of these means intending teachers improve, increase and develop:

polycultures, auto-psychological, cognitive-technological and personal components in learning process;

land study in development students' socio-cultural component;

polycultures component.

All these possibilities of NIIC help to form professional components for FL teachers' information culture.

Key words: innovation-information culture, information techniques of teaching, professional competence, academic study training, computer-assisted language learning.

Анотація

Валентина КОВАЛЕНКО,

старший викладач кафедри іноземних мов Донбаського державного педагогічного університету (Слов'янськ, Україна)

ЗАСОБИ ПІДВИЩЕННЯ ІННОВАЦІЙНО-ІНФОРМАЦІЙНОЇ КУЛЬТУРИ СТУДЕНТІВ - МАЙБУТНІХ УЧИТЕЛІВ ІНОЗЕМНИХ МОВ

У статті проаналізовано шляхи і засоби підвищення інноваційно-інформаційної культури студентів закладів вищої освіти педагогічного спрямування, майбутніх учителів іноземних мов. Розглянуто питання формування інформаційної компетентності; висвітлено актуальність проблеми. Сформульовано визначення та тлумачення поняття «інформаційна культура» педагога. Подано її компонентні складники; наведено перелік умінь, що розвиваються на основі навчальних інтернет-ресурсів. Обґрунтовано важливість і необхідність формування та вдосконалення інформаційної культури вчителя іноземних мов з оглядом на сучасні електронні носії інформації. Визначено методи, прийоми та технічні електронні засоби для формування комплексу професійних компетентностей, які ефективно сприяють розвитку і підвищенню інформаційної культури студентів спеціальності «Іноземна мова». Окреслено основні положення формування та вдосконалення інноваційно-інформаційної культури студентів. Описано дослідний експеримент, результати якого доводять, що розвиток професійних компетенцій із залученням інноваційних електронних засобів активно сприяє підвищенню інформаційної культури сучасного вчителя іноземних мов. Проаналізовано проблеми реалізації потенціалу новітніх інформаційних носіїв в умовах сучасного інформаційно-освітнього світу, зокрема, інформатизація освіти висвітлюється з позицій пріоритетного напряму серед усього розмаїття процесів інформатизації сучасного суспільства. На методи і прийоми підвищення інформаційної культури неминуче впливає поява нових форм мережевих технологій. Також стаття розглядає сучасні типи комунікації в мережевому навчанні, доводить ефективність їх застосування; подано специфіку розвитку і тенденції вдосконалення сучасних технологій електронного навчання.

Ключові слова: новітня інформаційна культура, інформаційні технології навчання, професійна компетентність, науково-предметна підготовка, комп'ютерні навчальні програми.

Presentation of academic problem. The information level of a modem person is determined by his/her information culture, and the information culture of the personality, as culture in general, reflects the active creative activity of the person and, accordingly, the development of the person as the subject of this activity. By its nature, information culture involves not only certain knowledge but also the use of that knowledge for something, in connection with something, and improves it in the course of a particular activity including the activity related to information. Moreover, the use and improvement of knowledge is important only in creativity realized in any sphere of human life. Therefore, the motives of creativity, the motives of this human activity are a natural psychological component of such a personality's feature as his/her information culture.

Research analysis of the problem. Various aspects of the problems of information culture, ways of its increasing, significance for professional competence has been investigated in the works of scientists in this country and abroad: M. Zhaldak, V. Kukharenko, V. Kremen', N. Morze, L. Mors'ka and others. It should be noted that researchers consider new information technology training both as methodology and technology of the educational process. The latest electronic learning tools and, above all, computers, as well as a variety of training programs of different types: from the simplest providing knowledge control to artificial intelligence-based learning systems. The field of didactics is thoroughly involved in the study of a systematically and consciously organized teaching and learning process in which information education means find their application. According to I. Robert (Robert, 2010), the means of information education are the means of new information technologies in combination with educational-methodological, regulatory-technological and organizational- instructional materials that ensure their pedagogically appropriate use.

The teachers' information culture is accepted as the set of algorithms in a pedagogical activity related to broad involvement in the educational process of new information and communication technologies.

