Шульгина Т.Г.

Одесский государственный университет внутренних дел

The principles of teaching English communicative activity

Principle is defined as a guide to action, in our case to teaching. Methodology of teaching English is based on the fundamental principles of Didactics. They are the following: scientific approach in teaching, accessibility, durability, conscious approach, activity, visualization and individual approach to instruction, systematic practice. Except for the basic didactic principles Methodology of teaching English uses specific principles that are applied in teaching a foreign language. Let’s consider them.

Since the aim of teaching English at school is to teach the pupils how to use the target language for communicative needs’, one of the main methodological principles is the principle of communicative approach. It means that the students should be involved in oral and written communication throughout the whole course of learning English.

There are four types of language activities to be developed in pupils: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Each language activity has its own set of actions that are characteristic of this activity, thus special exercises are needed which should be adequate to each activity. So in teaching a particular language activity the teacher faces specific problems that should be solved since the development of each activity requires certain techniques and exercises. This is the application of the principle of a differential approach in teaching English, i.e. each language activity requires special attention on the part of the teacher.

The principle of an interacted approach is another methodological principle. Pupils do not assimilate sounds, grammar units, lexical items as discrete components of the language, but they acquire them in sentence-patterns, pattern-dialogues related to certain situations. Students should use their skills in the four language activities as interdependent parts of their language experience.

The principle of durability implies the ability of a pupil to keep in his memory linguistic and language material he learns of ready access, i.e. the student can use units of the language whenever he needs them for oral or written communication. The durability is ensured: – by vivid presentation of material; – by constant revision and drills; – by the use of the material on the part of the learner for communicative needs; – by systematic control; – by constant supervision of pupil’s habits and skills on the part of the teacher.

The principle of conscious approach to language learning means that the language material is acquired consciously, the pupil understands what he learns. Such approach usually contrasts with “mechanical” learning throughout repetitive drill. So the pupils should acquire the rules of the language in order to be able to follow them in the act of Communication.

The principle of activity implies that the students should be active participants in the learning process. Activity arises under certain conditions. According to the Sets Theory (теория установки) the learner should feel the need to learn the language, thus the main sources of activity are motivation, desire and interest in the language.

The principle of visualization is very important in teaching English since the process of knowledge gaining begins with sense perception. The use of visualization makes the lessons emotionally coloured, gets the pupils interested and awakens their thought. It creates natural or almost natural situations for the use of the language as a means of communication.

The principle of individualization is getting very important at present. There always are some individuals in the class who learn more slowly than others, or faster than others. The teacher has to assess the progress of each individual in the class and find the way how to manage the classroom activity so that the slowest learners are not depressed being left behind and the fastest learners are not frustrated by being held back. This principle is achieved: by using the individual cards; by specific selection of exercises for each group of students in the group; by the use of additional material, etc.

Reading and writing are closely related processes that require active participation. Because writing about reading encourages critical thinking and deeper comprehension, it is important that learning activities reinforce the connection between these processes.

What techniques for testing reading can be considered not only as a tool for assessing reading but also as a means of teaching writing summaries? They can be the following:

1) free-recall tests; 2) summaries in the first language; 3) multiple-choice summaries; 4) gapped summaries.

In free-recalls tests students are asked to read the text, to put it to one side, and then to write down everything they can remember from the text.

An obvious problem is that students may understand the text, but be unable to express their ideas in writing adequately, especially within the time available for the task. Therefore at the beginning stage of practicing students might be allowed to write the summary in their first language rather than the target language.

Good results at this stage can be obtained if students do multiple summary tasks, using the multiple-choice technique. This technique is also important as it provides students with different examples of written summaries.

Another useful technique for both testing reading and teaching summary writing is the gapped summary. Students read the text, and then read the summary of the same text, from which key words have been removed. Their task is to restore the missing words, which can only be restored if students have read and understood the main ideas of the original text. It should not be possible to complete the gaps without having read the actual text. A further modification is to provide a bank of possible words and phrases to complete the gapped summary or to constrain responses to one or two words taken from the passage.

To sum up, we believe that using above-mentioned activities at the beginning stage of teaching summary writing is essential.

Литература:

1. Alexander, L. Practice and Progress. Longman, 1980.

2. Cooper, D. Philosophy and the Nature of Language. London, 1973.

3. Chomsky, N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, 1965.

4. Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman, 1994.

5. Richards, J. Language and Communication. Longman, 1983.