Home Reading In An E-Learning Environment

Abstract

The article presents the results of the study of the place and role of home reading as one of the main types of speech activity in teaching in the electronic educational environment. On the example of the e-course on home reading in Italian created by students of the master's degree program of Pyatigorsk state University, the system of work of pupils of full-time and correspondence forms of training in the electronic educational environment, promoting further development of their communicative competences is shown. The importance of home reading in the process of learning a foreign language is undeniable. Home reading contributes to the formation of an independent aesthetic attitude to the world, critical, creative thinking, humanistic value orientation in the process of acquaintance with the best literary works of foreign literature.

Keywords: E-learningdistance learninghome readingcommunicative competence

Introduction

Distance learning is the learning on distance that allows you to get the necessary education without going to school. Thus, distance learning is based on the principle of non-dependence of geographical position.

For the organization of classes is usually used the Internet, able to connect the student and the training, independently of their location and at a time convenient for them. Moreover, having once created an electronic educational environment, the educational institution gives the student the opportunity to receive education by performing certain tasks in an electronic environment without the parallel participation of the training. The teacher, in turn, checks the completed tasks at a time convenient for him. The main thing is that the student had access to the global network.

It should also be noted that distance learning technologies are used both in full-time education and in a distance learning. However, it is particularly for students of distance learning, living in remote areas from the institution, the electronic learning environment is the most convenient. Getting higher education remotely, the student uses modern educational tools and technologies in order to learn faster and more efficiently (Keleynikova, 2017).

The electronic educational environment created at Pyatigorsk state University has existed for many years, greatly facilitating and improving the quality of the educational process. Our attention will be paid to the problems of teaching a foreign (Italian) language in the conditions of master's degree in the direction of training "Comparative study of languages and cultures and innovative means of speech communication", in which three foreign languages are studied, and one of them, namely, the Italian language is absolutely new for students.

Home reading, as one of the main aspects of learning a foreign language is studied by students in the framework of independent work. This led to the creation of a special course on home reading in Italian in the electronic educational environment The course has been created by the students themselves with the use of project technologies.

Problem Statement

• Currently, the concept of teaching a foreign language is aimed primarily at the formation of communicative competence of students (Baryshnikov, 2010). Speech competence involves the development of communication skills in four main types of speech activity: speaking, listening, reading and writing. It is known that reading authentic literature in a foreign language contributes to the enrichment of vocabulary, introduces the culture and literature of the country of the studied language, develops analytical thinking, and also contributes to the development of oral speech (Baryshnikov, 2010).

• However, in a small number of hours devoted to the study of the first foreign language in the magistracy, it is impossible to pay enough attention to reading authentic literature in the classroom. That is why home reading plays an important role in these conditions, as an activity performed within the framework of independent work.

• Home reading contributes to the formation of an independent aesthetic attitude to the world, critical, creative thinking, humanistic value orientation in the process of acquaintance with the best literary works of foreign literature.

• The main function of home reading is to develop communicative reading skills not only as a type of speech activity, but also as a special kind of human activity. The student analyzes what he / she has read, correlates the content of the work with his / her personal experience, expounds an understanding of the problems of the read work and can express his / her point of view on this problem.

• Home reading as an independent aspect of educational activities for mastering a foreign language plays a decisive role in the formation of students ' psychophysiological mechanisms of reading as an activity, as a process.

• In addition, the content of the texts of home reading allows students to master not only new lexical material, but also the skills of communicative reading, as well as improve the skills of oral speech, as home reading involves access to oral speech through discussion of what is read, which is an important communicative skill.

• All this indicates the absolute importance of home reading in the process of learning foreign languages.

• Based on the importance of home reading as a type of speech activity, the students of the 2nd year of master's degree in the direction of training "Comparative study of languages and cultures and innovative strategies of speech communication" of Pyatigorsk state University started the project of creating a home reading course for the electronic educational environment.

Research Questions

In the course of this study, an attempt is made to solve the following problems:

• to define search criteria for authentic texts for its further adaptation and analysis;

• to develop a model system of exercises put together to work with selected texts;

• to develop and implement a home reading course to work in an e-learning environment;

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop a course of "Home reading" in Italian to work in the electronic environment of PSU for graduate students of full-time and distance learning in the direction of training "Comparative study of languages and cultures and innovative strategies of speech communication".

