LECTURES_ O N

M E T H O D O L O G Y OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Methodology is a science which studies objectives, contents, regulations, means,

devices, methods and systems of teaching and learning and studying educational
process on the material of a given language.
Any science has its own categories: subject, object, regularities and methods of
research, the principles.
Cathegories of Methodology
System of teaching: a model of the teaching process, corresponding to a definite
methodological conception which determines objectives, contents and means of
teaching.
E.g. The methodological system of M.West. His conception was that when you
have more than 60 pupils in the class you can teach them english only through
reading, where every pupil advances in his own pace and the teacher plays the role
of the master of the cermonies only.
At that time India became the colony of Great Britain. Under such conditions was
better to edit 300 good books than to educate 300 good teachers.
The objectives of M.Wests teaching was to teach to read by reading.
For the contents presupposes he took in his books everyday topics. The
methodological Guide for teachers was called Teaching English in Difficult
Curcumstances.
As the means of teaching he designed a series of graded books from the easiest to
more complicated ones.They were called Green Companoins, Red
Companions..7 books all in all.
Method is a generalized model of the major components of teaching on the basis of
a domineering idea. M.Wests method was based on making the students remember
the necessary vocabulary and structures through frequent repetition of these words
and phrases( at least 7 times per page).
There are different methods: grammar-translation method,
contextual,
audio-lengual method,
audio-visual method, etc.
Device a concrete methodological act aimed at the solution of a concrete task at a
definite stage of teaching.

E.g.

8 devices how to explain the meaning of a word without translatin it:

1) by showing an object
2) by drawing a picture
3) by giving an explanation
4) by giving a definition
5) by analyzing a morphological structure of the the word
6) by giving synonyms
7) by giving antonyms
8) by deriving the meaning from the situation, etc.

Means of teaching: all sorts of manuals, books, elaborations, technical aid

materials, visual aids, computer programmes, etc.
Subject all the problems connected with the sphere of activity which is called
teaching process:
1) aims and objectives of teaching
2) selection and defining the contents of teaching
3) a foreign language as a subject problems
4) Teachers and Students activities
5) effective methods and devices
6) history of development, etc,
the scope of all problems around teaching process.
Object all pedagogical phenomena connected with teaching and educating by
means of a foreign language.
Scheme 1. Methodology and the other sciences.
Pedagagogy

Lingustics

Psychology

Table 1.Regularities
Language
language
thought
reality
* to speak a
language you
should reflect the
reality

Didactics

Psychology
speech
cognition

Pedagogy
education
educating

Methodoology

* speech and
cognition are
achieved through
activeness of the
speaker

*education and
educating takes
place in the course
of teaching

*teaching should
be done on the
real/true-to-life
situations

1)In linguistics linguistic and extralinguistic factors (body movements, gestures,

mimics, media, environment, etc) in communication.
2)In psychology dependence of motivation on the character of pedagogical
stimulation.
3)n pedagogy - activity centered education.
4)In methodology learning, learner in a process of speech activity i.e. in
communication.
1) The process of communication can be effected on by: facial expression,
body gestures, noise - environmental factor.
2) It depends on the teacher - the motivation: marks, relations, good climat,
interest, knowledge assessment may be stimulating and motivate
communication.
3) Activity and information-centered education, acquisition of a language or
any other subject should be organized by the teacher through the students
activity: answering questions, solving problems, making projects,
desighning some plans, etc.
4) While teaching a foreign language the teacher should not only teach a lang a
systemic aspect of a language, but also the cultural aspect of
communication: specific exclamations, short words the typical reaction of
the native speakers in a given situation.
E.g.
Table 1. The regularities are of a general and concrete character
correspondingly:
General
- general regulations of teaching a
language,
- general principles, fundamentals of

Concrete( specific)
- the regulations of teaching a definite
language, a language is taught
differently to the learners with different

teaching process which are common to

teaching any language, irrespectively of
the mother tongue of the students
E.g

mother tongues
E.g.

Methods of Researsh:
There exist two goups of methods:theoretical and experimental.
Theoretical methods of research deal with analysis, synthesis, hypothesis
formulation, modeling.
Experimental methods are meant to test to what extent a method is good for this
or that school. They are: experimental teaching,
experiment,
observation,
questionnaire,
testing,
interview,
chronometry,
informant usage, etc.
Both theoretical and experimental methods may be of 3 types:
Fundamental

Applied

Developments

Fundamental methods solve general theoretical problems. Theory development

or method design.
Applied methods are directed to a development of separate theory elements at
different stages in different schools.
Developments design materials for practical use: designing textbooks, video
aids, audio materials, etc.
Experimental Teaching and Experiment.
Experimental Teaching takes place when a certain programme has been
designed and it needs a thorough check-up at a definite stage of learning during
a year or half-year... in natural environment.
A laboratory experiment in this case a true-to-life conditions are created in the
laboratory and a certain group of students learn for a certain period of time
under these conditions.
E.g. Rythmopedia light, sound, music.

