Teaching English as a foreign language refers to teaching the English language to students with different first languages. Teaching English as a foreign language can occur either within the state school system or more privately, at a language school or with a tutor. Teaching English as a foreign language teachers may be native or non-native speakers of English.
The general goal of teaching foreign languages in elementary school should be broken down into smaller specific, achievable goals that can be achieved during a year, half year, quarter, month, week, one lesson. With regard to the course of teaching a foreign language in elementary school, you can set the following general goals: to get acquainted with how children live in the country of the language being studied, to know what kind of country it is; learn to communicate with native speakers of this country, that is, understand what is spoken in the language being studied, speak it so that native speakers understand, read what is written in a foreign language for a given age group, write in a foreign language so that native speakers understand language (the latter, that is, reading and writing, is studied only in elementary school, but not in kindergarten) within the framework of everyday subjects using vocabulary and grammatical structures used by native speakers of this age group. Teaching English as a foreign language can also take place in an English-speaking country for people who have immigrated there either temporarily for school or work, or permanently.
The study of objects and phenomena as systems has led to the formation of a new approach in science is a modern approach. The system approach as a general methodic principle is used in various branches of science and human activity. The epistemological basis is the general theory of systems.
According to definitions of Azimov E.G., Schukin A.N. “Methodology of modern approaches to teaching foreign languages substantiate the introduction of early learning of foreign languages by the natural disposition of children to languages and their emotional readiness to master them [1, 56].
In the domestic research works of theory of psychology (L S. Vygotsky, S.L. Rubinstein), and in foreign psychology (B. White, J. Bruner, V. Penfield, R. Roberts, T. Eliot) we found evidence that mastering a foreign language is easier for a child than an adult. In this case, they usually refer to the sensitive characteristics of children of preschool and elementary school age mastering languages in general, and also a foreign language. I.V. Arnold noted that the duration of the sensitive period is determined in different ways by different researchers who consider children’s psychology from 1.5 to 7 years and from 4 to 8 years old. They are the ages that children are distinguished by natural curiosity and the need for learning new things. They tend to be more flexible and faster than at subsequent stages in acquiring of linguistic materials [2, 56].
Teaching a foreign language to children of six or seven years old was again the subject of a keen conversation of teachers, philologists and parents. Previously, not enough attention was paid to the problems and peculiarities of learning a foreign language, starting from preschool age or from grade 2 of secondary school, moreover, only a small number of schools used such systems of teaching a foreign language. Currently, learning a foreign language from preschool age or elementary school has become truly widespread. Learning English in elementary school is a controversial and controversial topic. Some teachers believe that the child is not ready to master the language at such an early age that you must first master your native language, otherwise there will be confusion in the head in children. Others, on the contrary, believe that the earlier this process begins, the better.
Psychologists have determined that the best time to learn a foreign language is the second class, when there is a comprehensive acquaintance with Russian and English. Thus, on the basis of the requirements of the federal component of the state standard of general education in foreign languages, the introduction of English as the main subject of elementary school took place throughout the country. In this regard, many English teachers faced a number of problems: the lack of sufficient and necessary material base in the school; lack of sufficient knowledge to work with children of elementary school; unpreparedness of parents for joint activities with their children while learning a foreign language; lack of positive motivation among students; speech therapy and phonetic problems of children, etc.
A foreign language is perhaps the only subject in the school curriculum that aims at “learning to communicate” [1], and in this sense its value can not be overestimated . Nowadays, the process of learning a foreign language is understood not as an individual activity of students with educational material, with a subject of study, but as “a specially organized communication, interaction between teachers and students, students with each other, which means, first of all, their joint coordinated activities " [2, 63].
As for the question of whether it is necessary to start learning a foreign language from an early school age, recently it went beyond the framework of the discussion.
There are a number of benefits of teaching IL to young children:
- positive impact on the development of mental functions (memory, thinking, perception, imagination);
- influence on the general speech abilities of the child;
- improving the quality of knowledge of the native language, creating a base for the continuation of its study in elementary school;
- an earlier stage of a child into a common human culture through communication in a new language for him, while relying on the child’s experience, taking into account his mentality, awareness of the phenomena of his own national culture.
Nowadays there is an unprecedented progress of knowledge, which led to the discovery and accumulation of many new facts, information from different areas of life, and thus put humanity before the need to systematize them, finding the common in the particular, ever-changing.
