scholarly journals Fostering foreign-language teaching at university by developing students’ autonomy: The exploratory experiment

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Karine Chiknaverova

This article addresses the issue of activation of the process of foreign-language acquisition by means of fostering students’ autonomy. The author characterises and analyses the nature and components of foreign-language communicative competence and autonomy. It proceeds with justifying the appropriateness of using particular diagnostic tests and specifies the components of autonomy that are manifested during foreign-language teaching and learning at university. The methods employed include statistical relevance check based on the criteria of Mann–Whitney, Wilcoxon rank correlation, analysis by Spearman and factor analysis. The findings confirm the interconnection between intensity and quality of students’ foreign-language communicative competence development and their autonomy. The research identifies three levels of foreign-language communicative competence and the levels of autonomy corresponding to them. The article concludes with an outline of the stages following the exploratory experiment and further recommendations.   Keywords: Learners’ autonomy, foreign-language communicative competence, monitoring learners’ autonomy, foreign-language acquisition, English as a second language.

Neofilolog ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Krystyna Mihułka

Culture has been the subject of researchers’ consideration for centuries, which is confirmed by hundreds of published definitions of the word culture. Even a perfunctory analysis of those definitions indicates that it is difficult to talk about culture using it as a consistent concept. The aim of this article is therefore to highlight the richness of meaning of the word culture by presenting and discussing the characteristics of culture which appear most frequently in definitions developed by social psychologists, cultural anthropologists, social pedagogues, foreign language acquisition researchers, and students of German philology. The final part of this articlepresents those features of culture which allow to place this concept correctly in the process of foreign language teaching and learning.


Author(s):  
E. B. Yastrebova ◽  
D. A. Kryachkov

The article analyzes how professors and students of MGIMO-University’s School of International Relations perceive innovations in language teaching.As a synergy system, language teaching relies on selfdevelopment based to a great extent on innovations, which can be initiated either from the inside or from the outside. To identify the basic features of innovations in foreign language teaching, the authors conducted a survey of professors and students of the School of international Relations. The results suggest that for most respondents the main purpose of innovations in foreign language teaching and learning is to attain a significantly higher level of communicative competence, which is seen as feasible only if fundamentally new teaching materials and computer technologies are used. According to the survey, the success of innovations largely depends on their source (innovations ‘from the top’ and innovations ‘from the bottom’) and commitment on the part of professors and students to participate in them, the latter being often prompted by their discontent with the state of play. Innovations ‘from above’ tend to be more encompassing and affect the entire system of language education, whereas innovations ‘from the bottom concern the teaching process per se. Though the survey suggests that it is innovations ‘from the top’ that tend to be more successful, the authors conclude that language education as a synergy system adopts only non-shattering innovations that address its most vital needs, thus encouraging its sustainable development.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Katarina Krželj

The paper presents results of a study on the interest of students of non-philological faculties (of universities in Serbia) in contents from foreign cultures and how high importance students attach to learning about the target culture in foreign language teaching and learning at non-philological faculties. The goal of modern foreign language teaching at non-philological faculties, in addition to the development of communicative competence in the profession, is also to develop pluricultural competence. In order to test the chances of attaining this goal, it is necessary to perform an analysis of the legislative framework in which teaching foreign languages for special purposes takes place, an analysis of learning aims and the possibility of developing cross-cultural sensitization. An analysis of the needs for and interests in the contents of the target culture must be precededed by an analysis of the specificities of intercultural learning and intercultural competence. Based on these results, it is possible to establish the correlation between the elements of the culture already present in the existing teaching material and the interests and needs of the target group which these materials are intended for.The data thus obtained will serve as a basis for defining the guidelines for selecting contents of the target culture, which, on one hand, will be based on methodological and didactical principles of interculturally oriented foreign language teaching, and on the other hand, will reflect the real needs and interests of the students from a number of non-philological faculties.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Savchenko

The article deals with the theoretical foundations of foreign language acquisition which are related to the integration of poetic texts into foreign language teaching. The article defines poetic text and its role in foreign language teaching and focuses on the selected foreign language acquisition theories and their interconnectedness with using poetic texts in the teaching of foreign languages.


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