When it comes to the teaching language environment, methodologists and teachers of foreign languages understand this term as creating conditions for communication in a foreign language in a foreign language lesson. Until recently, it was impossible to create a language environment, or what was meant by it, in any other way than artificial. It was called the artificial environment. By communicating in a foreign language in the classroom, we mainly meant the didactic speech of the teacher, consisting of replicas-cliches of class life, dialogues of the teacher with the students organized by the teacher within the framework of the topics studied, prepared «dialogues» of the student with the student, organized discussion of the educational film, usually adapted according to the age stages, and some other methods of work.
Currently, thanks to the computer and the Internet, there are new opportunities to learn a foreign language [1]. New features include text, audio and video (presentations, movies) information resources of many sites, game, training and monitoring programs, various programmed online dictionaries and dictionaries with the ability to download and install on any medium, as well as chats, Skype, e-mail, various distance learning, including webinars, video conferences, etc. All of the above, as is commonly believed, also contributes to the creation of a language environment when learning a foreign language.
In addition, trying to recreate a kind of «foreign» atmosphere for students, the teacher both before and now designs foreign language classrooms in the style of the country whose language is being studied in this office — visual and didactic material is devoted to the history and modern cultural and sports events taking place in the country of the language being studied.
It follows from the above that the term «language environment» includes several concepts. This is, first of all, the territory within which a language is spoken, the society in which a particular language is used, the «informative» language environment (text and visual) of classrooms, the «informative» language environment of various sites, the communication of native speakers with each other, wherever they are, the «communication» of participants in the process of learning a foreign language.
Thus, there is a real and educational language environment. We are interested in the concept of the educational language environment from a methodological point of view. It is also ambiguous and is not limited to an artificially created environment. On the one hand, it is everything that the teacher uses (various information, illustrative materials, etc.) to «surround» students with a foreign reality and a foreign language, on the other hand, it is any communication in a foreign language lesson in the language being studied. Both are undoubtedly necessary and important for the learning process: illustrative and educational information (information from textbooks, etc.) contribute to the assimilation of the material being studied, as a rule, when performing exercises in pronouncing and other language exercises, communication contributes to the development of foreign language speech. In our opinion, language and speech training of students are different sides of the same process. The conditions or environment in which these types of training are carried out are different, and they should not be confused.
It is quite understandable that today it is difficult for most ordinary school students to achieve a good level of proficiency in a foreign language, especially since it is difficult to bring the level of language learners closer to the language of its native speakers. The development of foreign language speech of schoolchildren in the absence of a real language environment is still an unsolvable problem for many teachers. However, do not forget one of the important provisions of pedagogy and methodology, which says: you can learn something only through practice. In other words, only practice contributes to the development of the skill [2].
At the level of learning a foreign language, situations are repeatedly described when a student knows the rules of a foreign language well, but does not know how to apply them in practice, that is, does not speak a foreign language. But the formation of the skill as a type of speech activity should be preceded by painstaking work on the formation of skills. A small number of hours of a foreign language in school does not allow you to properly organize training work, which takes a lot to form a skill. But the skill is also developed through the use of language phenomena in speech, so various ways were sought to create conditions for turning language into speech in a foreign language lesson at school.
One solution to this problem is to create a speech situation in the classroom. The methodist theorists seemed to have found a solution long ago. But for some reason, practical teachers rarely resort to speech situations in the classroom. In our opinion, this happens primarily because a speech situation cannot arise by itself. Without touching in detail on the problem of the speech situation, since it is considered in sufficient depth, we want to point out that for its occurrence, the speech environment, in our case, the speech environment of the lesson, is just necessary. Moreover, without a speech environment, a speech situation cannot arise. Therefore, we consider it necessary to raise not so much the problem of the language environment as the problem of the speech environment in a foreign language lesson.
Currently, IR technologies have not only expanded the possibilities of the lesson, but in our opinion, if they are used correctly in the lesson, they are a stimulating factor in the formation of communication skills. And if, following S. A. Fedotov, «texts, illustrative materials, audio materials, multimedia training programs in foreign languages, computer dictionaries, game computer programs, materials from Internet sites, as well as slide computer presentations, multimedia encyclopedias, and much more», we rank among the means that contribute mainly to the creation of a language environment, then communication programs (chats, various mail, etc.), thematic web forums, video conferences, etc., are intended not only «for the development of sociolinguistic and, especially,, socio-psychological components of socio-cultural competence», but, first of all, they should be considered, in our opinion, as the basis for creating a special speech environment in the classroom, in which the main communicants are native speakers of the language studied by schoolchildren [3].
Thus, we propose a kind of differentiation of new information and communication tools, highlighting communication programs, thematic web forums, video conferences, as well as programs and webinars in a separate group of tools that contribute to the creation of a speech environment for a foreign language lesson.
The use of these innovations in a normal lesson, along with such long-standing forms of work as inviting native speakers to a lesson, creates, in our opinion, speech conditions that approach real speech conditions. The limited time of the lesson, the organization of this learning structure (specific goals, tasks, established topics, etc. of each lesson, the different level of training of students), as well as the fact that not all participants in communication are native speakers, does not allow this type of communication between native speakers and students to be called natural or real.