Experiment usually lasts for the necessary time-span(that depends on the

condition of the experiment). It presupposes existance of at last two groups:
experimental and control. An experiment begins with a working hypothesis.
E.g. According to the Theory of Knowledge of Acquisition and the Curve of
forgetfulness by Gausse we may assume that it is better to give a student 200
words for memorization than to give him only 50 words, because according to
Gausse he will forget 20% of this material after 2 hours. This idea should be
checked experimentaly.
The experiment defines variable and non-variable conditions.
E.g. Non-variable conditions may be: the same students, the same text-book,
the same teacher.The students memorized the material at home by learning it,
but the experimental group had 200 words and the control group only 50. The
last condition is a variable factor.
In order to be able to follow the changes in the experimental group, we must
corelate the students in both groups according to their knowledge level.
There are 4 stages in an experiment:
1) organization stage stating the conditions, preparing the material, making
an outer plan ?with dates and results, defining groups score ?corelation;
2) materialization stage realization of the material;
3) processing of facts and data;
4) interpretation of the results.
In order to be able to make conclusions and to prove a certain idea, the data
obtained should be statisticaly reliable. The necesary number of data should be
at least 100 and the more the better.
Theme: Approaches to teaching foreign languages.
If a method is a model in tactics in teaching, an approach is a general strategy.
I.
Beraviouristic Approach.
It is based on a stimulus/reaction principle. In 1940 -1960s the american scientist
Boris Shcinner being a biologist, experineted on pigeons.He decided to teach them
to do some actions. He took a pigeon and put it into a dark room, threww some
seeds and when he switched on a light, on the floor there was a round circle of
light in which there were the seeds and the pegions pecked on these seeds. He
repeated that many times till the pegions were taught to peck in the circle of light
even when there were no seeds. That means that the pegions were taught to react
on the light. Schinner decided that this principle could be transfered to the teaching
process as well. Behaviouristic approach was a way of forming and developing
speech habits by a multiple mechanical repetition of a reaction to a stimulus.
Conscious acquisition explanations were given very little attention and very often
were rejected.

E.g. Pupil: I bought a new book.

Teacher: And yesterday.
Pupil: I bought it yesterday. (drill exercises - without motives or interest)
Criticism of Behaviouristic approach. The english methodologist Thorndike wrote
that repeating one and the same stimulus produces on the student as much
influence as the electric current produces effect on the wire.
But still, Behaviouristic Approach can be successfully used with small children
who acquire their native language inthe same way by repeating every new word or
phrase he hears.At that a small child does not try to desintegrate the phrase.
But Behaviouristic Approach is no good for grown-up learners who know already
one language and try to translate every word in a foreign language to learn its
meaning.Modern trends of teaching put a heavy emphasis on the cultural aspect of
any language and there methodologists who insist that we should teach not only
the language( its system, ways and means of expression), but also the linguistic
behaviour( manner of speaking).
II.Inductive-Conscious Approach.
It means intensive work at multiple? Examples in order to gradually make the
students aware of the rules, speech actions and the elements of the language theory.
E.g. From examples to rules.
This approach is good for schoolchildren of the beginning stage, but such an
approach helps the students to understand grammar, but not to develop speech
habits. It has been used very widely in the audio-visual method.
III.Cognitive Approach.It means the process of learning the theory of the language(
rules of Phonetics, Grammar, Word usage, etc) and coscious structuring of an
utterance on their basis.
E.g. Rules examples, utterances.
It is most appropriate to the adults. The more advanced in age is a student, the
more rules he wants.
IV. Integral Approach.
It is oa integrated acquisition of conscious and subcoscious components of
teaching which is manifested in a parallel acquisition of knowledge and
automatisms in all types of speech activity.This approach is still characteristic of
the majority of the secondary schools.
E.g. In the majority of the school textbooks htere are exercises like: read the text,
to insert the articles, to retell, to tell yor friend what you did yesterday.But ther is
no logics in the system of exercises.
Integral approach is good when it presupposs a logical structure inside the
paragraph.
V.Communicative Approach.
Traditional teaching was aimed at skills development through mastering the system
of language. Communicative approach advocated teaching a language as a means

