V. Kasyanova
Kostanay State
University named after A.Baitursynov, Kazakhstan
THE USE OF VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES
AT NON-LINGUISTIC FACULTIES
A foreign
language nowadays is a prerequisite of professionalism. Knowledge of a foreign
language makes it possible to find the necessary information in foreign
language sources, to communicate with colleagues from different countries, to
publish research articles in foreign scientific journals. Professional and
personal prospects of the development of qualified specialists largely depend
on the level of their mastering a foreign language at non-linguistic faculties.
To teach students not only to participate in all aspects of communication in a
foreign language, but also participate actively in the development of their
personality is one of the aims of teaching a foreign language. In this regard,
most of the modern methods of teaching a foreign language are based on the
principle of active communication (communicative methodology, project
methodology, intensive technique). The system of teaching a foreign language in
educational institutions should teach the students to the skillful,
communicative-expedient intercultural speech communication in various spheres
of life. An independent and creative person, who has mastered the skills and
abilities in the use of the possibilities of foreign languages and information
and communication technologies, is able to create great future, to determine
the ways of national and social development.
Training of
future specialists in creative search, independent thinking and reasoning,
expansion of their social circle, formation of speech culture depends on how professionally
developed the teacher himself is, on his creative thinking, abilities and
skills. The teacher should be a master of his job, he should possess the
abilities, skills and habits of fully covering the topic that students are
going to learn in the class, be able to substantiate their thoughts,
masterfully apply various methods and opportunities to achieve the goal of the
lesson, be able to interest students in the process of learning.
In teaching
foreign languages an important role is given to the use of various visual aids:
drawings, pictures, diagrams, tables, photographs, etc., which bring diversity
in the learning process, make it more interesting. Nowadays we can’t imagine the teaching process without visual aids.
Using visual aids such as graphic organizers, charts, video and computers can
help students easily understand the material they have learnt at the lesson.
For each visual aid, students have different responses and expressions because
of their different educational and cultural background. Using visual aids can
help learners understand the deep meaning of a topic and realize similarities
and differences between each topic. We know that memorizing language forms and
words is a difficult process. The use of visual aids can help students to
strengthen and reinforce what they have learnt. The reason may be that they
allow students to absorb the information through an additional sensory
perception. I.A. Zimnyaya considers that the
objectives of the use of visual aids are due to the tasks that the teacher
faces at a certain stage of teaching a foreign language [1, 159]. She believes
that the visibility in terms of sharing knowledge in the teaching of a foreign
language can be used for the purposes of the semantization of a linguistic material
and the organization of memorization through the establishment of a connection
between the verbal and visual-sensory way of reality.
To optimize the
process of mastering a foreign language, in order to improve the learning
outcomes of speech activity (speaking, reading, listening, and writing), we
widely use such a teaching tool as graphical visual aids. In the modern
vocabulary of methodological terms and concepts, graphical visual aid is
defined as "a kind of visual presentation that reflects the phenomena of
the language and surrounding reality in a graphic form - in the form of a table
and a diagram"[2, с. 54].
In the
scientific literature, the following classification of graphical visual aids is
suggested:
1.
figurative and artistic (map, picture, photographs, video fragments, mock-ups,
computer graphics);
2. scientific
and research (graph, diagram, table, scale, supporting notes) [3, c.46].
Depending on the objectives of the lesson, on the
level of students' knowledge, when working on this or that type of speech
activity, it is possible to choose the most optimal kind of visualization,
which fosters the development of cognitive interest and increases the
effectiveness of mastering a foreign language. In our work we often use such
kinds of visibility as tables, diagrams, pictures, video fragments, supporting
abstracts. Tables facilitate the process of activating a specific material in
speech, help to carry out a comparative analysis of facts, phenomena of native
culture and culture of the countries of the studied language. Thus, for
example, when studying the topic "The Republic of Kazakhstan and “The
United Kingdom" we compile tables comparing the geographical position,
natural features and national symbols of the two states: the Republic of
Kazakhstan and Great Britain. A similar work is done when the students study
topics “The system of education in Kazakhstan and in the United Kingdom”.
