THE ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES AT HIGHER EDUCATIONAL
ESTABLISHMENTS
Motivation to study foreign
languages seems to be higher in modern society. But in fact, nowadays the
motivation for students to study became a little bit lower then, for example,
twenty years ago. The person may graduate from two higher educational
establishments and has no proper position. But we, as teachers, must prove that
higher education is still important and demanded, and as an aspect of it, the
knowledge of foreign languages gives you the wider range of opportunities.
Now young people have many
possibilities to go abroad for studying or working. And, of course, every
country is interested in educated and smart students and workers.
The skills of foreign
languages give the chance to choose better universities for the further
education. But the problem is that the most of our students are not aware of it
and don’t believe it. Among the problems of foreign language teaching I would
like to emphasize the low level of school training, especially at village
schools. Statistics says that only 20% of village schoolchildren are taught
foreign languages properly.
At our college we try to
put our students under such circumstances when they can realize that they
really need to know foreign languages. We take part in some international job
programs. Students who participate in such programs have to take job interview
in English, which is the first stage of getting a job training abroad. That is
why we try to invite to our college students who study abroad. They are
sometimes graduates from our college, sometimes they are volunteers from
abroad.
As a teacher who has some
experience in such mutual lessons with native speakers, I can say that they are
very efficient. When the students of our college have an opportunity to
communicate with foreigners they discuss issues they are interested in. It can
be education, sports, possibilitiesfor one’s career.
Our aim is to teach young
people to communicate, to feel easy in foreign language environment. Earlier
views of language learning focused primarily on the mastery of grammatical
competence. Language learning was viewed as a process of mechanical habit
formation [1, 8]. Before, we paid more attention to grammar skills. But now we
tend not to correct students grammar mistakes while they are speaking to avoid
language barrier. Of course, later we analyze the mistakes the students have
made but not during their speech.
I’d like to remark that
Ukrainian students who study abroad have rather high communicative skills. They
sometimes speak with mistakes but they are not afraid of speaking and being
corrected. In fact, the language barrier is really a great problem that we have
at our classes. Very often students are just shy to speak not to make mistakes.
And it becomes the real obstacle in English practice.
Nowadays we have also many
projects and programs that let our students visit other countries. Our college
develops co-operation with colleges from other countries. It is also a perfect
motivation for studying foreign languages. We try to pay attention to learners’
interests and motivation and cater for learners’ needs [3, 11].
So, to make your students
to do their best you must put the real purpose for them. As sometimes there are
such students who don’t want to study just to be educated, there must be a
persuasive motivation why to do it. There must be inner motivation, which is
much more important than external one. Our task is to make students believe
that, if they master foreign languages, all the world opportunities are open
for them.
To summarize the problems
of foreign languages teaching I’d like to mark out low level of school
training, low motivation for studying and lack of native speakers to
communicate with. And we try to settle them with the means that are mentioned
above.
Література
1. Richards Jack C.
Communicative Language Teaching Today. / Richards Jack C. – Cambridge
University Press 2006 [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступу:
http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf
2. Littlewood W. Developing
a Context-Sensitive Pedagogy for Communication – Oriented Language Teaching. /
Littlewood William – Hong Kong Baptist University [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим
доступу:
http://koreatesol.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Littlewood%20-%20Teaching%20English%20PDF.pdf
3. Гладушина Р.М. Перехід
на новий зміст освіти та проблеми вдосконалення підручників з іноземної мови //
Педагогіка і психологія. – 2000. − №2. −
С. 73−77.
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