of communication. Its basis is the differenciation between pre-communicative and

communicative activities.
Through pre-communicative activities the teacher isolites specific elements of
knowledge or skill which compose communicative ability and provedes the
learners with opportunities to practise them separately. The learners are thus being
trained in the part skills of the communication rather than practising a total skill to
be acquired. This category includes the majority of the learning activities currently
to be found in the textbooks and methodological aid books( such as different types
of drills or question/answer practice). This is aimed at providing the learners with a
fluent command of the linguistic system without actually requiring them to use this
system for communicative purposes.Accordinly, the learners main purpose is to
produce language which is acceptable( sufficiently accurate or appropriate) rather
than to communicate meanings effectively.
E.g.Quasi-communication:
- Are you a matches owner? Or
-Do you have a fire? while asking for a lighter.
Pre-communicative activities may be subcategorized as: structural activities and
quasi-communicative.
E.g. While drilling Yes/No questions
- Have you got a sister? The student answers Yes, although he doesnt
have any sister at all. The communication becomes false.
-They looked at each other through the table the student doesnt know
the preposition over.
- surrounding Wednesday, international furniture, etc.
In communicative activities the learner has to activate and integrate his precommunicative knowledge in order to.................... for communication of meaning.
He is now engaged in practising the total skill of communication.
Two subcategories are distinguished here: functional communicative and social
interaction activities.
VII. Humanistic approach.
(no beginning)
The teacher should comment not on a personality, but on the situation.
E.g. Well, if you say so it really meant.
The teacher should take into account that every student is a personality to make a
student admit that he was wrong.
E.g. -Oh, thats another point of view!
not You are wrong!
We may be educating acoward, a hypocrate.
Not to show a pupil that he is a stupid, make a justification of his stupidity.
Listen up to the end.
Humanistic approach presupposes genuine respect to other peoples point of view,
because sometimes even a not very clever person expresses thoughts which are
worth taking into consideration.

E.g. Its interesting! Lets see wether it is right or not.

Never say You are right/wrong!, never be a judge, it is better to make
somebody else a judje.
Methodology and its relations with other sciences.
Methodology as a science can not develop if it doesnt take into account the latest
developments of a number of sciences it relates to.
Tis fact can be explained by the complicated nature of the teaching process i.e,
the psychology of the teacher and the student,
the organization of their mutual colaboration,
on the level of linguistic knowledge of the teacher and the student,
on the health and general disposition of the teacher and the student,
on the time at which the teaching process takes place, etc.
Methodology takes the csientific data from all the sciences that are related to a
teaching process.Linguistics supplies methodology with contents of teaching i/e/ it
gives all the necessary linguistic material that a student should acquire to be able to
express himself freely.Methodology takes the data about the most fraquent lexical,
gramatical units to be studed. About the most complicated learning material, about
the peculiarities of the language as a system, as a structure and the
peculiarities( phonetic, cultural, semantic, etc) of the speech in this language.
Besides, Linguistics can give a methodologist information about the correlation
between the foreign and the mother tongue.
The next science is Psychology. Methodologists use the data about:
age peculiarities of the students,
memory peculiarities,
mechanisms of habits and skills formation and development,
intellectual fatigue,
psychology of the people, whose language the students are studying.
Pedagogy, which gives the opportunity to understand:
the social roles of the teacher and the student( humanistic approach is based more
on pedagogy and psychology),
to correctly consider the student not as the object of the education, but as the
subject of the education,
to rationally distribute the time at the lesson,
to adequately place the students in the classroom, etc.
Methodology also deals with such science as Physiology. It uses the data of
physiology for research purposes. The latter helps to understand better:
the mistakes the student makes,
the tempo/rate? of the material acquisition,
to take into account the processes that take place in a human brain during a certain
activity, etc.

E.g. The frequency of the material input influences the physiological state of the
sudent.8 hours of hard? work can make a person mad, but if they can listen to some
pleasant music in the headphones during that work it becomes less dangerous.
Native word
Concept or object
Foreign word
Object of the reality
Language is a sytem of means( lenguage vehicles) which are necessary and
sufficient for communication plus rules of their use.
Speech is actualisation of language system in concrete acts of communication i.e. it
is not only the knowledge of language means and rules of their uses, but also
automatized usage in communicative acts. Accordingly a person may be assesed by
the competences he has acquired. When only the language structure is acquired and
the person speaks with good grammar we may speak only about language
competence.
But linguistic competence is not enough to speak the authentic language. By the
authentic language we mean speech which is formulated in accordance with
cultural and conven tional traditions of the people. When a person speaking
correctly from the grammatical point of view uses phrases which are the exact
translation from his native language, we can not speak about communicative
competence, because the socio-cultural aspect has not been taken into
consideration.
E.g. Are you the matchers owner?
The communicative competence is the ability to use the appropriate language
means for the necessary situation so that the listner understands the phrase
adequately.

LANG
Language as a system
OrthoPhone-tics
Lexis
graphy
Rules of
PronounWords,
writing,
ciation,
SyntagAlphabet,
Articulation, mas,
Scripts,puct Vowel
phrase,
u-ation
system,
phraseomarks, etc.
Consonant
logy,derivaSystem,
tion,worddiphformation,
tongues,assi homonyms, synomilation,
nyms,antoetc.
nyms,
borrowings, etc.

Language exercises

PAROL
Language as a means of communication
Oral
Written

Grammar
Morhpology

Syntax

Parts of
speech

Sentence, text,
parts of
the sentence,
clauses,
etc.