According to methodist Kamyanova T.G. “a person gradually loses these abilities from time to time and his sensitivity to the perception of sounds and the ability to imitate them diminishes, his short-term memory weakens, as well as his ability for visual and, most importantly, auditory perception can be weakened” [3, 63]. Physiologists also believe that “there are biological ‘clocks’ of the brain, just there are the stages of development of skills and abilities for children.
A child under nine is an expert in mastering speech. After this period, the acquisition mechanisms of speech become less flexible and cannot be easily adapted to new conditions. After 10 years of age, many obstacles have to be overcome. The brain of a child has a specialized ability to speak a foreign language, but it decreases with age ”[4, 125]. In the sensitive age period, the non-accent pronunciation of foreign sounds, words, intonation is mostly achieves successfully when a small child constantly listens and imitates authentic materials of foreign language speech. L.S. Vygotsky noted that at school age, play and activities, play and work, form two main channels along which younger schoolchildren are active. Vygotsky L.S. saw in the linguistic aspect an inexhaustible source of personal development, the sphere defining the “zone of proximal development” [4].
L.S. Vygotsky, considering the role of the linguistic aspect in the mental development of a child, noted that in connection with the transition to school, the linguistic aspect not only does not disappear, but on the contrary, it pervades the student’s entire activity [4, 152].
Communicative language teaching emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. Despite a number of criticisms, it continues to be popular, particularly in Japan and Europe. The task-based language learning approach to Communicative language teachinghas gained ground in recent years. Proponents believe communicative language teaching is important for developing and improving speaking, writing, listening, and reading skills, and that it prevents students' merely listening passively to the teacher without interaction. Communicative language teaching is a similar communicative approach that encourages teaching without published textbooks, instead focusing on conversational communication among the learners and the teacher.
Most researchers like Galskova N.A, Gez N.I. agree that special classes in a foreign language can be conducted with children 3–10 years old. From the age of 3 the language is meaningless. And after 10 years old, it is useless to hope for a positive result, which is possible only for a small part of schoolchildren who have communicative and linguistic skills above average point [5, 53]. It is best to learn a foreign language at the age from 5 to 8, when the system of the mother tongue is already well learned by the child. And it consciously refers to the formation of a new language. It is at this age that there are still few cliches of speech behavior. It is easy to “encode” a teacher thoughts in a new way. There are no great difficulties when the child comes into contact in a foreign language. If the methodical system is built quite competently from a psycholinguistic point of view, then success in mastering the proposed limited language materials and creating the necessary prerequisites for the further mastery of any foreign language which can be provided to almost all children. [6, 38-42].
Teaching English as a foreign language, also known as English as a second language has become one of the largest education industries in the world. Now really is the best time to teach English as a foreign language. Experienced and inexperienced teachers can still enjoy a fun year or two working abroad, but other opportunities within the industry have opened up. As the industry has grown, so have the opportunities. Teachers can now enjoy lasting careers as well as travel and experience new cultures.
So, different authors designate a different age at which it is necessary to begin learning a foreign language. However, the recommendations of Vereshchagina I. N., Afanasyeva O.V. noted that it is preferable to start early learning of a foreign language in elementary school from the most favorable age is confirmed is from 6 years old [7].
Qualities inherent to the children’s age of elementary school according to many foreign researchers most often cited the following qualities inherent to children of elementary school [7, 48]:
- low concentration of attention;
- predisposition to kinesthetic forms of work;
- preference to research the whole, but not the particular;
- concentration of attention occurs here and now;
- understanding of the situation than the understanding of the use of a foreign language;
- quick memorization is accompanied by quick forgetting;
- mechanical memory prevails over logical;
- lack of constraints when speaking;
- no fear of making errors and willingness to work on them;
Ozhegov S.I. states “A very important advantage of preschool and elementary school age lies in the motivation of playing games that is globally active in children. It allows schoolchildren naturally and effectively organize the process of teaching foreign languages as a means of communication and build up it as a process as close as possible to the natural process of using their native language. This becomes possible, since with the help of a specially organized game activities in the educational process, almost any language units can be valuable in communication. And the efficiency of the formation of foreign language skills in a younger schoolchildren is the ability to communicate in a new language can be increased due to the interaction of motivation and interest in schools” [7, 149].
