Implementation Of Ethno-Lingua Didactics Approach In The Teaching Of Foreign Languages

Abstract

The topicality of the studied problem is stipulated by the fact that in Kalmykia, the Stalin’s genocide caused new generations to begin forgetting national language, customs, history and culture. The youth tends to estrange themselves from traditional life. It lead to the loss of historically formed moral and ethnical concepts and spiritual values of the nation, which caused the deformation of the national consciousness. This necessitated the development of didactic ethnical materials to form sociocultural competence necessary for intercultural dialog. The paper is aimed at justifying the necessity of introduction of ethnolingvodidactic approach on the foreign language classes and creation of an electronic teaching guide with ethnocultural component for forming the intercultural competence. The leading methods for the investigation of such problem are the analysis of implementation of the regional component in the teaching of the German language, experimental check up of the efficacy and outcome of developed electronic teaching guide with ethnical component for developing the intercultural competence. The study result is the creation of electronic teaching guide Holidays in Kalmykia and Germany for the students of profile International philology. The paper theoretically justifies the implementation of the ethnolingvodidactic approach on foreign language classes and the development of the didactic model of the electronic teaching guide. The efficiency of this teaching guide to form the intercultural competence was experimentally verified. The materials of the study can be useful for creating teaching and methodological complexes with ethocultural component and can be used on special courses on intercultural communication

Keywords: Ethnical cultureethnolingv odidacticselectronic teaching guidenational holidays

Introduction

The teaching of foreign languages on the modern stage requires the students to be prepared to intercultural communication, interaction and common understanding. However, the students have certain problems in describing their national region and culture in the process of intercultural communication. The main task of reconsideration of the methodological basics of educational process is to find more effective models of teaching in the context of spiritual and moral becoming of personality (Pankyn, 2015). The subject of Foreign language has plentiful ethnocultural potential. The implementation of the ethnolingvodidactic approach corresponds to the requirements of improved and regionalized education. Indeed, the regional component envisages the introduction of content bound with the traditions and culture of a region. The teaching of a foreign language accounts for the historical experience, contemporary level of ethnic group development, its culture and mindset. The ethnicity in the national consciousness is the ethnical worldview that means the glance on self as a nation and on other ethnic groups through the prism of own national mentality (Bovaeva, 2012). It is important for the ethnocultural education to consolidate ethnically diverse space into unified educational space that unites the values of national and international culture based on the principles of humanism (Taziev, 2013).

Foreign language is a way of communication, while its theme can be filled with the content from other fields of knowledge. It is very important to consider intersubject knowledge of students, which promotes the formation of correct representation on the surrounding world (Buraeva & Daldinova, 2013).

Problem Statement

At the modern stage of development of methodological science, the main aim of foreign language teaching is the formation of foreign communicative competence that is defined as a combination of abilities, knowledge, skills and preparations in the field of foreign-language communication, providing the communicative behavior in different conditions of verbal conversation with due consideration of social code of conduct (Amrakhova, 2015).

The methodology of foreign language teaching cannot be universal for all languages. It is determined, firsthand, by the conditions of the teaching. Earlier, the teaching conditions were duration, teaching intensity and age specifics of the learners.

However, such important factor as environment of foreign language teaching was not considered, if its is mono- or polycultural. Also, out of consideration was the ethnical composition of learners, whether they are mono-, bi- or multilingual persons (Baryshnikov, 2003).

The development of competent bilingualism might be endorsed by the comparing analysis in regard to monolinguals and bilinguals (Michael, Gollan, Kroll, Judith, de Groot, & Annette, 2005).

In order to characterize bilinguals, it is necessary to scrutinize various factors including social, economic levels, age and gender composition and etc. (Grosjean, 2010).

A. Pavlenko points out that «In the past decades, scholars have made great strides in understanding how cross-linguistic differences play out in orphographic, phonological, morthosyntactic and lexical processing in the bilingual lexicon» (Pavlenko, 2009).

The first researchers who necessitated the accounting of afore noted parameter of teaching conditions were N.V. Baryshnikov and V.V. Lazarev. On the second International Congress Peace in North Caucasus through language, education, culture, they tried to define the place of ethnolingvodidactics in the system of methodological knowledge (Baryshnikov & Lazarev, 2001). According to the authors, the teaching conditions together with such factors as the number of hours, course duration, learners’ age get other characteristics as well. They are language policy, socio-political background, nationality of the learners. This is the understanding of teaching conditions that allows determining the essence of an optimal system of linguistic education in multilingual environment.

