Педагогические  науки/ 5.Современные методы преподавания

Teacher Suleymenova A.

A.Yasawi Professional College, Kazakhstan

KEY COMPETENCES OF THE TEACHERS

Competence is translated from the Latin «competentia» means a subject a person is versed in, a special area of knowledge and experience. A person who is competent in a certain area possesses a certain standard of knowledge and skills which makes it possible for him to judge soundly about this very area and act efficiently in it.

The idea of «competence» is not a new one in methodology of teaching languages.

For instance linguistic competences have been discussed for a long time and are used by specialists in the area of methods of teaching languages where the communicative competence is also analyzed. Recently the concept of «competence» has started to be studied at the level of general didactics, general pedagogic and methodology. It can be explained by its system-practical functions and its integration role in general education.

Competence is a totality of interrelated qualities of a person (knowledge, skills, experience, command of methods of working), assigned with respect to a certain sphere of objects and processes and necessary for efficient and productive activity in respect to them [1].

Level of Competence refers to the possession of a relevant competence including a personal attitude towards it and towards the object of activity.

Competence is understood as a requirement (norm) relation to the standard of achievement of a pupil and Level of Competence is understood as his personal quality or totality of qualities and a minimum experience in the relevant activity. A level of competence achieved is always something which has a personal dimension to it, which is reflected in a pupil’s personal qualities [2].

In recent investigations the following functions of competence and level of competence in relation to the personality of a learner are singled out [3]:

· reflect and develop personal relevance to a learner of the of the objects under study;

· characterize the personal component of a learner’s education, the degree of his abilities and practical skills;

· set a minimum standard of experience in practical activities;

· develop possibilities of solving real problems in everyday life – from common problems to professional and social ones;

· they are many-dimensional – they certain to all the basic groups of personal qualities of a learner to be developed ;

· represent integral characteristics of the quality of learners’ training;

· in the aggregate, they determine and reflect the functional competence of a pupil.

Educational competence is a totality of interconnected semantic orientations, knowledge, skills and learners’ experience which are necessary for performing personally and socially relevant productive activities in relation to the objects of reality [4].

Structural components of educational competence:

· name;

· type in their general hierarchy (key, general subject, subject);

· circle of objects of reality with respect to which the competence is introduced;

· its determination by social and practical factors as well as its significance (why and what for it is necessary in society) ;

· personal significance/relevance of competence (in what and what for a pupil has to be competent) ;

· knowledge of a range of objects of reality;

· skills and experience related to this very range of real objects;

· methods used in respect to them;

· minimal standard of experience of a learner in the sphere of competence;

· «indicators» - tests and tasks which are used to determine the level of a learner’s competence.

Communicative competence is an ability to solve by means of language communicative problems important for an individual and for society, arising in the everyday, educational, professional or cultural spheres of life. It is an ability to realize linguistic competence in different situations of communication [5].

Linguistic competence is possession of a system of information and knowledge about language pertaining to its levels (phonetics, grammar etc.) as well as an ability to use this knowledge in practice. The linguistics aspects of communicative competence are those that have to do with achieving an internalized functional knowledge of the elements and structures of the language [5, 48].

Phonological competence is the ability to recognize and produce the distinctive meaningful sounds of a language, including:

• Consonants

• Vowels

• Tone patterns

• Intonation patterns

• Rhythm patterns

• Stress patterns any other suprasegmental features that carry meaning (A suprasegmental is a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment in an utterance, such as pitch, stress, or juncture pattern). Related to phonological competence is orthographic competence, or the ability to decipher and write the writing system of a language [6].

Grammatical competence is the ability to recognize and produce the distinctive grammatical structures of a language and to use them effectively in communication [6, 82].

Generally educational competence is an ability to make use of rational ways of intellectual work and to make independent progress in the chosen area of study [7].

Subject competence is a totality of knowledge, experience, skills which are formed during the process of studying a subject. Subject competence, acquired during the process of studying a language as an educational subject and characterizing a certain level of language, includes the following types of competence – linguistic, speech, communicative competence, etc [7, 218].

Professional competence is an ability of a teacher for successful professional activity. It includes knowledge of didactics, psychology, linguistics, psycholinguistics, theory and methods of teaching foreign languages and other sciences which are important for a successful and effective activity of a teacher, possession of professional skills (constructive, organizational, communicative) and skills in organizing students’ activity and in the management of this activity.

