Values As Pedagogical Tools In The Training Of Teachers Of Foreign Languages

Abstract

Professional pedagogical education of future teachers of a foreign language is intended to provide the bachelor students majoring in Pedagogics, profile "Foreign language", with mastering foreign languages in practical terms, theoretical aspects of the studied languages and methodology in language teaching. As for the methodological education of a future foreign language teacher, on the one hand, it presupposes the formation and development of the student’s personality as a participant in the equal-status polylogue of cultures, but on the other hand, as a future subject of foreign language educational process at school. However, it should be noted that these characteristics do not exist in isolation, one of the essential areas of their intersection is the axiological plane. The article deals with the problem of values acquired in the process of foreign language education and used as pedagogical tools in the training of foreign language teachers. The problem is considered from the position of several approaches — axiological, competence-based and conceptual ones. Knowledge of foreign language, the theory of its teaching is a socially significant value for the future teacher that he uses at different stages of his pedagogical formation. The development of values is based on a combination of ideas of competence-based and emotional conceptual approaches in the teaching methodological science.

Keywords: axiology, axiological approach, competence-based approach, emotional conceptual approach, pedagogical tools,

Introduction

In accordance with the Federal state educational standard of higher education in the field of training 44.03.01 «Pedagogical education», profile «Foreign language» (bachelor degree level), the teacher of foreign languages is aimed at carrying out four types of activities: pedagogical, project, research and cultural and educational (Federal state…, 2015). Implementation of these types of activities requires serious targeted and multi-faceted training.

Problem Statement

In this article, we will consider only certain aspects of training a foreign language teacher. Taking into account the social order of the society and the state in the formation of a Russian citizen conforming to the national educational ideal and being able to effectively carry out intercultural communication, we would like to consider the question in the context of the values that an undergraduate student, a future teacher of foreign languages, obtains in a higher educational institution for his future professional activity.

Research Questions

The values that a person espouses are the innermost motive of his behavior. A.V. Petrovsky and M. G. Yaroshevsky see the value as "not just a motive, but a motive characterized by a certain place in the system of relations of the subject", "an essential characteristic of the individual's existence in the world" (Petrovsky, 1999).

I.F. Isaev offers the following classification of professional values of a teacher:

• values-goals-values that reveal the meaning of the goals of professional and pedagogical activity of the teacher;
• values-means-values that reveal the meaning of ways and means of performing professional and pedagogical activities;
• values-relationships-values that reveal the meaning of relationships as the main mechanism for the functioning of a holistic pedagogical activity;
• values-knowledge-values that reveal the meaning of psychological and pedagogical knowledge in the process of teaching;
• values-qualities-values that reveal the meaning of the teacher's personal qualities: a variety of interrelated individual, personal, communicative, professional qualities of the teacher's personality as a subject of professional and pedagogical activity, appeared in special abilities: the ability to create, the ability to design their activities and anticipate their consequences (Isaev, 2016).

These values are formed in the course of implementing professional pedagogical education in higher education institutions at language faculties.

Purpose of the Study

Let us dwell upon the consideration of the value component of the process of mastering methodology in language teaching from the position of a value (axiological) and conceptual approaches. Within the framework of the conceptual approach, it is proposed to operate with such notions as “concept”, “conceptosphere”, “professional world image” (Chernyshov, 2016), which are closely related to the concept of “professional values”.

Research Methods

According to V.I. Karasik, concepts are "mental formations stored in a person's memory, significant conscious typed fragments of experience" (Karasik, 2004). The concept as a unit of structured experience has a definite but not rigid organization. It includes a conceptual core with a set of conceptual features and a periphery that reflects the interpretation of conceptual features and their combinations in the form of statements and attitudes of consciousness due to the peculiarities of the mentality. In fact, it is the interpretative zone of the concept that integrates the system of value motives and attitudes of the individual that are formed in the process of mastering culture (globally speaking) or cultures.

In the methodological education of a future foreign language teacher, a significant aspect of the conceptual sphere of the personality is the professional world image, which includes a set of professional concepts, the interpretive zone of which reflects, first of all, those identified by I.F Isaev types of professional values (Isaev, 2016). Thus, the professional world image created in the process of teacher training “accumulates life and professional experience, based on which the teacher evaluates, outlives, conceptualizes the world and himself in it, brings together his ideas about pedagogical reality” (Frolovskaya, 2010).

Findings

S.V. Chernyshov points out that professional concepts modeled for scientific and educational purposes perform the function of didactic units in the methodological education of a future foreign language teacher. The purpose of these units is "to fix and update the conceptual, emotional, associative, cultural and other content of objects and phenomena of native and foreign-language pedagogical reality" (Chernyshov, 2014).