Listenin
g

Speaking

Reading

Writing

Monological
Dialo

gical

receptio
n

production receptio
n
Speech exercises

production

Language exercises: while doing them the students dont produce their own speech, they are
training themselves in lexical, grammar and phonetic difficulties.
Speech exercises: all the exercises that contain tasks to reproduce something, to retell something,
to do the written exercises( to fill in the gaps, to make the sentence negative, etc) are considered
speech exercises or quasi-communicative exercises. Only when a person expresses his own
thought in oral or written way do we speak about real communication and communicative
exercices.
E.g. When we tell smbd about the yesterdays party it is a real speech,
But when the task is: one of you is a mother, the other is a daughter, ask questions about
the yesterdays party it is speech exercise.
E.g.Oral translation = listening + speaking.
Written translation= reading + writing.
E.g. Listening: 1) the teacher in the class is explaining the notable information about the
homework it is speech exercise
2) a pupil is retelling the text and the others are listening it is language exercise.

The next problem that Methodology solves is the interrelation between the foreign language and
the mother tongue.Wnen a pupil begins to learn his mother tongue at school he already possesses
to some extent the communicative competence. The teacher of mother tongue develops
Language as speech and focuses on Language as system. The teacher of a foreign language has
to develop and create the both things.
The defferences between teaching a mother tongue and teaching a foreign language.
1) Aims.The main aim of teaching a native language at secondary school is to teach the
languagea as a system and to make the communicative skills more perfect, while the main aim of
teaching a foreign language is to combine both teaching language as a system and developing
elementary skills at the same time.
2) Environment. The speech in the native language is constantly perfected thanks to native
language environment, while acquiring a foreign language the child has no foreign environment
and the latter can be created at the lesson by the teacher himself. It will lead to speech perfection.

The student can acquire knowledge from books and other ( radio, TV, etc) as soon
as he begins to read in his mother tongue. The other way round with a foreign
language.
While learning a foreign language the student uses some general categories like:
generalization, analitical activity, the ability to ask for information and give
information, the ways of expressing different feelings from his native language and
is ready to transfer this knowledge into his foreign language. In this case
methodology speaks about transference and interference.
Transference is using some language functions and universal thinking categories
by applying them to the new language. It is possible when the language
phenomenon in the native language coincides with that of the foreign language.
E.g.Explaining gerund to romanian students or to russians. The teachers task is to
help romanian students transfer the knowledge from his native language into the
foreidn language.
But there is a danger of full imitation of the rules of the mother tongue. Actually
one and the same phenomenon in different languages has its peculiariries.There is
no absolute identity. So it is for the teacher to single out the issues where this
difference lies. If he ignores this fact the students faces the posssibility of
interference.
Interference is an erroneous speech product which was created either by extending
the rules of ones mother tongue to the foreign language or mixing up some similar
things within a foreign language.The first type of interference is called interlingual
interference,the second itralingual interference.
E.g. This picture likes me interlingual interference,(should be explained
beforehand)
You have done this mistake

I have made this exercise. intralingual interference( the learner doesnt

know the difference between to make and to do|.
When we speak about the transference from the mother tongue to the foreign
language, we meant not so much the knowledge of certain language phenomenoa,
but we mean the general ideas, the conceptsand the skills, that the student has
acquired in his mother tongue. Besides, while learning a foreign language the
student uses the thinking categories from his mother tongue,but the foreign
language helps him to develop thinking and to understand his native language
better.We may say that thinking in the mother tongue is developed, but in the
foreign language is perfected.
The student uses his mother tongue as a means of learning other subjects and his
communicative competence helps him to do so.But in order to use a foreign
language as a means of communication the student should first be taught how to
communicate and he should develop the communicative comppetence which is a
very long and hard effort. So the final aim of learning a foreign language at
secondary school is not only to supply the student with some knowledge, but also
develop speech skills and communicative competence.
Psychological basis of Methodology.
What is speech from psychological point of view? It is two-sided process. First of
all it is speech proper, which is outward active, outspoken and it has a full
linguistic structure. On the other hand it is innerspeech, which is met in reading
and writing, auding and speaking, which is fragmentary, which is a blending of
thought, which is a scheme.
That is why abundant listening and speaking lead to more fluent speaking but it is
not enough while teaching a group of students. In this case an opportunity should
be given to each student to pronounce out loudly in chorus in order to develop
audiomotor traces, which means that while reading or listening plus pronouncing
we leave a very deep trace in our memory, in our mind.
E.g. Singers or simple patients with sore throat are not allowed to read.
There are three main processes in acquisitin of some knowledge and developing
habits and skills.
Reception
The way of acquiring
knowledge from form to
thought. It is an analitical
process. It is meant for
acquiring some passive
material, i.e. the material
you recognize.