Professional competence is one of the main goals of training in any Pedagogical University [7, 238]. And this competence includes: linguistic competence, speech and communicative competence, methodological competence is an ability to use the language with a view to achieving professional purposes as well as an ability to teach the language.

Lexical competence is the ability to recognize and use words in a language in the way that speakers of the language use them. Lexical competence includes understanding the different relationships among families of words and the common collocations of words [7, 252].

Speech competence (is a part of communicative competence) is a command of the methods of forming and formulating thoughts using the language, and an ability to use these methods in the process of speech perception and speech production [7, 254].

Discourse competence is used to refer to two related, but distinct abilities. Textual discourse competence refers to the ability to understand and construct monologues or written texts of different genres, such as narratives, procedural texts, expository texts, persuasive (hortatory) texts, descriptions and others. These discourse genres have different characteristics, but in each genre there are some elements that help make the text coherent and other elements which are used to make important points distinctive or prominent [8].

Learning a language involves learning how to relate these different types of discourse in such a way that hearers or readers can understand what is going on and see what is important. Likewise it involves being able to relate information in a way that is coherent to the readers and hearers.

Functional competence refers to the ability to accomplish communication purposes in a language. There are a number of different kinds of purposes for which people commonly use language [8, 105].

The pragmatic aspects of communicative competence are those that have to do with how language is used in communication situations to achieve the speaker's purposes [9,145].

Cultural competence is a totality of knowledge about the country of the foreign language. Such knowledge provides the learner with a certain level of skills and experience in using national-cultural component of the language, speech etiquette and non-verbal means of communication. Cultural competence is the ability to understand behavior from the standpoint of the members of a culture and and to behave in a way that would be understood by the members of the culture in the intended way. Cultural competence therefore involves understanding all aspects of a culture, but particularly the social structure, the values and beliefs of the people, and the way things are assumed to be done [9, 148].

Linguo- Cultural Competence is knowledge of national customs, traditions, features of the country of in question; an ability to extract culturally relevant information from units of the language and an ability to use this information to achieve effective communication [9, 149].

Strategic Competence (compensatory competence) is an ability to fill gaps in the knowledge of the language, speech and social experience during the process of communication in foreign language [10, 64].

Social Competence is an ability to have communicated successfully with other people. A wish for entering communication is explained by the presence of need, motives, a definite attitude toward the future partners of communication and personal experience. An ability to enter communication requires an ability to behave adequately in a social situation and to manage it [10, 73].

Socio Cultural Competence means familiarity of students with national cultural specific features of linguistic behavior and an ability to use those components of socio - cultural context. That are relevant for production and perception of speech from native speakers’ point of view: customs, rules, norms, social conventions, rituals, social stereotypes, knowledge of regional geography etc [11].

Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to interpret the social meaning of the choice of linguistic varieties and to use language with the appropriate social meaning for the communication situation.

Interactional competence involves knowing and using the mostly-unwritten rules for interaction in various communication situations within a given speech community and culture. It includes, among other things, knowing how to initiate and manage conversations and negotiate meaning with other people. It also includes knowing what sorts of body language, eye contact, and proximity to other people are appropriate and acting accordingly.

REFERENCES

1.Hymes D. On communicative competens.In: J.B.Pride and J.Holmes.Sociolinguistics-Middlesex:Penguin Books LTD, 1972.-67

2. M.Canale, M.Swain.From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. Language and Communication. London: Longman, 1983. - 122 p.

3. Brown G., Malmkjaer K., Williams J.Performance and competence in Second Language Acquisition.- Cambridge University Press, 1996. – 25-34 p

4. Littlewood W. Communicative Language Teaching. An Introduction. – Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981 – 33 p.

5. Brumfit S. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching – Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984 – 88 p.

6. Chomsky N. Syntactic structure. New York, 1957.- 80 p.

7. Widdowson H.G. Aspects of Language Teaching.-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.-218-260 p.

8.Stempleski, Susan and Tomalin Barry. Video in action. Prentice Hale International ELT, 1990. - p. 105

9. Cooper R., Lavery M. and Rinvolucri M. Video. Oxford University Press. 1993. - p.145-149

10.Bamfield Andrew, Littlejohn Andrew and Hicks Diana. Welcome to English Video. Cambridge UP, 1997. – p.64-73.

11. Kelly R. Video and language learning, an approach to viewing comprehention. RELC Journal, 1992. – p. 52-57.