V. Kasyanova

Kostanay State University named after A.Baitursynov, Kazakhstan

Some aspects of the psychological component of a foreign language teaching at non-language faculties

As it is known, a foreign language at non-language faculties of higher school occupies an isolated position in the system of other training courses, and in its own way it is a unique subject since while studying a foreign language many students often face new grammatical and speech materials. Students have to learn by heart a lot which seems to be far from an interesting occupation and only a personal interest in learning a foreign language can effectively contribute to the formation of motivation to studying the subject. At the same time, as the experience shows, in the methodology of teaching foreign languages there is no common approach to a clear division of the components of the teaching content and its parts; while such components as language material, language notions, a foreign language speech activity, etc., that are so unusual for the students' native language in one or another way are represented in different classifications of the teaching content of the leading Russian methodologists. In the above mentioned components the psychological component of learning a foreign language holds not the least place, which in particular determines the skills and knowledge generated in the process of training modern specialists. There are spelling, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation skills, and the skills of reading and writing techniques on the basis of which such skills as listening, speaking, reading and writing are developed. Along with knowledge, skills and habits psychological component assumes emotionally evaluative attitude of a student as well as those psychological processes that occur in his mind in the process of learning a foreign culture.

Here we have in mind such an important aspect of the psychological component of learning a foreign language as a pragmatic component of language learning when it is important not only high-quality mastery of the foreign language communication but also a real way of studying the culture and its carriers, which implies the practical command of the language that is the formation of "the pragmatic and intercultural communicative competence". With this, in particular, is connected the concept of modernization of Kazakh education and new standards, providing, for example, teaching the communicative English language. The actuality of this method is dictated by the fact that the development of communicative competence is carried out together with the implementation of educational and developmental goals of education leading ultimately to the development of the student's personality. [1]

However, for the implementation of the communicative organization of lessons it isn't enough to support only foreign language speech activity of students; it is also important to create natural speech communication situations aimed at the student's personality, i.e. the formation of his intellectual, moral, volitional and other personality traits [2]. But it is extremely difficult without applying the psychological component in a foreign language teaching. In this regard the impact on the mental activity of students can be called a natural component of the learning process, when the teacher is focused on the disclosure of a personal potential of a student through the creation of favorable external and internal conditions in order to overcome the difficulties that occur. The question in this case is that the psychological component of the process of a foreign language teaching means the organization of productive interaction of the subjects of educational process in the framework of their joint coordinated activity. It is important that the very process of learning a foreign language should be refracted through the knowledge of the students’ needs in motivation to understand other cultures, their individual and psychological features.

As it is known motivation is often crucial for the activation of psychological processes such as perception, understanding and proper assimilation of the foreign language material, and therefore, management of a foreign language learning motivation can be considered as one of the central problems of teaching methods at non-language faculties of the universities. Since a foreign language as a subject has its own specifics such as learning to communicate in a foreign language, the teacher should always create a situation of a foreign language speech communication as close as possible to real conditions. It is in these conditions the level of motivation increases when there are mental experiences (needs), a recognized internal or external demand (motives), giving a sense of cognitive activity and stimulating speech activity, which leads to a desire to learn to think in the language and learn more about the culture of the language. Thus, referring it to the student's personal features, we can say that their consideration as psychological components of learning a foreign language leads to a communicative motivation, ensuring active participation of students in the educational or real communication. [3]. All these taken together, encourage the student to master a foreign language, contribute to the further development of his linguistic intuition and on this basis a stable constant motivation to work with the language; to use a foreign language for getting the right information from the source; to strengthen in this regard cognitive activity and hence increase the actual motivation for language learning. [4] It should be noted that the formation of learning motivation (for example, to mastering a English language) is currently one of the central problems of higher school, that is why much attention is paid to the development of students' interest to foreign languages, particularly in such important sphere as teaching methodology, in connection with which various approaches and technologies are used. All of them, anyway, are associated with increased motivation to learn a foreign language, on the base of which there are such groups of factors as: the organization of the educational process, the availability of teachers with appropriate language skills, demands and influence of the society, etc. [5].

Such factors as the desire and the ability of young people to succeed are very important for maintaining the motivation as a psychological component of a foreign language teaching because it is basically a very strong emotional impact that often forms a solid foundation for a positive attitude to a foreign language as an academic discipline [6]. As the process of mastering a foreign language requires regular training in this subject, there is a problem of psychological activity, which is usually treated in the following main aspects: the personal context of learning a foreign language (the presence of motivation) and competent organization of the educational process (the actualization of mental activity of students). Experience shows that successful organization of lessons in a foreign language, the use of interactive methods and technologies always contribute to the formation of positive motivation to learn the language. In this context, the efficiency of classes in a foreign language in many ways is determined by the psychological component of the class, when the teacher skillfully arranges productive linguistic communication with students, in which the problem of acquisition of foreign speech experience is solved, in other words, the goal of "teaching speaking" is achieved. The teacher should use some methods of increasing the motivation for the formation of students' cognitive sincere interest to learn the language so that psychological component of learning a foreign language could be effectively implemented in the classroom. Here are the techniques proposed by the researcher O.S. Grebenyuk [7], who classifies them in the following blocks (we mention, first of all, those which are associated with the language):

- techniques to promote the understanding of the content of educational material (illustrating novelty, the definition of the list of problems when viewing the text, identifying the main ideas of the text, the ranking of the information provided in the text in the order of importance; searching for the specific information in the text; isolation of the words that relate to the topic of the text;

- techniques associated with the interactive method and problem-based learning (the formulation of problematic questions, identifying the theme of the text for a new vocabulary, finding key words when reading questions to the text and identifying the meaning of the word in the context, the choice of the optimal variant of the translation; dramatization of dialogues with facial expressions and intonation; retelling of the text on behalf of different persons and so on);

- techniques involving the use of visual, technical and didactic learning tools (finding the key words in the text , listening to a series of words and the isolation of those that relate to the topic of the text, drawing up a crossword puzzle on the studied vocabulary, compiling a story on the basis of keywords; writing annotations, resumes and etc.);

- methods based on pedagogical dialogues between the teacher and students, communication of students with each other;

- methods of inducement for learning activities, taking into account inside-group relationships (planning and discussion of joint activities).

Speaking about the psychological component of learning a foreign language it is important to remember about the psychological nature of speech activity itself, which can stimulate students’ motivation, for example, their curiosity, the desire to express their opinion, give linguistic assessment of linguistic realities, etc. The main thing is that in the process of linguistic communication there are such components as: communicative intention; objective linguistic situation with the use of the appropriate linguistic resources; the synthesis of thoughts and speech, etc. In this regard, consideration of the psychological component of a foreign language teaching at non-language faculties contributes to the establishment of a favorable psychological atmosphere in the class, promotes the development of communication within the creative and positive emotional state, as well as stimulates motivation for further study of a foreign language, which is especially important in the conditions of absence of foreign language communication environment.

References:

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