In his further studies, N.V. Baryshnikov has formed a novel research and methodological direction of ethnoligvodidactics. The subject of the study of ethnolingvodidactics are the problems of teaching of non-mother tongue in the conditions of multilingual and polycultural environment (Baryshnikov, 2003). The ethnolingvodidactics is based on basic aspects of ethnoculture. In Russian pedagogy, they usually talk about ethnocultural direction. The personality is considered as a subject of nation and a citizen of the Russian state. The goals and technologies of education should be focused on the development of a personality capable of adapting to the life of the world's civilization. The reliance on the national basis of mother tongue is a must for the realization of the ethnocultural component. The learners can dive into national ethnocultural tradition. One of the priority concepts of the methodology of foreign language teaching is ethnical culture.

To obtain a result of the teaching of foreign language the regular improvement of language skills and active study of a foreign language by a student should very intense (Ainsworth, 2012).

The ethnolingvodidactics studies the problems of foreign language teaching from ethnological perspective. The interpersonality communication suggests active information exchange on culture, traditions and customs of the small motherland. The regional studies play the role of concrete means for realizing the principles of ethnolingvodidactics. National and regional component expands the content of teaching, makes is personally valuable, creates conditions for dialog with other cultures on equal terms. The acquaintance with cultural facts of the country of learned language should make no harm to the learner’s culture. One should eliminate the risk of possible moral harm to learners in the form of interdiction from native culture, deformation of consciousness, alteration of value orientation (Baryshnikov, 2016).

Liddicoat A.J. and Scarino A. point out that «Intercultural language teaching and learning as an intercultural perspective, that is, as the self-awareness of the language teacher as a participant in linguistic and cultural diversity» (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013).

In theory and practice of foreign language teaching, one should consider the impact of the ethnical factor and importance of comparative analysis of the cultures. The understanding of a new culture is very complex. A studying bilingual person perceives the cultural phenomena of another folk through a prism of all-Russian and national culture. In this case, we deal with—according to G. Fischer—so-called “cross-cultural interference”, which is especially evident in polycultural environment and multilingual audience. The main means for overcoming the complications is comparative analysis of cultures and determination of similarities and differences in contacting cultures (Bakirova, 2017).

The interdependence between culture and language is a fact (Schultz, 2007).

The ethnolingvodidactic aspect of foreign language teaching assumes a linguo-country commentary, comparative analysis of different phenomena in foreign and mother tongues. One should prognosticate different complications in learning various aspects of a language. The learners when learning a foreign language should use the bicultural legacy to full extent.

According to the ethnolingvodidactic regularities, the foreign language teaching should base on the comparison of cultures, histories, literature and traditions of national, Russian and studied languages allowing accustoming to the microspace of the culture and understanding of foreign peers of their mundane life peculiarities. Any knowledge acquired by the means of foreign language are perceived through the prism of knowledge formed during the mastering of national culture. Thus, the mother culture is an important component of foreign language and culture teaching, since it is the very key to understanding of foreign culture and is the basis for the formation of intercultural competence.

The theory and practice of foreign language teaching should consider more the impact of the ethnical factor and the importance of comparative analysis of the cultures. Here we talk about the ethnolingvodidactic support of the foreign language teaching process. It includes the commentaries, comparative analysis of different phenomena in foreign and mother tongues, prognostication of complications during teaching of phonetic, grammatical, lexical and orthographic aspects of the studied language. (Daldinova, Buraeva, & Bovaeva, 2017).

The accustoming with foreign culture by learning language becomes possible only on a formed national and cultural basis of mother language. The afore noted necessitates the teaching and methodological guides with an ethnocultural component of foreign language teaching content that facilitates the development of intercultural communication. Currently, the educational institutions of Kalmykia experience severe shortage of teaching guides with ethnocultural component, which motivated us to study and solve the problem. Previous studies did not cover the aspect considered here.

Research Questions

The electronic teaching guide has a range of advantages versus conventional guides. It allows solving a number of didactic problems:

- increasing the amount of learning information;

- individualizing the learning process;

- providing autonomous learning;

- activating verbal, cogitative and cognitive activities of students;

- motivating students to learn foreign language.

The main task of the teaching guide is the formation of the following abilities: getting sociocultural information from read texts, adequately understanding the cultural phenomenon, comparing and analyzing cultural facts and report on the national culture in foreign language.

The guide also envisages the solution of the following teaching problems:

- extension of students’ lexicon on considered topics;

- classification of vocabular materials on topic Holidays;

- entrenchment and activation of vocabular and grammatical materials;

- development of listening skills;

- development of skim, revision and seeking reading;

- development of speaking skills, such as conversation, discussion, interview, report, presentation;

- development of writing skills (essay, resume, review, etc.).