In the course of familiarization with the text of the work, the attention of younger schoolchildren is focused on the communicative behavior of the characters, on the peculiarities of their verbal and non-verbal communication. A form of work is proposed, such as keeping a sociocultural diary, in which the daily activities of the heroes, the characteristics of their national culture (family and school relationships, popular television films and programs, music, meals, and attitudes toward drugs) are noted. The information obtained is compared with the previously known, parallels are drawn with the native culture, with American culture, as well as with the culture of the country of the second language being studied. During the execution of this work and in the process of the subsequent discussion, the stereotypes prevailing in the younger schoolchildren in relation to English culture are refuted or confirmed.
In the classroom, great attention is paid to the replenishment of the active and passive vocabulary of younger schoolchildren. The lexical units that are represented in the work of the British writer are analyzed from the perspective that the lexical background of the novel reflects the realities of English national culture. For example: to beat the bush, to the bottom, to go round the twist. Younger schoolchildren describe the situations of communication in which the given vocabulary units are used by the author, and also make up their own situations. In the process of work, the most difficult to translate sentences containing lexical and grammatical structures characteristic of modern English are also considered. Each section ends with additional questions about English realities and cultural characteristics found on the pages of the novel. For example: What do you know about the films “Home Alone”, “Honey, I Blew up the Kids”, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”? Did you read the novel “One flew over cuckoo’s nest”? Did you see the screened version? Share your impression either of the book or the film?
Summing up, we can say that languages should be studied in inseparable unity with the world and the culture of the peoples speaking these languages.
Thus, Vyatyutnev M.N. confirms “sociocultural skills is knowledge about the sociocultural specificity of the country of the language being studied, improving the skills to build one’s speech and nonverbal behavior adequately to this specificity, forming the skills to distinguish the general and specific in the culture of the native country and the country of the studied language” [9, 85].
The importance of lexical exercises in teaching a foreign language was indicated by such famous methodologists as N. D. Galskova, Z.N. Nikitenko. “It is important to be aware,” indicated N. D. Galskova, Z.N. Nikitenko, “to decide which didactic tasks this linguistic aspect should contribute to, the development of which mental processes it is designed for” [10, 40].
Lazarenko K. A., Demyanenko M. Ya., Kislaya S. V. noted the following features of lexical exercises as a means of learning: motivation, lack of coercion; individualized, deeply personal activity; training and education in the team and through the team; development of mental functions and abilities; teaching with passion [12,17].
E.I. Passes identifies the following objectives for using the linguistic aspect during the learning process: the formation of certain skills; the development of certain speech skills; learning to communicate; development of necessary abilities and mental functions; memorization of speech material.
Zenkovsky V.V.writes: “The most intensive development of many functions occurs up to 7–9 years of a child, and therefore the need for play at this age is especially strong, and the linguistic aspect turns into an activity that controls development. It forms the child’s personal qualities, his attitude towards reality, towards people ”[13, 96].
Osmanova I.V.noted that new, progressive formations are developing in the linguistic aspect, and a powerful cognitive motive arises, which is the basis for the emergence of an incentive to learn [14, 52].
The brightest example of the plaing position of a teacher is the activity of Khutorskoy A.V. He wrote: “I consider play to be one of the most important ways of education. In the life of the younger schoolchildren's team, a serious and responsible business linguistic aspect should occupy a large place. And you, teachers, must be able to play ”[15, 113].
Modern approach is not just a collective entertainment. This is the main way to achieve all the tasks of learning, so you need to: know exactly what skill and skill is required, what the child did not know and what he learned during the linguistic aspect; the linguistic aspect must put the student in front of the need for mental effort. That is the opinion put forward by Jacobson P.M. [16, 215].
Teaching English as a foreign language involves being able to convey the English language in an articulate and interesting manner. English educators encourage students to improve their English skills through listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Teaching English is often facilitated through the use of course books, audio-visual aids, and technology-based materials. In addition to formal instruction, informal exercises, such as role playing and language games, are often used.
Typical activities for TEFL teachers include:
-Planning, preparing and delivering lessons;
- Creating and writing materials;
- Providing feedback on oral and written work;
- Administering examinations and other assessments [16].