Mastering professional concepts is carried out by future foreign language teachers mainly through assimilating the content of the training course on the methodology in foreign language teaching. The course is presented to students of Russian pedagogical universities in disciplines with different titles: "Theory and methods of teaching and education (foreign language)", "Theory of teaching foreign languages and cultures", "Methodology in foreign language teaching ". Professional concepts are acquired by undergraduate students gradually and step-by-step in theoretical (lectures) and practical (seminars) classes.

The course of methodology in foreign language teaching is developed on a thematic basis. From the perspective of the conceptual approach each topic in the structure of the academic course program is a professional concept. There are a lot of them, such as "methodology in language teaching as a science", "theoretical basics of methodology", "language, speech and speech activity", "language and culture", "aspects of foreign language speech", "types of foreign language speech", "means of foreign language training", " foreign language learning process", "results of foreign language training", "unified state exam in foreign language", " foreign language and education"," foreign language and development" (Popova, 2003; Popova, 2007).

Professional values formed by future teachers in the process of professional and pedagogical education determine the content of their pedagogical consciousness and have a serious impact on all subsequent pedagogical, research, project and cultural and educational activities as a teacher. The teacher as an individual with a large baggage of professional (didactic, psychological and methodological) values becomes socially significant and respected. This teacher's personality acquires high social status in the minds of school administrators, the colleagues, parents and teaching community of the district, city, region (Kun, 1975).

The teacher in different ways and volumes carries out the above values at various stages of his professional pedagogical activity: 1) at the stage of entering the profession; 2) at the stage of mature pedagogical activity; 3) at the stage of pedagogical creativity (Sokolova, 2019).

On the basis of the foregoing, we can conclude how useful and important the ideas of a value-centered (axiological) approach are for professional pedagogical education of a future foreign language teacher and for their development as a person in the general social context (Leontiev, 2016).

The above shows that the ideas of the axiological approach are successfully combined with the ideas of the conceptual approach. Together, these approaches contribute to the development and functioning of the linguistic and educational sphere in the Russian Federation in modern conditions, as well as to the achievement of multidimensional goals of our country's educational policy.

In our opinion, a conceptual approach to professional and methodological training of a teacher in the sphere of foreign language education is appropriate for several reasons.

1. It is intended to ensure the completeness and depth of mastering methodological knowledge by undergraduate students. This is due to the students ' assimilation of methodological meanings in the form of professional concepts, psychically organized semantic structures.

2. Mastering each professional concept as a form of systematic methodological knowledge allows you to successfully form a complete pedagogical picture of the world.

3. Professional concepts as mental formations in a well-organized form are more reliably imprinted in the memory of the student, a future teacher of a foreign language.

4. The experience of teaching languages in different educational environments through professional concepts is assigned by undergraduate students on a conscious basis. This experience acquires a personal and professional meaning for the student (Dmitrieva, 2012).

5. Professional concepts are easily described through working language units, in our case, through lexical units (terms), terminological combinations, various definitions (detailed descriptions), given in a variety of explanatory dictionaries.

6. Professional concepts provide a conscious assimilation of educational and scientific material of methodical science (scientific theories, scientific concepts, scientific positions, scientific problems, learning systems, models of organization of the foreign language educational process).

7. Conscious storage of the concepts and units that describe them in the student's semantic memory ensures their conscious subsequent actualization when discussing methodological problems both in practical and theoretical terms.

Terms that describe the content of methodological concepts as units of methodological experience, as a certain didactic and methodological value, should: 1) provide scientific accuracy in describing pedagogical phenomena in the field of teaching foreign languages, since it is a "complex organized tool of research work" (V.A. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky); 2) represent a certain system associated with other pedagogical subsystems; 3) establish certain relationships between existing methodological categories; 4) ensure accuracy and unambiguity in understanding pedagogical phenomena in the field of foreign language education; 5) create a special metalanguage of methodological science, necessary for conducting scientific research in the field of foreign language education, for discussing the results with the pedagogical community in public media, at scientific conferences and seminars, at international symposiums; 6) be the starting basis for creating terminological dictionaries on methodological science.

The process of mastering professional concepts, terms and terminology combinations that explicate such concepts takes a long time. There are many difficulties (semantic, linguistic, didactic, organizational) on the way of their assimilation.