According to Moloney R. and Harbon L. «When applied to languages education, intercultural practice in classrooms similarly asks students to think and act appropriately within a growing knowledge of the culture within language» (Moloney & Harbon, 2010)

The teaching guide is intended not only for classwork, but also for unsupervised work. The guide contains non-linearly structurized material, which allows combining and supplementing teaching materials. The basis for the formation of intercultural competence are cultural facts (holidays) of homeland and the country of learned language. The guide considers the peculiarities of national holidays reflecting the mindset of Germans and Kalmyks. The content was selected with due consideration of the principles of typicality, correspondence to the interests and cognitive demands of the students, parallelism, comparison with similar facts of the country of the studied language. The guide consists of sociocultural texts and tasks to them (pre-text, mid-text and post-text ones). The system of exercises is the combination of consequent activities of the students with teaching material of sociocultural profile. To form the sociocultural competence, we used culture-comparative analysis including the identification of a cultural fact, semantization and correlation with similar cultural phenomenon of the learned language country, its interpretation and rendering in foreign language under the conditions of learning intercultural communication (Bogdan, 2003).

The complex of exercises includes preparatory, conditionally communicative and communicative exercises. It is aimed not only at the digestion of content, but also on the discovery of general and special in every culture, which will certainly promote better understanding of the foreign culture. The exercises allow extending the culturological vocabulary, forming the skills to analyze the semantics of lexical units, interpreting and comparing the cultural facts of mother language and learned language, and presenting cultural phenomena in a polycultural dialog.

The guide contains a glossary which unveils the peculiarities of vocabulary in the cultural context. The aim of the glossary is to form a system of national and cultural terms. The glossary includes the explanation of similar cultural facts in different cultures.

The electronic teaching guide includes methodological recommendations on the organization of the work with teaching materials. The guide contains tests checking the digestion of the vocabulary. The tasks contain single-choice questions and association of lingual and cultural equivalents. The program allows modifying the tests, creating own tests and controlling the progress of the students. This provides flexible management of the teaching process.

The guide consists of several sections and enables the usage of the teaching material in a complex (text and visual), develops creative and logical thinking. Every section starts with photo- or video-fragment illustrating the topic. Videos improve the perception, promote deeper understanding of national and foreign culture.

The interface of suggested electronic teaching guide is simple and easy to use. External links appreciably expand the contents of the teaching guide, ensuring the informative saturation of the materials. The extensive hyperlinking allows obtaining explanations, definitions and additional information. During the work with the learning materials, the students can rapidly return to the main text.

The text material of the guide is accompanied by topical illustrations. They include the images of sacred objects, national clothes, photos of celebration ceremonies, pictures of artists. The students use national costumes and associated props made by themselves. They demonstrate the national dishes and their recipes. The efficacy of the culturological teaching material is achieved through the application of both visual and auditory analyzers. The material visualization promotes the activation of verbal and cogitative activities of the students.

During the work on corresponding topic and analysis of cross-cultural benchmarks, the students find common and distinctive nationally specific features, symbols, signs of holidays and ways to celebrate them, determine their ethnical identity. The students use pictures, photos and other illustrations to motivate themselves to express their own ideas, hypotheses forecasting the content of the text.

During the work on the guide, the students get involved into project-oriented and research work. The topics of projects and research works can be diverse. During searching and creative work, the student learn how to get and process the obtained information and critically evaluate it. The students get skills to transfer knowledge, skills and abilities from different spheres into a new situation. The application of electronic teaching guides for foreign language teaching allows solving several problems: interactivity, multimedia aspect, illustratory aspect, accessibility, individuality, control, independence and capability of individual attention to a learner (Strenadyuk, Khazova, & Lisachova, 2017).

By working on the guide texts, the students consider their own culture and the culture of studied language as a part of the world’s culture. They learn to value and respect their national culture and be open and tolerant in respect to others. Thus, the ethnocultural component of the teaching content is aimed on the formation of a graduate, keeper and creator of sociocultural values and traditions of the region (Shepovalov, 1997). The formation of the sociocultural competence on the material of home country during the study of a foreign language promotes the general culture development of students, social adaptation to home environment and society in general.

Purpose of the Study

The paper is aimed at justifying the necessity of introduction of ethnolingvodidactic approach on the foreign language classes and creation of an electronic teaching guide with ethnocultural component for form intercultural competence. The main task of the teaching guide is the formation of the following abilities: getting sociocultural information from read texts, adequately understanding the cultural phenomenon, comparing and analyzing cultural facts and report on the national culture in foreign language.

At the modern stage of development of methodological science, the main aim of foreign language teaching is the formation of foreign communicative competence that is defined as a combination of abilities, knowledge, skills and preparations in the field of foreign-language communication, providing the communicative behavior in different conditions of verbal conversation with due consideration of social code of conduct (Amrakhova, 2015).