Supporting schemes, which are widely used in the
classroom, are designed to make it easier for students to learn a foreign
language, to remove various kinds of difficulties, to overcome growing
difficulties, to stimulate communication among students, to focus on the new
material being studied, and to form strong skills and abilities. E.I. Passov
believes that the purpose of using pictorial semantic supports is "to
cause the necessary associations between the image (idea, meaning) and what
will become the content material of the utterance," since "even
abstract ideas are easily and firmly attached to the visual image" [4, c.128].
Supporting schemes may be used for different purposes: introduction and
consolidation of lexical and grammatical material for teaching monologue and
dialogue speech, listening, etc. Since the principles of constructing supporting
materials are the same in all grammatical structures, then, students having
learned them once usually do not experience further difficulties in reading the
other ones that are presented to them. Schemes allow us to focus the students'
attention on the major in the material being studied, to establish the
cause-and-effect relationships between facts and events. Lines, arrows, text
windows are used in the construction of these types of visual aids. Schemes
describing a series of events are used in the work preparing for retelling of
texts. Star-shaped schemes help in working on vocabulary (search for synonyms,
description of phenomena, objects, construction of word combinations).
Problematic maps are the basis for discussion and decision-making on the topics
discussed. Thematic pictures help in creating situations that stimulate speech
activity, are the support in the choice of means and form of presentations.
Laconic, graphically verified pictures are indispensable in teaching to speak
in dialogues and monologues. So, looking at thematic pictograms, students
willingly describe kinds of sports, talk about the weather, the regime of the
day, etc.
The next kind of graphical visual aids are supporting
notes which are used to semantize the material at the level of the grammatical
form and its fixing in memory with the reference to the visual image. Moreover,
this type of work with the material allows processing a large amount of
information and then reproducing it in a concise form. Supporting notes as a
means of learning promote meaningful comprehension of concepts, the formation
of deep knowledge. Use of supporting materials presupposes the control of
cognitive activity of students, development of their skills of independent
work. Training with the use of supporting abstracts develops memory, logical
thinking, individual abilities of students. Supporting abstracts are one of the
types of brief introduction and serve as a means of graphical generalization of
the material under study. It is done in stages: selecting the necessary
information, using other sources - tables, directories, a brief summary of the
studied materials. A supporting abstract is a schematic presentation of the
content of this or that material. The content of the material is
"coded" with the help of visual aids - signs, letters. This pursues
two goals: 1 - to facilitate the process of memorizing and reproducing
supporting notes; 2 - to establish a clear framework for the response of each
student during an oral control. Day after day, learning the diagrams, students
master the main operation - quickly and accurately grasp the essence. The
compilation of a supporting abstract makes the topic more visual, helps to
master it more quickly.
The work with video fragments is aimed at the
development of the ability to highlight the basic information in a perceived
visual and listened topic, extract the necessary facts from video texts of
different genres. Here we should especially note the need for careful
selection of the video, which will meet the syllabus requirements. In the work
with video fragments several kinds of visibility are well combined: video and
tables, video and diagrams, video and graphic schemes.
Using visual aids is one of the main teaching
strategies in learning foreign languages. The principle of visualization is one of the most
effective: it follows from the essence of the process of perception (auditory
and visual), which facilitates the process of understanding and using the
acquired knowledge in the development of all types of speech activity. Thus,
graphic visibility can be used in the work when explaining a new material,
while fixing the material in students' memory, during the reviewing of the
studied material. It should be remembered that the graphic visual aids
should correspond to the content of the curricula, the methods and ways of
teaching and besides the aesthetic requirements must be taken into account when
preparing graphic visual aids. Graphical
visualization should influence on a greater number of perception organs and
cause a certain positive emotional impact on the trainees, which leads to a
deeper understanding of the material under study and to better mastering it.
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