At the present stage of society development the teachers' information culture should be regarded as a necessary condition for his/her professional competence. Thus, no progress in education related to entitling new information technologies will take place. The information culture of an intending teacher is an inconsistent of part the existing system of psychological and pedagogical as well as professional subject preparation. In our opinion, pedagogical universities, in which in addition to studying the course of “Technical training and computer technology” new information technologies should be widely involved in the study of other educational subjects. In particular, in the study of foreign languages.

The development of continuous education system, changing the goals of compulsory education, transition to a personality-oriented educational paradigm, reducing the role of education in the formation of younger generation, transition to other carriers of social memory determine the potential for widespread involvement of NITT as a means of educational activity for effective organization of the transition from authoritarian pedagogy to pedagogy of cooperation (based on the possible realization of a truly collective educational and cognitive students' activity).

However, it is obvious that this possibility is unlikely to be realized if teacher training remains focused on the “relay” component of pedagogical activity. In our opinion, the “actor at the board” in the school class will soon give way to the “screenwriter”, “director” of students' joint creative activities. In other words, today a pedagogical HEE should train, first of all, teachers who can do without authoritarian pedagogy, pedagogical consultants.

It is also clear that the pace of this trend development will be determined, first of all, by the specifics of the subject. More recently, it has been argued that the scope of computer use is limited to mathematics, programming, physics, chemistry.

As for the disciplines of the humanities cycle, here it can be used only as an electronic data bank, and in the practice of teaching - mainly as a means of visual aid. Probably, initially it was, but thanks to the empowerment of the computer and with the acquisition of experience in the creation of training programmes, the scope of its use has expanded significantly.

When learning foreign languages, the choice of educational programs is practically unlimited - vocabulary tests, texts, dialogues, songs, videos in foreign languages, the ability to listen to the speaker and yourself and much more - all this, on the one hand, allows you to learn foreign languages more effectively, and on the other hand it forms professional competence of intending teachers, developing in them the necessary professionally significant qualities, reflection, ability to work independently, leads to self-improvement, revealing their creative potential, extending the horizon, etc.

However, it should be noted that any technical means of teaching play an important, but still ancillary role in the teaching of foreign languages: they enhance the didactic capacity of the teacher but in no case substitute him/her. The teacher will always remain the centerpiece of the learning system. Our task was to formulate social, multicultural, autopsychological, cognitive, technological and personal components of the professional competence of intending foreign language teachers through computer-based training. Exercising this we were able to simulate natural communication during the human-machine dialogue which was facilitated by the following factors:

authenticity of the language material;

ability to properly “understand” the messages embedded in the programme and to respond appropriately to them;

situational dialogue arrangement (creating conditions specific to the natural communicative situation);

widespread use of computer language etiquette formulas including phrases with a certain emotional colour;

personalization of the computer by creating its role (role-playing).

During the experimental work using computer- based teaching at the lessons of professional scientific and disciplinary training students did not passively perceive information but actively interacted with the computer as a source of information and a task generator. They received from the computer tasks aimed at the formation of linguistic, speech and socio-cultural competences that make up a foreign language communicative competence, performed them; immediately there was a feedback in the form of a reaction to the student's message (in the form of a reply, whether or not a score was given, an assessment), then there was a correction of the error, moving on to the next task. All this required from the students of the experimental group a continuous activity aimed not only at the assimilation of the material but also at the formation of communication, reflection, the desire for self-improvement and contributed to the education of students' cognitive activity. For example, after performing a grammar test, students were asked to refer to the theoretical information guide, which was in the programme, again and after they had checked their work and corrected all their errors, to see what errors the computer found. Such work developed their skills of self-correction, self-esteem, forced to consciously approach the theoretical understanding of language phenomena, they formed skills to apply the obtained theoretical knowledge in practice. The students of the experimental group also formed a personal component of professional competence, namely, such important teacher's quality as pedagogical thinking, observation, will. Adaptability of computer training allowed us to take into account individual characteristics of students, such as ability to concentrate attention, speed of perception, features of thinking, memory, temperament.