Reproduction
Production
The way of material
Spontaneous speech
acquisition from thought
to form. It is a synthetical
process, which is good for
learning active material,
i.e. the material meant for
actualization(oral
reproduction)

Listening,Reading(silent)

Retelling,Reciting a poem
or singigng a song
(without unerstanding the
language)

Production is a process of spontaneous speech expression of thoughts. Ideas may

be not new, for example on the text read.Should we teach thinking in a foreign
language or should it be acquired as a child learns his mother tongue? Professor
Belyaev, a psychologist was sure that we can teach a child to acquire a foreign
language inthe same way as the child acquires his mother tongue. That means, that
no translation is necessary, all the explanations should be given in a foreign
language. In other words we should teach the student by creating a foreign
language atmosphere and teacn him guess the meaning of the words he doesnt
know. Belyaev believed that a subconscious system will be developed in the minds
of the students and they will use it while speaking in a foreign language.
Another outstanding scientist, academician L.Scherba on the other hand tried to
prove that it is possible to make the studentforget his own language while listening
to someonespeaking a foreign language.L.Scherba says, that no one is in the power
to drive a native language out of the students minds. It is especially true for the
beginning stage of the language acquisition. Besides, the perid of a passive
acquisition of the native language by a child is very long, sometimes it is 3 years of
being silint. But for a person already speaking one language it is difficult to
memorize another language without trying to identify what a foreign word means.
What Belyaev said might be possible at every advanced stage of knowing the
language.
There is such a phenimenon which is called bilingualism, which means that a
person can speak two languages as his native language. But as research showed in
case, for example, a moldovan person is speaking russian and at a certain moment
stops to think what russian word to use, in his mind he already has a moldovan
word(variant).It testifies to the fact that the programme of an utterance is being
created in ones mother tongue.But the speech mechanisms are automatized to such
an extent that we think we are thinkin in a foreign language.When you speak the
same language all the time your cognitive processes are aimed on this language.
Trying to speak about the drawbacks and positive features of these two approaches
we must come to the conclusion that neihter translational methodology, nor nontranslational methodology can teach a beginner to think in a foreign language. The
best approach is a conscious one, i.e. when knowledge is acquired consciously,
habits are developed on the basis of automatisms.And skills come by naturally
abundant practice will facilitate the fluency of speech.

Role of memory in acquiring a foreign language.

There are such types of memory as: short-term memory,
long-term memory,
photo-memory,
intentional memory,
unintentional memory,
visual memory,
motor memory,etc.
For language learning we need only some types of memory.
Short-term memory is connected with material perception and lasts for about 4
minutes at the most and for different people it is different.After we have heard an
utterance it is in our short-term memory for some time necessary for our
understanding it and then it goes to the long-term memory, where it can be retained
for 24 or 48 hours or even longer. And then this material goes to the subconscious
area of the human brain. In other words this information is imprinted in the
engrammes of our brain. It is imprinted in the form of so called traces. According
to the law of imprinting, a person never forgets anything. Everythin he sees, hears,
reads, etc all that leaves traces on his brain. That is why the main problem of
methodology is not to make the stunent study, but to help him to extract the
information from the subconscious area of his mind.
Sometimes we remember something unintantionally, but in the certain
curcumstances our mind suddenly returns us to the events we have never thought
about. The traces become deeper, when the same signal appears many times and
the information moves from the subcosciou mind to the coscious one, where the
processing of the information occurs ( aha!-reactions).
So in teaching languages exercises are meant only to make the traces more
profound, but to teach a person speak language exercises are not enough. They
should be followed by numerous speaking exercises. Communicative approach
consists in drawing the words or phrases out of subcosciouness.
Research has proved that the signals coming to the persons mind shouldn not be
given with frequency exceeding 15 seconds. Otherwise, more frequent signal
overlap and obliterate, delite the information
Photo-memory is also of great importamce for foreign languages acquisition. It is
especially important at the beginning stage when the students remember not only
the soun image of the words, its meaning, but also its spelling.As a rule people
having a developed photo-memory acquire the language better.
Intentional and unintentional memory. Alongside with unintentional memory the
teacher should develop in students intentional memory, because a foreign language
like mathematics requires remembering, learning by heart, reproducing closely to
the text,etc. But it is not so easy to keep cotrol of the students intentional memory
for a long time. When the information is not interesting the time seems to last long.
The way to keep the students attentive is to break monotony of the teaching
process: interesting material, unexpected questions,overmodulation of the
voice,etc.