By definition Leontyev A.H., "the linguistic aspect is a type of activity in the conditions of situations aimed at the recreation and assimilation of social experience, in which self-management of behavior develops and improves." According to M.F. Stronin, the linguistic aspect in the classroom of the English language is a situational-variable exercise, where an opportunity is created for repeated repetition of a speech pattern in conditions as close as possible to real speech communication with its characteristic features: emotionality, spontaneity, and focus of speech influence. That is, in the course of the linguistic aspect, pupils form pronunciation, lexical, and grammatical skills, and younger schoolchildren acquire experience in verbal communication [17, 89].
N.D. Galskova and N.I. Gez argue that the initial consolidation of words in the at elementary school can be playful. The teacher, in their opinion, should show his creativity to the maximum, using clarity and lexical linguistic aspects [6, 96].
So, the linguistic aspect is a teaching tool that activates the mental activity of younger schoolchildren, allows you to make the learning process more attractive and interesting, makes you worry and worry, which forms a powerful incentive to master the language.
As has been proven, each age period is characterized by its type of leading activity. Under the leading activity refers to such activity, the development of which causes the most important changes in mental processes and psychological characteristics of the child at this stage. The leading activity prepares the transition of the child to a new, higher stage of its development [17, 152]. So at the age of six there is a gradual change of leading activity: the transition from gaming activities to teaching. At the same time, the game retains its leading role. On the one hand, children have an active interest in new educational activities, in school as a whole, and on the other hand, the play need does not diminish. It is known that children continue to play up to 9-10 years.
One of the main directions of personality formation at the age of six is the formation of learning motives. Investigating the motives that motivate six-year-old children to research, psychologists found out that the most common of them are the following: broad social, cognitive educational motives (interest in knowledge, the desire to learn something new) and game motives. The full development of educational activities occurs due to the action of the first two motives, but they are formed in six-year-olds when the game motive is satisfied. Moreover, if the needs of children in the game are not found, then the development of their personality is inflicted. Here the teaching process becomes formal and interest in learning is absent [17].
From the theory of communication process it is known that the speech with its motivational and target parties goes into other activities of intellectuality, communication and motivation. As a well-known domestic psychologist A. A. Leontiev correctly noted, a person has nothing to do when communication for the sake of speaking is a psychologically unjustified process [17, 89]
The uniqueness of the six-year-old is that it is time for the process of learning a foreign language. It can be included in the context of gaming activities in order to create intrinsic motivation and interest in mastering a new language in circumstances where there is no natural need for children to communicate in the target language. According to the definition of Rogova G.V., Vereshchagina I.N., a new game (with new fairy-tale characters, animals, who speak only a new foreign language) is a psychological justification for switching to a new language in an environment where all communication tasks can be solved in their native language and there is no need for a foreign [18, 152].
An interest in a foreign language is developed and the first contact with the linguistic world of another world is developed through the game activities. With the help of the game activities it is easier to focus the attention of children, to attract them to active work. This is due to the psychological characteristics of the child's physical abilities, too. The game activity gives a teacher an opportunity to make the process of repeating vocabulary and grammatical structures fascinating for schoolchildren.
The use of developmental games that gives the opportunity to think, solve gradually more complicated tasks actively and independently. A teacher can develop the abilities inherent in the child from nature successfully [19, 56]. Therefore, it is this age that represents unique opportunities for the implementation of a communicative approach to learning a foreign language at the expense of globally active gaming motivation, which allows a teacher to create natural motives for all speech activities of schoolchildren, to make even the most elementary statements meaningful and interesting.
As for the development of such mental processes of children as memory, attention, perception, their main characteristic is arbitrariness. So, when perceiving the material, six-year-olds tend to pay attention to its bright presentation, emotional coloring. However, their attention is characterized by instability: they can only concentrate for a few minutes. Children do not perceive the language for long (more than 2-3 minutes) monologue explanations of the teacher, therefore any explanation should not be built in the form of a conversation. The six-year-olds are very impulsive, they find it difficult to restrain themselves. They do not know how to control their behavior, so they get tired quickly. The recession in memory occurs within 10 minutes after the start of the lesson [19, 85].
From the first signs of decline in attention, the teacher is recommended to be spent with children organization of playing games (preferably with music) and change the type of work. The development of voluntary attention of children is possible through the organization of various interesting activities with a clear transition from one type of work to another, with specific instructions on what they should pay attention to.