During the experimental work some elements of various NITT means were used in the experimental student's group's study of the disciplines in the cycle of professional scientific-subject preparation which are clearly presented in the following table. innovative education information competence

During the experimental work in order to form a cognitive-technological component, students performed various exercises in the cycle of professional scientific-subject preparation. Thus, the experimental group students were offered a dialogue with a computer where they had to respond and answer questions. Each student in the group received an individual assignment that corresponded to his or her level of preparation: students with low and intermediate levels of foreign language communication competence were required to engage in a dialogue with the machine, using the answers they chose from the suggested options, while students with high and sufficient levels conducted a dialogue with arbitrarily constructed answers. Verification of all possible options was provided by the programme so that the computer could assess the correctness of the answer.

For formation of self-esteem skills students were offered tasks on self-control of lexical skills formation. Thus, students with a high and sufficient level of foreign language communication competence performed exercises on filling in the gaps: the computer provided a text or set of sentences with gaps that had to be filled using a native language prompt. Students translated them into the foreign language and used them in the appropriate form. Also, the computer suggested pairing synonyms / antonyms. Low- and intermediate-level students completed simpler tasks, for example, to correlate two word lists (in the native and foreign languages) and to find equivalent pairs of words or the computer offered a list of words in the foreign language and a list of definitions and students selected a proper definition for each word. Such types of work optimized the process of cognition, activated students' mental activity.

We have also seen our task in shaping students' social and multicultural components of the future teacher's professional competence. For this purpose a multimedia textbook was used at the experimental group's lessons of the foreign language practical course, which was a thematic material combined into a single travel plot around US cities. The experimental group of students got to be acquainted with the sights of these cities and then did our creative tasks. For example, they had to prepare some information about San Francisco and, on behalf of an American student, told in the letter to their Ukrainian friend about their hometown asking questions about his/her hometown at the end of the letter. The student who “received” the letter answered it. This task was performed by students with different levels of preparation. The scope of the statement was not discussed, only the content and ability of students to see national features, to determine the general, to express their planetary thinking were controlled.

Students also received differentiated assignments. After learning about the sights of Washington, low- level students were required to tell about them while middle-level students used the video with a mute sound for a “tour” of Washington. Students with sufficient and high levels were given the task of answering the questions of their classmates during their role-playing game “Press Conference” upon returning from the USA, where they participated in the international student conference “We are Children of the Entire Planet”. After the press conference the whole group discussed what kind of questions were asked and what interested the students.

The problems of peacekeeping and the closely related issues of international terrorism were not ignored either. It was clear that all those global problems left no one indifferent and all the students took an active part in their discussion, offered their own solutions.

Thus, working with computer based program's of a country-specific nature gave an impetus to online learning which resulted in the formation of social and multicultural components of the future foreign language teachers' professional competence. The students were inculcated with interest in the culture of other countries, the respect for their home country and its achievements was cultivated, there was formed an active life position of a person who should live in the XXIth century and solve the life-giving issues of modernity with all the achievements and disadvantages of an advanced civilization.

Multimedia textbooks of the authentic material of country study and nature scenery was intended to promote the students' development of sociocultural competence, to stimulate their interest in further independent search for information, helped them in the preparation of “portfolio” for practical training in Country Studies. It should be noted that one of the components of the professional competence of future foreign language teachers is an autopsychological one. Its formation was facilitated by the use in the experimental group of Practical Grammar classes of TOEFL (tests of English as a foreign language) which contained reference material on grammar that students used as a necessary revision, training exercises, as well as various lexico-grammatical tests with different levels of difficulty. Working with this programme gave the students an opportunity to exercise self-control and to objectively assess their level of knowledge. That had a positive effect on the level of their pedagogical consciousness - the students were aware of the need for deep and strong knowledge for the teaching profession, as well as their ability or inability to work independently, to educate themselves. In addition, the fact that higher difficulty tests were encouraged by higher scores motivated the students' desire for selfimprovement, which in turn stimulated their motivation to achieve competence in teaching. In order to form a personal component, namely, its indicators such as communicativeness and professional mobility the interactive multimedia course of spoken English “New Dynamic English”, based on authentic language, was used in Practical Phonetics classes. The level of tasks offered to each student corresponded to the level of his or her foreign language communicative competence at a certain point. During the experimental work there was a transition of students to a higher level, with control being carried out by both the teacher and the student. In order to develop communication and provide highly motivated speech practice, individual audio texts and tasks were used in the experimental group. The ability to choose the level that would be appropriate for student preparation and the desire to move to a higher level of complexity were determined by students' desire for self-improvement, nurturing persistence, diligence, sound competition and many other necessary future teacher qualities that determine his or her professional competence. It should be noted that the students of the experimental group were offered to work with the program “English Discoveries” to form a multicultural component at practical classes and during independent work in preparation for seminars in Country Studies. They independently studied such topics as “The Discoveries of English Scientists”, “The Culture of England”, “The Sporting Achievements of English Footballers” and many others. Each student received an individual assignment; the interests of everyone who took part in the experiment were taken into account. After working with the programme the students made messages on their topic, summarizing the main, in their opinion, facts.