One of the difficulties in mastering methodological terms is that our science is taught, according to E.I. Passov, "on a clogged terminological field". This field contains "cocktail terms", "ersatz terms", and "terminological jargonisms" (Passov, 2009). The next difficulty is caused by the integrative nature of methodological science. The first level of integration is related to the interaction of linguodidactics as a general theory of language teaching and private methods of teaching languages. The second level of integration lies in establishing close links between methodological science and linguistics, psychology, didactics, and cultural studies. Terms of the mentioned sciences are often transferred to the methodological science without any additional comments and understanding. This is not always justified.

The process of assimilation of methodological terms is complicated by their ambiguous interpretation by the scientists themselves. This applies to all the fundamental terms of methodological science, for example, "teaching method" (I.L. BIM, N.D. Galikova, E.I. Passov, S.F. Shatilov, A.N. Schukin); "learning technique" (I.L. BIM, E.I. Passov, M.V. Lyakhovitsky, S.F. Shatilov, A.N. Schukin); "education technology" (I.L. BIM, N.D. Galikova, E.I. Passov, E.S. Polat, A.N. Shchukin).

The conceptual apparatus of methodological science has been identified and described. It operates and meets the needs of scientific cognition in the field of methodological science, the needs of the educational process of training future teachers of a foreign language, the needs of the compilers (authors) of textbooks on the languages studied, the needs of practical teachers up to a certain period.

In textbooks and tutorials, which describe the foundations of methodological science, the conceptual and terminological system plays the role of norms, methodological regulators and methodological standards (Shamov, 2020). The goal of the teacher of methodological science is to contribute to the mastery of terminological apparatus by carrying out the process of forming the methodological thinking of students.

The methodological conceptosphere, formed in theoretical and practical classes, is not only a methodological value for a teacher, but it also provides him with categorical apperception which seems to be a second order value. In psychology, apperception is considered as “the dependence of perception on past experience, on the general content of a person’s mental activity and its individual characteristics”( Petrovsky, 1999). Categorical apperception suggests that people working in the same field of scientific knowledge should speak the same scientific language. It forms the “unity of the general methodological experience” (Petrovsky, 1999), the unity of thinking of people associated with methodological science and the methodology of teaching foreign languages. Unfortunately, even now, with all the obviousness of the significance of the problem posed, specialists from the field of methodological science speak "in different languages." Here are some examples.

Some authors of textbooks on foreign languages still do not distinguish between the concepts of “skills” and “speech abilities” in their methodological recommendations. This is not correct from the point of view of methodological science. The initial stage of mastering foreign language begins with the formation of skills: language and speech skills (pronunciation, lexical and grammar skills). The next step is the development of skills. Then comes the stage of speech abilities development in different types of speech activity (speaking, listening, reading, writing). Only then does the stage of using speech and speech activity as a real means of communication begin (Karpenko, 1975; Galskova, 2012).

Authors of school textbooks on foreign languages often do not differentiate the features of linguistic and speech material, do not consider the ways of its organization as educational units. Mastering linguistic and speech material is often carried out using the same technology.

Those involved in the sphere of teaching foreign languages, including textbook authors, should cognize the differences between the following types of exercises: language exercise, training speech exercise and speech exercise. They should be aware of their methodological purpose, structure and specific features. Furthermore, there is a predominance of language exercises in textbooks on foreign languages despite the fact that training should be carried out as part of a communicative approach. In such a situation, children will never be able to communicate by means of a language they are being taught. This is considered to be a return to the technologies of a grammar-translation approach in language teaching.

Authors of a school textbook on a foreign language should be aware of the specifics of each type of exercises as well, their approximate quantitative ratio among themselves in foreign language lessons: language exercises – 10 %; training speech exercises – 40–50 %; speech exercises – 50–60 %.

Thus, from the examples given we can draw the following conclusion: authors of a textbook on a foreign language (school or university) should speak the same scientific language with a school teacher, a university teacher, a methodologist to understand one or another methodological term in the same way. The correct implementation of the methodological concept of the author, the adequate perception of the lesson objectives and the choice of adequate means of their achieving depend on this. Much to our regret, this is not always observed.

Categorical apperception of specialists participating in the educational process affects the quality and the results of the foreign language teaching greatly. A.V. Petrovsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky attached particular importance to the mastery of the language of science, including methodological science. They wrote, in particular: “The categorical structure of the apparatus of science rules the thought of its people objectively and changes independently of individual fate. It plays the role of apperception in their psychological perception of problems and development prospects, influencing the dynamics of theoretical views, rethinking empirically given data, and searching for new solutions ” (Petrovsky, 1999).

Therefore, in modern conditions it is important to develop a methodological science, to form a professional conceptosphere of future foreign language teachers through the “crystal lattice” of sociocultural determinants, through the “crystal” of transformed categorical schemes (Shamov, 2020).