Research Methods

Research Methods: project activity method, linguistic method of text analysis, teaching methods and techniques

Findings

In modern conditions of teaching foreign languages increases the role of home reading as a type of speech activity, implemented in the framework of independent work.

Reading authentic texts in a foreign language in the framework of home reading contributes to the development of oral speech, enriches vocabulary, introduces the culture and literature of the country of the studied language, develops analytical thinking.

Home reading as an educational aspect is necessary in the educational process: it allows students to get in touch with the modern living language, not with the conditional educational; they have the opportunity to express their opinion and give an assessment of the work, heroes and situations, which certainly contributes to the development of communicative competence.

In order for the student to move on to the discussion of what he / she has read, it is necessary that the text be fully understood by him / her, including stylistic nuances (Nuzdina, 2002). Realizing that in the conditions of the initial stage of language learning this task is quite difficult, the proposed course of home reading involves the presentation of the authentic text immediately with its translation into Russian, which greatly facilitates the understanding of the text and reduces the time spent on working with it.

One of the most important points in the home reading process is the discussion of what you have read. So, according to Selivanova (2004) in order to preserve the real-communicative nature of speech activity, one of the main tasks is to teach students to discuss what they read.

There are a number of requirements for students when discussing the text read (Folomkina, 1999):

- the student must be able to explain and analyze the actions of the personages, to establish a causal relationship of events;

- the student must be able to give his own assessment of the characters, their acts, actions, etc.;

- the student should be able to relate the problem of the text to personal experience and express their attitude to it.

We relied on the necessity of implementing these requirements during the development of the system of exercises for the reading texts. The system of exercises comes from the simplest to the more complex.

In the first stage, the student shows the ability to identify true and false information by performing the exercise: Dite che affermazione è vera o falsa. This is followed by an exercise to understand the content of the text: Rispondete alle domande. At the next stage, students should retell the text, first in a brief form, then – with the details: Riassumete il testo: a) in breve; b) per esteso.

At the last stage, the students are invited to speak on topics close to the topic of the text, using, if possible, the vocabulary of the text read.

To facilitate reading comprehension and to reduce the time spent on this type of activity, we considered it necessary to select for home reading the texts of small forms, reflecting the current trends of the Italian language.

The source of the authentic material was the Project of the Italian publishing house "Libreriamo" 2018, offering all Italians to share their memories of summer, summer vacation. At the end of the project, the publishing house published 2 volumes of novels by young Italians “Racconto d 'estate” (Summer story), ten of which were selected by us for home reading (Racconto d' estate, 2018).

Conclusion

The created Course on home reading in Italian was introduced into the electronic educational environment of Pyatigorsk state University (edu.pgu) and successfully used in teaching Italian in the master's direction of training "Comparative study of languages and cultures and innovative means of speech communication", full-time and distance forms of education.

This course is supervised by a teacher. Students have the opportunity to communicate with the teacher not only through assignments and grades, but also in the personal office of the teacher, where they can get any advice and assistance on this course.

This course can serve as a basis for creating similar courses in other foreign languages

Since this project belongs to the sphere of pedagogy, in particular, methodical activity, its implementation contributes not only to the introduction of the target audience to the cultural values of the country of the studied language, but also ensures the further development of professional and cultural competencies of students.

References

1. Baryshnikov, N. V. (2010). Professional'naya mezhkul'turnaya kommunikatsiya [Professional intercultural communication]. PyatIgor’sk: PSLU.
2. Folomkina, S. K. (1999). Some questions of teaching reading in a foreign language in a non-linguistic University. The methodology and psychology of foreign language teaching: a reader. Leont'ev A. A. (Ed). – M.: Russian language.
3. Keleynikova, A. G. (2017). Organization of language courses for adults. Linguo-didactic problems of foreign language competence formation. Collective monograph on materials of the International scientific-methodical Symposium Lempertov`s read – XIX, 18-19 may 2017. - Pyatigorsk: PSU. 2017.
4. Nuzdina, M. A. (2002). On the issue of management of the process of generation of speech works based on the text. Foreign languages in school, (2), 18-25.
5. Racconto d’estate (2018). Retrieved from https://libreriamo.it/racconto-destate-lopen-e-book-con-le-storie-estive-degli-italiani/
6. Selivanova, N. A. (2004). Home reading is an important component of the content of foreign language teaching in secondary school. Foreign languages in school, (4), 20-26.