Table 1 NITT means used in the professional cycle of scientific and subject preparation

This work contributed to the development of the cognitive-technological and multicultural components of students' professional competence. The high motivation of the proposed set of tasks contributed to the better assimilation of the material, the desire to expand knowledge while working independently, using various sources of information, including the most up-to-date ones, namely the Internet system.

It is known a great scientists' interest in such a new direction of computer-assistant learning as networking. This includes both work on the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) and the use of email. In the third millennium the Internet has become an effective learning tool. One of the reasons is that it allows you to interact with a large number of people whose interests coincide and thus provides a real opportunity to exchange views, hold discussions, broaden your horizons and knowledge. Through communication positive personality traits are formed, the ability to think creatively, the culture of communication is cultivated in particular and the common culture in general.

An important feature of the Internet as a learning tool is that it makes world education resources available. You can find any information of your interest on the web. Therefore, this work is also part of self-education. Digital libraries used by students through the Internet offer a unique, unlimited resource for getting information on any subject. We can assume that they are more attractive to students due to their special features:

the information is up-to-date (students can get the most up-to-date information about the issues they are exploring);

the information is from primary resources (in many cases students use the same data and information sources as scientists);

the information is versatile (it provides breadth and depth in many subordinate branches; in standard libraries the material of the subject matter is limited; digital libraries can extend the range indefinitely, giving access to an unprecedented breadth of information sources);

- resources are presented in various formats (in particular, the information is digitally available for easy manipulation and use); the information is available at any time.

During the experimental work in order to develop professional competence, students received various tasks related to the work on the Internet. For example, they had to find information about the ways modern pedagogical technologies are used in schools of England, America, Canada, Germany. The low-level students were required to provide the group with the information found in the form of a message; the students with the intermediate level described the chosen pedagogical technology in terms of its effectiveness in the conditions of the Ukrainian school; the students with sufficient and high levels were given the task of demonstrating how pedagogical technology can be put into practice.

It should be noted that the students of the experimental group also prepared some information about the modern methods of teacher certification developed in Western European countries. To do this they turned to the Internet. The information gathered was discussed by the whole experimental group during the Round Table on the issue of Professional Competence of Teachers in the West. The students exchanged information complementing each other, comparing the approach to teacher training in Ukraine and abroad. In a lively discussion their communicativeness was formed, their sociocultural competence was replenished with new knowledge. As the discussion was conducted in English it also influenced the improvement of students' foreign language communication competence which is part of the cognitive-technological component in professional competence.

The same purpose was facilitated by the use of e-mail. The students of the experimental group were tasked with finding an email correspondent, a college or university student whose English would be their mother tongue. This communication allowed the students to get acquainted with the mentality peculiarities of the English and Americans, their attitude to solving pedagogical problems, pedagogical technologies used there, peculiarities of their pedagogical practice, to learn how they are engaged in self-preparation, spend their free time, etc.

Conclusions. Therefore, all this work has helped to form the intending teachers' social, multicultural, autopsychological, cognitive-technological and personal components that form the professional competence of intending foreign language teachers.

Bibliography

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References

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