Categorical apperception is the backbone of any science, including the methodology in language teaching. On the one hand, the presence of their own scientific categories is one of the signs of the independence of the methodology as a science, as it is stated in any textbook on the methodology in foreign language teaching. On the other hand, good knowledge and handling of the categorical apparatus of methodological science is a clear indicator of the professional competence of the teacher himself, especially the beginner. An extremely important process related to the understanding of the theory of the science under study takes place through analytical work with methodological concepts, through the assimilation of methodological terms that are part of the structure of the concept. At the same time, another important process associated with the ordering of the terms of the methodological science itself is going on (Vaganova, 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, we would like to shortly sum up our ideas concerning the development of the methodological training of the bachelor students majoring in Pedagogics, profile "Foreign language", based on value guidelines.

1. The axiological values that bachelor students master, allow us to ensure the completeness and depth of assimilation of methodological knowledge. This is due to the assimilation of methodological meanings in the form of professional concepts as mentally organized semantic structures (Gruzdeva, 2020).

2. The assimilation of each professional concept as a form of systematic methodological knowledge allows us to more successfully form a pedagogical world image in the minds of future teachers of a foreign language.

3. Professional concepts as mental formations are more reliably stored in the semantic memory of a student, a future foreign language teacher, being clearly organized.

4. The different educational environments where a bachelor student gets into while the period of teaching practice allow them to assimilate professional concepts on a conscious basis. The experience gained acquires a personally and professionally colored meaning for the student. And this is definitely a certain value for a student, a future foreign language teacher.

5. Professional concepts are described through lexical units (terms), terminological combinations, various kinds of definitions (detailed descriptions), given in various explanatory dictionaries.

6. Professional methodological concepts provide a conscious assimilation and understanding of the educational, scientific material of methodological science: scientific theories, scientific concepts, scientific principles, scientific problems, educational systems, models for organizing a foreign language educational process.

7. A clearly organized and conscious storage of methodological concepts and units describing them in the student’s semantic memory ensures their subsequent conscious actualization. This occurs during the discussion of methodological problems both in practical and theoretical terms.

References

• Chernyshov, S.V. (2014). Emotional-conceptual approach to teaching foreign languages (linguo-psychological basis). Monograph. N. Novgorod: Priority, 334 p.

• Dmitrieva, E.N. (2012). Improving the quality of teacher training based on the information-semantic approach. N. Novgorod: LUNN, 312 p.

• Frolovskaya, M.N. (2010). The professional image of the teacher’s world as a universal of pedagogical culture. World of sci., culture and ed., 2(21), 136–140.

• Galskova, N.D., Tareva, E.G. (2012). Values of the modern world of globalization and intercultural education as a value. Foreign lang. at school, 1, 3–11.

• Gruzdeva, M.L., Vaganova, O.I., Kaznacheeva, S.N. (2020). Modern Educational Technologies in Professional Education. Lecture Notes in Networks and Syst., 73, 1097–1103.

• Isaev, I.F. (2016). Values of pedagogical activity. Int. J. of Appl. and Fundam. Res., 1(part 2), 275–259.

• Karasik, V.I. (2004). Introduction to cognitive linguistics. Kemerovo: Kuzbassvuzizdat.

• Karpenko, L.A. (1985). A brief psychological dictionary. Moscow: Politizdat, 431 p.

• Kun, T.S. (1975). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Monograph. Moscow: Progress, 300 p.

• Leontiev, A.A. (2016). The pedagogy of common sense. In Selected works on the philosophy of education and pedagogical psychology (528 p.). Moscow: Sense.

• Passov, E.I. (2009). The terminology of the methodology or as we speak and write. St. Petersburg: Zlatoust, 124 p.

• Petrovsky, A.V., Yaroshevsky, M.G. (1999). Fundamentals of Theoretical Psychology. Textbook. Moscow: Infra-M, 528 p.

• Popova, Z.D., Stenin, I.A. (2007). Cognitive linguistics. Moscow: East-West, 314 p.

• Popova, Z.D., Sternin, I.A. (2003). Language and national picture of the world. Voronezh: Sources, 59 p.

• Shamov, A.N., Kim, O.M. (2020). Features of professional activity of a foreign language teacher at a University, Vest. of Minin Univer., 8(2), 5.

• Sokolova, M., Plisov, E. (2019). Cross-linguistic transfer classroom L3 acquisition in university setting. Vest. of Minin Univer., 7(1), 6.

• Vaganova, O.I., Bakharev, N.P., Bulaeva, M.N. (2020). Methods and means of realization of interaction technologies in the university. Amazonia investiga, 9(26), 383–390.