The Formation of Students’ Subjective Position in Foreign Language Classes

Actualizing the problem

The modern Russian education today is focused not so much on the equipment of the future expert

knowledge, as on the formation of his professional and personally important characteristics. In this regard, recent studies in pedagogy and psychology recommend transition to new educational and

training technologies, one of which is known as a student-centered learning one. In the context of this

approach a great attention is paid to the development of student’s professional reflection as a property

of the person, as well as his subjective position, which is necessary for self-realization and self-

expression in various kinds of activity. And this is particularly due to the formation of a subjective

position of a student in learning foreign languages. This means that the practice of higher education

must move from a functional to a personal model of specialist training. And this requires the

development of new approaches to the organization of the educational process and the designation of a

student as a subject in it, which implies the willingness of young people to be subjectively included in

the new educational conditions. For this purpose along with the traditional technologies, it is necessary

to use widely active learning methods (i.e. business games, training, organizational activity games,

etc.); methods of psychological and educational assessment; various methods of students’ research

activity, etc.

Hence, the new targets of professional work of the future specialist must be associated with the

formation of his subjective position in terms of foreign language learning.

Exploration of Importance of the Problem

The subjective position of high school students is seen today as the developing quality of their

personal position, which also advocates a certain measure of their professional development. So the

formation of a subjective position should be a regular process of internal change in students’ attitude to

their own education. This requires a purposeful process of promoting this development in its first

sense. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that the necessary quality in the course of

formation of a subjective position is a manifestation of students’ activity, since the concept of activity

is wider than the concept of action. That is because the activity is manifested in cognition, in

communication, in the formation of a person with knowledge of languages. In this regard, the activity

is typical for a particular student's value generalized mode of expression and the implementation of his

vital needs. Thus, the activity is not a property of consciousness but the quality of the subject and

features of the person as a subject. And, as a function of the subject in coordination with the social

norms and forms of activity, subject activity usually exhibits individual character. Hence, the essence

of the student’s subjective activity is his ability to set a goal, to optimally organize the process of

solving the problem, to competently manage the process in accordance with the task. As for learning a

foreign language, the subjective activity of students in a real educational space of the university implies

a degree of mastering their ways of speech activity in speaking another language; the integration of

external and internal conditions of activity; exercising self-control in the course of activities, reflection,

etc.

The essence of a subjective position of the student in terms of learning foreign languages

The subjective position of students in the conditions of foreign language learning is of particular

developing of the quality of their personal position that is shown in the following:

- It characterizes value, proactive and responsible attitude towards their language preparation, its

purpose and meaning, process and results; a student confidently holds methodical skill matching

training funds and can choose a proper textbook, appropriate educational computer programs, language

courses and so on;

- It is expressed in the student's ability to orient himself to the available educational opportunities; to

show the desire and the ability to identify his language problems, to find the conditions and solutions to

them; to measure his achievement in the mastery of a foreign language; to structure his own model of

self-learning in learning a foreign language; and the result of it is to enrich the educational experience

of a real non-contact communication with a native speaker, due to a further development of the

student’s communicative competence;

- It develops under the influence of many factors, among which different created conditions have a

special place, such as the creation of linguistic university environment which creates an opportunity for

self-learning of a foreign language, that helps graduates to get further development without losing the

quality of language training even after finishing high school;

- It performs a precondition and measure of personal and professional formation of the future expert

who is willing and able to solve problems related to language education and proper education as such;

this may, for example, be carried out in the framework of occasional language education by

interpersonal communication with a native speaker of a foreign language, trips abroad, self-education

and self-training on the previously formed model.

Statement of problem

In recent years, the problem of subjectivity was carried out in various educational researches, for

example, by L.M. Perminova (1997), who believes that to achieve the required cognitive results there is

need of reflection which allows students to really evaluate themselves. According to I.N. Semenov (1989)

reflection is the process of converting the stereotypes of experience and internal conditions of access to the

innovative practice. Given the importance of formation of professional competence of students on the basis

of their subjective position, the scholar V.A. Adolf (1998) has formulated certain requirements that need to

be guided by the teachers; development of subject activity researched by T.A. Bondarenko (1999), T.A.

Olchovskaya (2003), A.K. Osnitsky (1996); the formation of reflective culture of the students studied -

E.S. Klochkova (2009), N.M. Borytko (2002), O.A. Matskaylova (2002), E.I.Kuzmina (1999);

exploring ways of formation of motivation of mastering by the students of a foreign language can be

found in the works of E.A. Maslyko (2005), I.B. Minaeva (2009); issues of self-esteem in professional

formation of the subjective position were studied by M.A. Belokon (1999), G.P. Schedrovitsky (1995).

Theoretical and empirical methods

The test of the effectiveness of the hypothesis was carried out using different methods of research,

such as: General theoretical methods (analysis, comparison, generalization of the pedagogical,

methodological, psychological literature); Logical and comparative analytical methods (study of the

accumulated Russian experience in the implementing of the relevant aspects of the structural

organization of developing students’ subjectivity); Empirical methods (survey, pedagogical

experiment, observation, study and generalization of diagnostics, surveys, modeling, students'

subjective position).