At the same time, such communication is not entirely artificial. It is the situation of the lesson that makes this type of communication separate, or rather natural-artificial. Outside of the lesson, such communication should be considered natural. Learning in a special natural-artificial environment requires, in our opinion, special approaches, for example, such as the psychological mood of students, the study of vocabulary of a certain topic (studying the topics of school textbooks and studying the topics of conversations in chats show their different reading) and much more. We consider the development of approaches to teaching a foreign language in a natural-artificial environment to be a separate topic.
In this article, we state that language learning today should take place not only on the basis of mastering the rules and performing language exercises, but also in a new language environment provided by information technologies (language, linguoculturological material of the Internet, specially created programs, etc.), and speech training — not only on the basis of conditional speech, speech exercises and situations, but, above all, in the speech environment of the lesson, organized with the help of communication technologies.
Thus, we state that in methodological terms, language and speech training require not only different approaches, but also different conditions, the creation of which in the classroom will contribute to the intensification of the process of teaching a foreign language. In turn, different tools, including various ICT tools, will contribute to the creation of different conditions.
So, the process of teaching a foreign language today unfolds not only in the language and speech artificial environment, but also thanks to ICT, in the language and speech environment, close to the real one-as never before, a fairly extensive virtual language/speech environment is included in the process of teaching a foreign language. Today, the organization of its use in the classroom is possible for almost all school teachers. In addition, if earlier such an environment was absent outside of the lesson, today it is «carried with you» in a school briefcase or pocket [4]. The opportunity that students have received thanks to developing technologies can also not be ignored when developing training programs in the future, for example, courses that need to provide links between the speech environment of the lesson and beyond, including in the course of independent work. At the same time, the desire of foreign language teachers to «immerse» students in a genuine or natural speech environment is expressed, as before, in the organization of meetings with native speakers, trips to the country of the language being studied, which become more accessible.
Summarizing the above information about the language / speech environment, we present it as follows:
|
Environ ment |
Natural |
Artificial |
|
Linguistic |
1. The territory of using the native language; 2. Language community; 3. Authentic literature and cinema |
1. The territory of learning a foreign language (equipped office, etc.); 2. Teaching a foreign language in the classroom (teacher-not a native speaker; teacher, a native speaker, but using the native language of students-rarely); 3. Adapted literature and educational films |
|
1. Virtual environment of information sites about the country, its culture, etc. in the native and studied languages |
||
|
Speech |
1. Communication of native speakers (or communication in their native language); 2. Communication of native speakers with foreign citizens residing in their territory: 3. Communication of native speakers with language learners in real conditions, including virtual (chats, etc.) |
1. Teaching a foreign language in the classroom (the teacher is a native speaker who uses his native language); 2. Communication of teachers (non-native speakers) with students of a foreign language in the classroom: teacher-student; 3. Communication of foreign language learners in the classroom: student-student |
|
1. communication in the classroom, including virtual communication, between native speakers and foreign language learners (in the country of the language being studied); 2. communication in the lesson of native speakers with students of a foreign language (outside the country of the language being studied), including virtual communication. |
||
As can be seen from the table, the basis of the speech environment is communication. For us, the question remains open whether the communication in which the student does not directly participate should be attributed to the speech environment or not, and, consequently, to which environment in this case the authentic film should be attributed. If we assume that any communication is a speech medium, an authentic feature film containing, as a rule, a lot of dialogic speech, thanks to which the communication of movie characters takes place, can well be attributed to the speech medium. With this in mind, an authentic narrative film, to which documentary cinema belongs to a greater extent, can fairly be attributed to the language environment. The task facing the teacher is to properly organize training in one case or another: work on the assimilation of the language system or work on the development of speech skills.
As it was considered, the emergence of a virtual environment currently provides great opportunities to «find yourself» in a speech environment outside the country of the language being studied. In a foreign language lesson, such an environment contributes to the process of intensifying the formation of skills and abilities. Working on the development of students ' communicative competence in the school environment, we consider all possibilities for improving their language and speech training, while emphasizing that in the absence of a language environment in general, we do not in any way abandon the knowledge approach in teaching. It is knowledge that is the basis for the formation of skills and communication skills.
With the adoption of the competence-based learning framework, the knowledge approach, which once lost its position in the process of teaching a foreign language, again acquires significant importance and becomes an equal component along with the communicative component.
Thus, the language environment of the lesson is as important as the speech environment, and in this regard, we emphasize that it is wrong to overestimate the short-term impact of foreign language speech on the formation of speech-generating mechanisms of students. It is enough to take into account the fact that even a relatively long stay in a foreign-speaking country without prior appropriate training does not give tangible results. But we can not underestimate the opportunity to organize a speech environment that is close to the real one in a foreign language lesson. Therefore, the work on the assimilation of a foreign language system is equivalent to the work on the formation of communication skills. The percentage ratio of both types of work should be set by the teacher, depending on the learning conditions, age and level of training of students.
References:
- Aksenov A. M. Introduction of distance technologies in the educational process. — 2013. — P. 13.
- Kitaygorodskaya G. A. Methodological foundations of intensive teaching of foreign languages. — 2008. — P. 62.
- Fedotov S. A. Formation of the language environment in the English language lesson through the use of modern ICT technologies. — 2017. — P. 521.
- Leontiev A. A. Language, speech, speech activity. — 1999. — P. 214.