The mnemonic activity of the six-year-olds is also imperfect. They are dominated by involuntary memorization, that is, they remember well and quickly what is interesting and causes an emotional response. Involuntary absorption of the material is possible in the process of the fascinating interaction of children with each other. The widespread use of toys and pictures will contribute to the development of figurative and associative memory, and a clear statement of the tasks of communication and the organization of their solution will be verbal-logical [20, 12].
The imagination of a six-year-old student is quite developed and is not only reproducing, but also creative. In turn, the development of thinking goes from visual-effective to visual-figurative. Visual-figurative logical thinking develops the following skills of children can:
- analyze language phenomena, based on speech experience in the native language independently;
- highlight the main and establish causal relationships;
- apply knowledge and assimilated methods of action in an independent foreign language-communication process consciously [20, 58].
Six-year-olds are very sociable and like to be in a peer group. A personal communication among various types of communication between a child and adults (business, cognitive, personal) in this age prevails. Through communication with adults, children will better know themselves, as they strive to get an assessment of their personality.
In the conclusion of my work, I would like to summarize and draw the following conclusion that any practical goals of teaching a foreign language in general and each individual lesson taken in particular are subject to the central task of general education - the task of forming, developing, educating a student as a socially active, moral, convinced, able to set educational goals on their own and to achieve their solution to an individual who is able to effectively cooperate and communicate with other people. Accordingly, one of the main pedagogical tasks in teaching a foreign language in an elementary school is to focus the whole process on the personal development of the younger schoolchild through this school subject.
It is necessary to emphasize that, depending on the communication skills, professional readiness, speech culture, pedagogical tact of the teacher, the student realizes his or her educational tasks, enters into educational cooperation and pedagogical communication. An individual approach to learning a foreign language in elementary school reveals the essence of speech activity as an object of study. Since in this case, it is not the homogeneous speech activity of the speaking collective that is considered, but the speech activity of the individual, the student, the subject of activity. In the process of teaching a foreign language, language means (lexical, phonetic, grammatical) and methods of forming and formulating thoughts along with the operational side of the speech activity itself act as independent, specially worked-out learning objects.
For the student, the learning process must be internally motivated. He should be encouraged not only by ethical (obligation, duty, necessity), but above all communicative and cognitive motives. The course and success of the training must be satisfying. The subject content of training (tests, problems, questions) should be realistic, close and understandable to the student.
I have chosen the aspect of teaching receptive and productive skills at the initial stage, because they are theforms the basis of communication, mastering oral communication begins with it. Since it is closely related to other types of speech activity (speaking, reading, writing), listening plays an important role in learning a foreign language and especially in communicative-directed learning. In modern methods of teaching foreign languages, both in our country and in other countries, the need to form listening as a very important skill, without mastering which communication in the language is unthinkable, is emphasized. Therefore, we can conclude that listening should occupy an important place at the initial stage.
The study found that speaking is closely related to other types of speech activity: listening, reading and writing. The connection between listening and speaking is due to complex mental activity based on inner speech and a prediction mechanism. They represent the oral form of communication. One is unthinkable without the other. Speaking is closely related to reading, and at the initial stage its role in the formation of reading mechanisms is very large. There is no need to prove the close connection between speaking and reading out loud. She is obvious. However, reading myself is also associated with speaking through inner speech. Speaking is associated with the letter. They are united by the productivity of students. When writing, as in speaking, students produce a statement, however elementary it may be. What the student writes, he speaks to himself, and sometimes in a whisper.Among six-year-old children, there are very significant individual differences in mental development (emotional and volitional sphere, memory, attention, thinking, etc.), which is determined by the different experiences of their life and activities in the family and kindergarten. The process of habituation of children to school takes place in different ways. Some children behave confidently, others experience anxiety, others are capricious, etc. Some children experience difficulties in the process of communication and in their native language. These children are either too impulsive, impatient, or, conversely, passive and timid [21, 96].
In conclusion, it is very important to find an individual approach to each student, and regular contacts of the teacher of a foreign language with the teacher of elementary school, with parents and coordination of their actions can help. The first meeting with children (as well as with schoolchildren of any age), a gentle voice and a friendly smile of the teacher, his kind attitude towards schoolchildren will also be of great importance.
