36. Modern methods of teaching foreign languages

The teaching method is one of the most important components of the system of teaching foreign languages. Through the method is achieved the achievement of the planned goals and objectives of training in specific conditions.
Under the method of learning (methodical system) is commonly understood as a direction in learning that implements the goals and objectives of teaching a foreign language and defines ways and means of achieving the goal.
The initial attribute for classifying methods is considered an approach to learning (approach), that is, a strategy for learning a foreign language. In modern methodical science, four approaches are distinguished: 1. Behaviorist: mastering a foreign language is associated with the formation of speech automatisms in response to presented stimuli.- 2. Intuitive-conscious: grammatical models, speech structures are globally and intuitively learned, their meaning is realized later. 3. Conscious (recently - cognitive-communicative): the grammatical structure, the word is first realized, then applied; 4. Communicative activity: the connection of conscious and subconscious components in the learning process.
Accordingly, there are four groups of methods: 1. Direct. 2. Conscious. 3. Combined. 4. Intense.
Intensive direction in teaching foreign languages ​​is implemented in various methodological systems, the most important of which is the method of enhancing the reserve capabilities of the individual and the team of G. A. Kitayhorodskaya.
The specificity of the method under consideration is to use the opportunities that are opened when considering a study group as a temporary team of students engaged in joint activities. The task of the authors of the method and teachers is to offer the educational team such modern teaching activities that are personally meaningful for each student, unite people and promote active personality formation through a system of mutual interpersonal relationships.
Based on the main goal of intensive training, we can distinguish two main factors that characterize it: 1. The minimum required period of training to achieve the goal (communication within the home subjects) with the maximum possible amount of educational material for the realization of this goal, 2. The maximum use of all the reserves of the individual student, achieved in conditions of special interaction in the educational group with the creative influence of the individual in the course of teaching.
The method of activating the reserve capabilities of the individual and the team was created on the basis of the concept of the Bulgarian psychotherapist G. Lozanov. It has been tested in a variety of experiments.
The main theoretical principles of the method of activation are associated with the concepts of the psychological school and the ideas about speech activity developed by Russian psycholinguistics, as well as with the use of reserves of the sphere of the unconscious in teaching. On this basis, two interrelated problems are solved: 1) the creation of managed relationships in the system "teacher - team-students"; 2) the organization of controlled speech communication in the educational process.
In foreign and domestic theory and practice of teaching foreign languages, group forms of work are increasingly being established: work in pairs, triples, groups, teams. The peculiarity of group mastering speech activity (cooperative learning) is the direct interaction between students, their joint coordinated activities leading to the realization of common goals.
The specificity of relations developing in the context of collective learning activities is such that it requires each student to be included in joint intellectual activities, to unite mental efforts to overcome difficulties and solve problems.
To organize effective communication, certain quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the study group are taken into account: its optimal size (10-12 people), personal characteristics (heterogeneity of the group), spatial arrangement of the participants of communication (sitting in comfortable chairs in a semicircle, facing each other).
The method of activating the reserve capabilities of the individual and the team is based on the following special principles:
1) The principle of collective interaction.
This principle connects the goals of training and education, describes the means, methods and conditions of a single educational process.
Group training contributes to the emergence of an individual's additional socio-psychological stimuli for learning, supports in the educational team such a psychological atmosphere in which trainees receive opportunities to meet the very important social and psychological needs of people: recognition, respect, and attention from others. All this additionally stimulates the cognitive activity of students.
Under the conditions of collective joint activity, a general fund of information is created on the subject being studied, to which each student contributes, and all use it together. The main "means" of mastering the subject becomes, therefore, communication with partners in the group.
2) The principle of student-oriented communication.
In communication, each trainee is both influential and exposed. In these conditions, the process of personality formation is determined by the attitude of a person to a person, their communication. Language proficiency is, above all, the ability to participate in real communication. The system of concepts in which communication can be described includes the concept of “roles”. Communication turns into a creative, personally motivated process. In this case, the student does not imitate activity, but “owns” the motive of the activity, that is, performs motivated speech acts.
The personal-verbal communication is the basis for the construction of the educational and cognitive process in the intensive teaching of foreign languages.
3) The principle of the role-based organization of the educational process.
Role communication is at the same time both game, and educational, and speech activity. If from the perspective of a student, role communication is a game, then from the position of a teacher, this is the main form of organization of the educational process.
In accordance with the idea, the main textual text for the trainees is polylogue, and the participants in the actions described in it are the students themselves. Thus, one of the methods of non-directive regulation of student behavior in a group is implemented.
4) The principle of concentration in the organization of educational material and the educational process.
This principle characterizes not only the qualitative, but also the quantitative specificity of intensive communication. This specificity is manifested in various aspects: the concentration of educational situations, occupations, the concentration of educational material related to its volume and distribution in the course of study.
A large amount of educational material, especially at the initial stage of training, makes it possible already at the first lesson to organize situations that are as close as possible to real communication. This creates a high motivation for learning, as if bringing the result of training to its beginning.
Concentration in the organization of educational material entails a specific organization of the educational process, which is manifested, in particular, in a high “density of communication”, a variety of types and forms of work, etc.
In the conditions of a large amount of educational material, it turns out to be effective: a) plot construction of a course and individual microcycles; b) plot organization of classes and their fragments; c) the construction of educational texts as a model of speech behavior in certain situations, etc.
5) The principle of multi-functional exercises.
This principle reflects the specifics of the exercise system in the method of activation. A language skill formed in nonverbal conditions is fragile and incapable of transference. Therefore, a productive approach to learning, in which the simultaneous and parallel mastering of linguistic material and speech activity, is carried out.
All five principles of intensive learning of a foreign language provide a clear interrelation of a school subject and educational activities and, thereby, contribute to the effective implementation of learning objectives.