К.п.н. Голикова Л.В., магистрант Арипжанова А.

 

Южно-Казахстанский государственный педагогический институт, Казахстан

Региональный социально-инновационный университет, Казахстан

 

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF COMPETENCE AND COGNITIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING ENGLISH TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

 

Changes in recent years in the general education system, its modernization, the transition to competence - education model suggest the need to develop and implement a new value approach to general education. Greatest importance for the students acquire knowledge not isolated and generalized skills , manifested in the willingness to cope with life and professional problems, the ability to foreign language communication , training in information technology, etc. Thus, at present the main result of the activities of an educational institution should be no system knowledge and skills in itself, but a set of key competencies in intellectual, civil,

сommunication, information and other spheres [2, p. 25].

The concept of “core competence” the ideology shaping the content of school education “of the result”. The title includes the concept of learning outcomes express the “increment” knowledge, skills, experience, personal self-development, experience of creative activity, experience emotional value relations [2, p. 27].

Based on the definition of "competence" as a set of personal characteristics student (value-semantic orientations, knowledge, skills, abilities) due to his experience in a particular social activities and personal- important area we highlight the structure of competence components such as cognitive (knowledge), the operational (skills) and personal component. By the cognitive component of learning and cognitive competence of students applies knowledge of the ways the organization of goal-setting, planning, analysis, reflection and self-evaluation.

Operational component includes the following skills: the objective is to organize and its achievement; organize self- learning and cognitive activity; ask questions to the observed facts, identify the causes of the phenomena; cognitive ability to set objectives and hypotheses; own measurement skills, work with instructions; ability to speak verbally and in writing about the results of his research using computers, etc.

Personal component includes the following individual student quality: tenacity, independence, curiosity, sociability, creativity, etc.

Educational and cognitive competence includes elements of logical, methodological, general educational activity, correlated with real knowable objects. Formation of learning and cognitive competence - is the formation of skills training activities, skills to analyze their activities. Systematizing skills, for example, formed by drawing support schemes, algorithms activities (translation algorithm of direct speech into indirect speech). To establish this competence self-control and mutual control in the classroom are widely used [3, p. 55].

In the process of learning a foreign language for the formation of key competencies, including educational and informative, it is advisable to use the following technologies: method of projects, development of critical thinking through reading and writing method of debate, game technology (language games, role play, dramatization), problem discussion, interactive learning technology (in pairs, small groups), scenario- context technology, technology of modular training.

One of the conditions for the formation of competencies is to introduce modern teaching technologies, including interactive. Formation of this competence occurs throughout schooling. Each academic discipline makes a greater or lesser contribution to its formation. The content of the subject “foreign language” has sufficient funds for the development of students’ cognitive competence training.

Thus, the primary means of forming educational and cognitive competence when learning a foreign language at school are various technologies, forms and methods of teaching. And the teacher should remember that competency is a task that has not only educational, but also a vital rationale is performing student knows exactly what he acquired skill required in the future [3, p.61].

Contemporary methodology of teaching EFL is characterized by two main paradigms – communicative and cognitive. Within the framework of the communicative paradigm language and its analysis is connected mainly with acquisition of speech activity; within the framework of the cognitive paradigm language is related to cognition and processes associated with it. To solve a number of methodological problems a synthesis of the mentioned above paradigms is needed.

That is why examining the contemporary strategy of teaching EFL we will consider the basic principles of both the communicative and the cognitive approaches.

The core issue of the communicative approach is that the process of language acquisition should be organized as a process of real communication in situational environment [3, p. 13]. Within this approach the main objective of language teaching is the communicative competence. The fundamental idea of the cognitive approach is that the learning process should be aimed at acquiring (or rather inferring) knowledge, structuring and systematically arranging its units, storing and applying them while getting adapted to reality [3, p. 14]. The ultimatum of cognitive language teaching is the cognitive competence.

Considering the fact that learning another language enhances the learner’s understanding of and insights into the world, the commonsensical idea would be to combine the communicative and cognitive approaches and receive an approach, which incorporates both communication and cognition. The impetus and rationale for it come from changing educational realities in the world, that presupposes the shift from an emphasis on teacher-centered to an emphasis on learner-centered classrooms and from transmission-oriented to participatory or constructivist knowledge development. Thus, the main objective of communicative and cognitive teaching a foreign language is the communicative and cognitive competence as a developed ability to perform speech and mental activity while solving real and ideational problems via target language. To observe how to reach this objective we will consider the basic principles of the communicative and cognitive approach.

The first principle means that foreign language acquisition should be done through speech activity, which is specifically human. Speech activity is looked upon as a purposeful, determined by language and stipulated by a situation process of reception and production of speech in the human interaction [1, p. 43].

The second principle concerns the conditions conducive for communicative and cognitive teaching. These conditions presuppose stimulation of mental and speech activity of students. It can be done through modeling problem situations, which include intellectual obstacles that students are supposed to overcome [1, p. 48].

The third principle implies creating authentic situations of socialization that ensures and specifies its motivational and natural character [1, p. 52].

The fourth principle specifies the importance of taking into consideration students’ epistemological styles (empirical, rational and metaphorical). These are basically the ways via which a person cognizes the world and acquires knowledge [1, p. 57].

The fifth principle deals with students’ linguistic personality development. Since language is a medium of collective consciousness it is possible to speak of a personality as such which is part of social consciousness, has a language capacity and manifests in speech behavior, thus becoming a linguistic personality [1, p. 60].

The sixth principle emphasizes the assumption that learning a foreign language conduces and facilitates students’ worldview formation. The cognitive activity is looked upon as a triad consisting of three overlapping stages: acquisition of information, its incorporation into the mind and its operation in speech [1, p. 63].

The seventh principle accentuates the requirement of students’ knowledge space development. Knowledge units are supposed to be the concepts of different levels of abstraction and complexity. Concepts may be considered “the constructive mental blocks” of the conceptual representation of the world, or knowledge space of a person.

The eighth principle maintains the idea that in the process of the English language acquisition students’ multiple intelligences are developed and applied. The notion of multiple intelligences was introduced by H. Gardner. He defined it as the ways through which a person perceives and processes information in the acts of cognition. Among the multiple intelligences H. Gardner distinguishes the linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic and naturalist intelligences [1, p. 67].

Considering the mentioned above we arrive at the conclusion that in the process foreign language acquisition both the communicative and the cognitive paradigms are combined. The combination of these paradigms results in the communicative and cognitive approach to language teaching. This approach is established on the basic principles which accentuate the necessity to develop not only communicative but also cognitive skills and capacities of students that will reflected in relevant competences.

 

Литература:

1.     Aljughaiman, A. & Mowrer-Reynolds, E. Teachers’ conceptions of creativity and creative students. – Journal of Creative Behavio, 2005.

2.     Апанович Е.В. Методика формирования учебного умения самостоятельно активизировать языковой материал: начальный этап, языковой вуз: дис. … канд. пед. наук: 13.00.02. – Иркутск, 2003. – 189 с.

3.     Елашкина Н.В. Формирование учебной компетенции в условиях дистанционного обучения студентов иноязычному общению: начальный этап языкового вуза : дис. … канд. пед. наук : 13.00.02 Н.В. Елашкина. – Иркутск, 2006. – 199 с.