Knowledge, habits,skills.
These categories are at the same time methodological and psychological
categories.
Knowledge is the whole bulk of language material liable(?) to be acquired
actively and passively.
Habits are automatized actions with phonetical, lexical, grammar material in the
course of receptive or reproductive speech.
Skills a complex of speech acta including all sorts of habits in reading, speaking,
auding and writing.
Psychological and Methodological scheme of Knowledge Skills Habits.
Psychology
Reception
Recognition
Brining home
Understanding
Rememberance
Reproduction
Production

Methodology
Information imparting(explanation)
Demonstration of examples or texts
Rule application
Further silent rule application
Drills in patterns
Using the material in a given situation
Using the material in the students own
situations

Habits and skills are dynamic processes. While developing a skill you are to
acquire quite a number of habits. When reading to themselves the students must
develop the habits to recognize the sounds, to combine them into words, the habit
of understanding the syntagma, of generating the sense of the sentence.
E.g. A child may read without understanding The developed skill leads to habit.
Pedagogocal basis of Methodology.
Subject Object problem.
This problem concerns the student.How the student should be viewed upon.
Whether we should consider the student the object or the subject of teaching and
educating.
Earlier pedagagies considered the student to be the object of teaching and
educating.So the student was looked upon as an obedient child who has no ideas of
his own, who performes all the actions exactly, like a computer follows the orders
of the programmers.

When the teacher asks a question the student may give not only one to one
answers.Taking into consideration that the student has his own background, scope
of knowledge, different attitude to the foreign language as a school subject, we can
not expect from the student a one-to-one answer.In this case the student may give
sone additional understanding, different interpretation and as he himself processes
the information he is an active thinker and he is the master of the situation.
E.g.The student can turn the programme that the teacher gave.
Bearing it in mind we can say that the student is a subject.
The structure of the pedagogical process.
The pedagogical process is a three-sided entity.On the one hand it is a teacher, on
the other it is a student, on the third the subject(?) the foreign language.How do
they interact?
The teaching process is a sum of the student\s activity plus the teachers activity
plus the conditions that the subject(foreign language) imposes on the two. We
cannot say which side is more important. But we can say wether the teaching
process is student-centred or teacher-centered.(sometimes even the student may
teach the teacher something). When a problem isbeing solved the final decision
should be the students.A teacher-centred teaching process is not good because it
curbs the students initiative.
The student-centered teaching process presupposes the students activity, the
opportunity to express his own thoughts, to make solutions, to choose decisions, to
communicate with whom he prefers, etc. How to organixe the students in the
classroom so that they could realixe their motives and interests and satisfy their
likings and dislikes. The manner in puttin tables in rows has very serios
psychological cosequences. It educates individualists, whose attention is focused
on the teacher only and they, the students. Have almost no possibility to know from
each other.It is much better to organize the students in a way they could see each
others faces.
The scheme of the student-centered class organization.
The advantages of student-centered class:
1) They listen to each other,
2) They analyze the manner of speakin, sitting,etc,
3) they try not to repeat each others mistakes.
In a semicercular position the students feel as one connected family, but not as the
1st row- thebest students, the last row the backdrawn students.
The problem of students speech activity.
The communicative approach presupposes the students interaction with other
students during a lesson. This communication can be based either on ready-made

dialogues, or it may be a spontaneous speech. In the first case reproduction of the

dialogues can be a good means of developing speech habits, but spontaneous
speech achieved only through unprepared talking.M. West,a prominent british
methodologist said: Learn to speak by speaking, to read by reading, etc He
meant spontaneous speaking. While communicating the student assumes some
roles and each time he performs a new social role( professor and a student, a waiter
and a customer, etc).
If according to the communicative approach the student is given an opportunity to
choose the role, to solve, to find solutions independently, he is sure to be motivated
and willing to speak.
E.g. A flight to space.What qualities should the personnel have to make a team.
The tacher brings up a problem, but doesn\t say what should each student
do.Specialist in languages can uderstand the purpose and the benifit of doing
exercises, but children cant.
Besides purely linguistic problems the students have to solve behavioural problems
which they often are not ready to do( a prosecutor, a judge, for example). The roles
that the students play during the lesson are also connected with getting life
experiences. That is why all the knowledge that the students have can be applied to
absolutely new situations and in this case it is consciously applied knowledge.
Methodology, during its history, was suffering from unconscious acquisition of the
language to the conscious one.At the beginning of the XX century, when the direct
methods were in fashion. Unconscious approach reigned.Then in the 1940s there
was a trend of deep awareness of the structure of the language and the system was
put to the foreground, i.e. conscious approach.In the 1960s methodologists tried to
show that the unconscious acquisition of the language is much more helpful and
efficient. That is why kearning by heartwas a predominant means of developing
speech habits and skills.
E.g. This method of learning by heart, especially developed in Voronez, as
V.F.Kocherga testified resulted in the students helplessneswhen they started to
speak.
The process of creation should take place from the very firs steps!
E.g. Shehters methods.A grown up person had to acquire a language as a child
does: ready-made dialogues, music, showing a pose of the tea-kettle.But it is
possible to hear the wrong ideas, if you do not read the phrase, if you do not
understand it.( ).
There must be a stage where alongside learning by heart the students should
express their thoughts and ideas. A grown-up cannot speak another language using
only ready-made sentences. In this case he will not be able to express his personal
view otherwise he will become indifferent to what he says.
Nowadays there is a tendency to teach only speech and the more it is - the better,
because the process of communication goes on smoothly when the speech of the
speaker approaches the speed of the native speaker. Very often it is done at the
expense of the correcness/ accuracy and the correct pronounciation. It is very good
for people interacting with foreiners, but it is unacceptable for the future foreign