The guide also envisages the solution of the following teaching problems:

- extension of students’ lexicon on considered topics;

- classification of vocabular materials on topic Holidays;

- entrenchment and activation of vocabular and grammatical materials;

- development of listening skills;

- development of skim, revision and seeking reading;

- development of speaking skills, such as conversation, discussion, interview, report, presentation;

- development of writing skills (essay, resume, review, etc.).

Research Methods

For the students of profile International philology, the electronic teaching guide was prepared entitled as Holidays of Germany and Kalmykia. The guide was prepared using the following methods:

- analysis of psycho-pedagogical, methodological, linguistic literature, teaching guides, standards and programs;

- observation of students’ activity;

- survey of 3rd-degree students of the university humanitarian faculty to establish psychological and lingual readiness to intercultural interaction in the region;

- testing the knowledge of 3rd-degree students on regional lore;

- analysis of the conditions of regional component implementation in German language teaching;

- experimental test of the efficiency and outcome of the developed electronic teaching guide with ethnocultural component.

The guide implements the following teaching methods: informational receptive, reproductive heuristic, research, method of problem-based teaching.

Findings

The checkup of the main theoretical aspects of the study was performed in the form of teaching experiment in student groups 252 and 253 of profile International Philology of the Humanitarian faculty of Kalmykia State University from September 1, 2015 until January 31, 2016.

The experimental teaching using the guide containing ethnocultural materials was aimed at the checkup of the efficiency of our suggested method for the formation of intercultural competence.

To determine the initial level of communication verbal skills to describe national Kalmyks holidays in the German language, we made an experimental assessment including learning verbal situations on region topic. The speech acts were evaluated by the following criteria:

1) solution of a communication problem;

2) speech amount;

3) structure and logics of the speech;

4) informational saturation of the speech;

5) ability of group interaction;

6) presence of lexical units reflecting the sociocultural distinctness of the region.

These criteria allow determining the level of skill formation to present home culture in intercultural communication.

The results of the pre-experimental assessment testify that the volume of speech acts of the students on regional topic does not correspond to the program requirements, the speech logic is disturbed, there is no argumentation. The speech acts were limited by the naming of individual facts on the regional culture, the speech integrity was disturbed, itswas of low information content. 13% of the speech act were emotional and imaginative. The students’ speech acts were mainly descriptive. Only 10% of the experiment participants were constructing their speech with due regard to similarities and differences between the national holidays of Kalmykia and Germany. The students used low number of lexical units of regional nature and made mistakes in sociocultural vocabulary.

The participants of reference and experimental groups have shown similar results. The final assessment in the experimental group has shown higher level of skills of intercultural communications on topic of Holidays of Kalmykia and Germany as compared to the participants from the reference group. The volume of students’ speech complied with the program requirements. The students represented the region life, were creative and used additional information sources on the topic.

The experimental group before implementation of the electronic teaching guide, the percentage of lexicon units in the speech reflecting the regional specifics was 17%. After using the materials of the electronic teaching guide, the content of lexicon units with regional component increased to 52%.

In the reference group, the assessments were made before and after working with the exercises from the electronic teaching guide. The developed complex of exercises on the usage of regional lore materials in the reference group was not implemented.

The average percentage of lexicon units with regional component was 12.2% before the work with the electronic teaching guide exercises. The efficiency of the work using the vocabulary reflecting the cultural distinctness of the region after the work with exercises from the electronic teaching guide was 13.5%.

The results allow stating that the suggested method for the formation of intercultural competence using the electronic teaching guide with the ethnocultural component is effective. Ten students of the experimental group have demonstrated high level of intercultural communication skills; for two students, it was acceptable; four students demonstrated sufficient level and 6 students showed low level.

Conclusion

The paper theoretically justified the implementation of the ethnolingvodidactic approach on foreign language classes and the development of the didactic model of the electronic teaching guide. The efficiency of this teaching guide to form the intercultural competence was experimentally verified.

As a result, after using this electronic teaching guide the students demonstrated the skill to get sociocultural information from read texts, adequately understand the cultural phenomenon, compare and analyze cultural facts and report on the national culture in foreign language. This teaching guide was used in lectures and for unsupervised students’ work.

The research promises further development of electronic teaching guides with regional component promoting the formation of intercultural component necessary for the dialog with the representatives of a foreign culture on equal ground. A particular attention should be paid to the selection of the content and improvement of the regional component delivery methods in different educational institutions to prepare the learners to intercultural collaboration on different levels.

The materials of the study can be useful for creating teaching and methodological complexes with ethnocultural component and can be used on special courses on intercultural communication. This model of the electronic teaching guide can serve as a basis for new teaching materials with ethnocultural component in other regions of the Russian Federation, where students can become acquainted with cultural phenomena of their national through foreign languages.

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