The trial infrastructure) and stages of the research

The results of the first phase of the experiment (2012-2013) were used by us to improve

mechanisms for determining the enhancement of students' cognitive activity, including organization of

the objective manifestations of students' attitudes towards the development of their subjectivity within

the formative experiment.

In the second phase (2013-2014) factors affecting the development of a subjective position of

students were analyzed, the results which made it possible to make changes in the educational process

in order to enhance a subjective position of students in the study of foreign languages. The work

originated the idea of certain psychological criteria which would lead to the formation of a subjective

position of students, as well as the definition of its methodology.

The third stage (2014-2015.) was the ultimate in terms of the definition of educational assistance in

the dynamics of a subjective position of students of the university.

The formative experiment was carried out for five years. It was attended by 65 students. This study

yielded results that were subjected to the analysis, processing and synthesis in the course of this study.

The dynamics of a subjective position of student

The dynamics of a subjective position of university students under the influence of specially created

conditions can be viewed in two groups of indicators:

- The first group characterizes the emotional aspect of a subjective position of the student and

expresses his interest in the problems of his own education, his wish to choose and decide for himself

relevant educational objectives;

- The second group characterizes the activity aspect of a subjective position of the student and is

expressed in the ability to navigate the available educational opportunities, to identify the best

educational goals for himself, finding the conditions and solutions to them, to bring solutions to the

final result, to analyze and design based on them further relevant educational objectives.

At different stages of educational assistance to the dynamics in the development of a subjective

position of high school student it is characterized by:

- The growing interest of students to the problems of learning a foreign language; possible results of

language education; independent choice of ways of orientation in the new educational space; the

accumulation of actual linguistic experience in a higher education; orientation in possible variants of

generic types of educational routes;

- The desire to master the ways of learning a foreign language; the accumulation of experience to be

independent in their decisions; independent choice of species and types of tasks in an individual

educational route; mastering skills of designing student-significant individual educational route.

In the structure of the subjective activity, there are distinguished six components complementing

each other and providing a positive educational activity as a whole: a training activity organizational

activity, intentional activity, search and creative activity, self-analytical activity and emotionally-

valuable activity. In this regard, it is important to define the subject-oriented situations which can be

classified as: problem-oriented, reflexive-oriented, creative-oriented, communication-oriented

situations; the situation of free choice and self-organization. All of these situations are working on the

dynamics of the subjective position of the student. These situations have a number of unique features:

- Subject-oriented situations contain few specific ways to implement them, which create a "growth

point" as a possible focus on the birth of student activities for the study of a foreign language;

- The situations allow different levels of a student’s subjective involvement, thus ensuring the

autonomy of the individual and non-interference in its internal space;

- Situations involve the acquisition of students’ meaningful language valuable experience and skills

of self-control;

- The situation is aimed at "start" value orientation and mechanisms of self-organization, the

potential are represented in the student's personal system;

- The situations represent the basis of the application of creative and valuable technology and

university education.

A content analysis of these situations is possible only in relation to the analysis of the pedagogical

conditions of formation of subjectivity of students. As such conditions we can identify problematic,

projective, heuristic, reflexive constituents.

The procedure and results of the experiment

The first stage has designed overall concept study based on the analysis of pedagogical,

psychological and methodological literature. There was justification of the problem of this

investigation, analysis of the mechanisms for determining to enhance students' cognitive activity;

collection and processing of the material on the problem of the study amounted to a substantial part of

the initial phase of our work. The essence of the work in this direction was to provide objective

manifestations of the students related to the development of their subjectivity within the formative

experiment.

At the second stage of the study, we were to determine the effectiveness of educational factors that

influence the development of the subjective position of the student; to define the methodology of

formation of a subjective position of students and psychological criteria for its formation.

The methodological guideline of the third phase of the study was to determine the dynamics of

educational assistance in the development of a subjective position of students of the university and the

analysis of the dynamics within the framework of their independent learning activities in the study of a

foreign language.

An experimental study was conducted in 2012 - 2015 years and it was aimed at the development of

methods of teaching a foreign language, which is subject to the general requirements of higher

education; at determining the efficiency of formation of a subjective position of a student in the course

of educational activities based on various case studies related to the self-organization of cognitive

activity of students.

The following indicators have been identified on the ascertaining stage of the experiment:

- An integral component of self-regulation of psychic relationship to training activities.

- Integrated quality of students’ objective manifestations to self-educational activity on the study of

a foreign language in the distant future.

- Integral indicator of students' motivation for the formation of their reflective culture.

The analysis of experimental results leads to the assumption that the greatest manifestation of the

subjective position is one of those students who are adequately characterized by high self-esteem and

developed personality traits, as well as the following:

- Axiological, proactive and responsible attitude to their language training;

- Fluency in a methodical skill selection of training tools for the study of a foreign language;

- The ability to define their language problems, to find the conditions and options for their solutions;

- Structuring of own model of self-learning in learning a foreign language;

- Willingness and ability to solve problems related to language education and proper education as

such;

- Manifestation of organized, cognitive activity, independence and persistence in learning a foreign

language;

- Implementation of a professional orientation of their language skills.