language teachers,whose strong points must be accuracy, theoretical knowledge of

a language.
Didactic basis of Methodology.
A foreign language lesson.
I.A traditional lesson.
It shoud comprise a number of obligatory stages:
1) Every lesson should begin with so called organization period/stage .Usually
at this stage the teacher asks about the absent pupils, who is on duty, what
the wether is like( It is not bad. But unfortunately real weather is nearly
always is not taken into account).
2) The second stage is speech exercise( a kind of warming-up exercices). The
teacher tries to make the pupils speak in a foreign language either on the
basis of the pictures or the latest events in politics, sport, culture, etc.Mainly
it is answering questions, but tey are seldom special questions. Why? is
rare. It is not bad if the teacher is not afraid of this question( What do you
think of the text we have read?). The question should be communicative.
3) Phonetic drill.Usually it is meant for workig at the students sounds for
drilling reading skills.The teacher is suposed to listen to the way the students
pronounce and to give them advice and correct them. When the chorus
sounds the teacher should be silent listening to the individuals
mispronouncing sounds or explaining the rules in case the words are being
mispronounced. In reality children are shouting at the top of their voices and
the teacher is trying to lead the chorus.Actually chorus work is a very useful
work of teaching languages, but because phonetic drill spoils the students
taste to pronounce something loudly they stop pronouncing anything in
chorus by the 5th or 7th form already.
A communicative lesson.
A child is a future personality, he is to make decisions, we should teach him
responsibility, not to give him ready-made solutions. The communicative lesson is
aimed at develpoing all speech activities at the same time.Traditionally the teacher
is going from elements of speech to speach proper. At a communicative lesson the
order is reversed: it is from speech to certain language elements.How can it be
done?To make a scenario out of the lesson.The techer should think about the
general objective,which presupposes the students solutions of the problems.
Activity problems: bying furniture, for example.
The interdependence of input provided at every moment of the scensrio can be
materialized in accordance with the algorythm of the students activity.Algorythm
is a system of actions where the result of the first stage is the beginning of the
second,and so on. They are iterdependent, a certain prescribed order of doing
something.
The algorythm of a communicative lesson:

1) To give a generalized objective. It must be vaguely put, must contain a

conflict and have a number of solutions.
E.g. The teacher has in mind Conditionals.But he just says: Is it sise to give
children money?If you give.....That is a problem with many solutions, at least
three.The concrete solutions of the problem constitute already the scenario of the
lesson and each concrete objective should be solved by the students according to
the algorythm
2) Each concrete objective must contain a conflict.
E.g.I want to take money from the bank, but I have never been there.
3)To give the behavioural model: what to do and how to do. The lesson should
have reasonable objectives.
E.g.Please phone your uncle and ask for information and put it down.
4) To give the students language models, i.e. to supply the students with all the
new material he needs. It is here to teach them words, grammar, etc.The language
material is given in connection with the problem solved, but not all the material
needed for this particular day.
4) Uniting the students efforts small groups formation.
5) Requisite/properties hand-out materials. When the student has something in
his hands it is more concrete, specific.
E.g. If the concrete objective is to post the postcards, the teacher may give the
student some real postcards. The students speech becomes more precise and
creates unexpected questions and answeres.
6) The activity itself. While the student are working in small groups the teacher
should be least of all a superviser, but a consultant, a friend, a person very much
interested in what is going on in small groups.
7) A check-up of the results of the activity and working out a general approach to
the next problem to be solved.
E.g. You have come to the bank, but you have found out that it is not
veryprofitable. What is the way out?The analysis of the results.
8)The next problem is again solved accordin to the algorythm.
The advantages of the communicative lesson:
1) The students speaking time is much bigger.In traditional education the
teacher speaks a lot, when one or two students are speaking, the others have
to be silent. In general, 1 or 2 minutes for each student. Intravers are silent
all the time.
2) While communicating the students learn from each other.
3) If you use video or audio aids they must be topically connected with the
problem solved and each student can take from this material what he needs
best.
4) All the tasks that the students det are very true to life and they teach the
student life as well. It is not only the linguistic aspect, but also a social one.
E.g. You are the bank manager,or the director of the company, you learn how
to be responsible, you feel it and when you grow up..
R.Kipling. I keep six honest serving men

They taught me all I know.

Their naimes are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Objectives of Teaching Languages.
1) Educational objectives ()
2) Educative objectives ( )
3) Practical objectives ()
Educational objectives. Teaching a language of a foreign country presupposes not
only learning the language as such, but also getting acquainted with the culture of
the country. The genaral information about the countrys geography and history,
customs, literature, main industrial centres, folklore wide the scope of vision of the
students. It very good when the teacher doesnt confine himself to the material of
the textbook only, but brings book, etc
E.g. Speakin about therailway station bring the tape, video with the sounds,
announcements. If you were abroad tell the students or ask those who were abroad
or bring foreigners.
Educative objectives. A foreign language has many opportunities to help the
students feel what is good and what is bad, because a teacher of a foreign language
can use any sources that are at hand to convince his pupils in somethin important.
E.g. If the teacher just states that Students have different life(?) it is one thing,
but if he brings the surveys, the poll results, video pieces, documents it is
absolutely different thing.
A foreign languages makes the student unerstand his own language much better. A
person knowing a foreign language has an access to another culture, he becomes
very wise because he knows more.
E.g.
1) , ,
2) , ..
Practical objectives. It should be understood in terms of communicative process. It
means: whatever the teacher teaches it should find reflection in the students
speaking practice and whatever the student knows should be facilitated(?) in his
speech.

Contents of education.
By contents we mean everything the student acquires in the course of studies. It is
clear for everyone that by contents we mean language material related to phonetics,
grammar, lexis as well as material contained in written texts, books, diccionaries,

audio and video materials that the student acquires a language from. But not only
that.
As we know, learning a foreign language presupposes not only language material
acquisition, bu also development of habits and skills of using this material.So there
has been a long arguement whether habits and skills acquisition should be
considered as a part of contents of teaching. It is only reasonable to consider them
as contents of teaching because otherwise the material acquisition at the level of
understanding might be taken for the final qoal of language learning. Besides,
knowing about the language requires some knowledge of culture, literature,
history, customs, traditions, etc, a specialist in a foreign language should know
about realias (?). Realias enrich the students idea about the culture of the country,
get to know habits and customes and should go within the contents of teaching.
Speech activity and exercises.
Methodology distinguishes 4 speech activities:reading, writing, speaking, listening.
But not every speaking can be considered a speech activity. By speech activity we
mean the process of giving or getting some notable information.. We can speak
about speaking as speech activity,speaking as oral work, speaking as vocalization,
verbalization, etc.For a teacher it is important to have a clear idea of the difference.
Vocalization is a speech exercise aimed at articilation development, making
somethig audible.
E.g. Reading London course or dome other phonetic exercises, reading an exercise
done at home loudly.
Oral work anything pronounced by the students orally, a sentence, examples
with the necessary words, reading aloud isolated sentences from the textbooks
even pronouncing something that nobody is interested in.
E.g. The teacher asks the student to ask his neighbour about the thin they both
knew. There is no novelty.
Speaking as speech activity is aimed at asking for notable information and giving
needed information.
E.g. Retelling the text almost word for word when the whole class has prepared
such a retelling at home is not a speech activity. But answering a Why-question
related with the text will be a speech activity because some new information is
given by each participant of the discussion.
A close to the text retelling of a homereading text is not a speech activity, but
talking freely in connection with text is a speech activity.
Asking a neighbour abut the things that you very well know is a speech exercise,
but asking a question when you are really interested in the answer is a speech
activity.
Reading aloud a text from the textbook is not a speech activity,while reading a
newtext for the sake of getting some new information is a speech activity, but it is
more natural to do a silent reading in this case.Reading aloud is an exercise of
developing readig habits, while silent reading is a apeech activity.

Writing an exercise consisting of isolated is an exercise, writing a paragraph

thought by the student is a writing speech activity.
Listening to a tape or film in order to get some information is a listening speech
activity, but listening to a classmate retelling a topic is not, it is a listening exercise.
Teaching phonetics.
Phonetics is a discrete system, which means that it has a final number of phonetic
phenomena, which has to be acquired by every learner.As far as difficulties go,
english ohonetics has 3 categories of sounds:
1)similiar, but not identical sounds,
2)identical sounds,
3)different(absolutely new) sounds.
The most difficult is the first category, because they call for interference. The
teacher must explain the difference very carefully and precisely. The new sounds
do not present any considerable difficulty, if they are given a very detailed
description/prescription., but in methodologe there is a so called approximation
principle, i.e. there may be deviations from the norm of pronouncing some sounds
provided they do not affect the meaning of the utterance.
E.g. If the learners [t], or [d] are not dental the listener will understand the
utterance, but if the learner mispronounces sound [ ] in the words bad, bird,
and bed the listener is sure to misunderstand the phrase.
The most important things in phonetics to be within constant attention of the
teacher are meaning differenciating phenomena:
1)the correct pronounciation of all the vowel sounds
2) long and short vowels( the rythm depends on it)
3)Devoiced endings(and, not ant)