4. The use of the mother tongue.
Принцип использования родного языка
This principle has been causing lots of debates for years. Some people insist on the student’s translating everything they read. Other educators believe that the mother tongue is a natural enemy and it should be driven away from a foreign language class. The use of the mother tongue has been compared with a crutch, with a wall between a learner and a foreign language. We believe that the mother tongue has lots of uses and can come in handy from the first grade to the last. But Russian should be spoken on the class as little as possible. Sometimes the use of the mother tongue can encourage the shape of thoughts directly in English.
Functions
Russian can be the language of classroom management. But this function is the crutch. And the sooner you get rid of it, the better.
The native tongue can be a means of explaining grammar. At the advanced stages grammar can be explained in English but Russian may still be necessary for comparison.
Перепишите предложения с английским порядком слов. – Я вчера поздно домой пришел.
Russian can be a means of presenting new vocabulary. But we only resort to Russian when nothing else works.
Russian is a means of checking understanding (of grammar, vocabulary and even intonation)
I didn’t take this job in order to be able to travel.
(1) Я не для того здесь устроился, чтобы иметь возможность путешествовать
(2) Я не стал там работать, потому что хотел иметь возможность путешествовать.
The native tongue can help to prevent mistakes if this or that mistake can be caused by the interlanguage interference.
В
Где? (in)
Когда?
(into)
The native tongue can help to practice foreign language skills
Ответьте на вопрос одним английским словом. Важно сообразить, в каком числе и с каким артиклем его использовать.
Кто бегает быстрее? Собаки или кошки? (cats or dogs)
Read the question in Russian and answer them in English. For example “Зачем человек держит домашних животных?” – “He uses them. He likes them. He needs them. They need him”
The Russian language can suggest alternatives of developing an utterance.
Частичный перевод + смысловой выбор + добавление
I want a …I’d like to have… It would be nice to have… I’d appreciate… «квартиру побольше, потеплее, поближе к университету, стипендию побольше, специальность попрестижнее»
Russian can help to avoid translation and can turn an absolutely formed drill into a semblance of communication.
Назовите по-английски номер правильного перевода
It isn’t a big cake. (это не черная ручка, это на большой шкаф, это не большой пирог)
The use of Russian can create meaningful contexts for using vocabulary and structures when they’re still very limited.
Where is (are) my (yours, his, the) –
Я-то собирался сварить из них компот
Where are the apples?
The Russian language may even help schoolchildren to use derivatives they have not come across yet.
They are acquainted with – er
Психологический тест. Дайте себе объективную оценку.
I am good/bad….-er. Ответьте одним предложением на каждую серию вопросов.
«Когда вы в компании друзей вы предпочитаете говорить или слушать? Часто ли вы перебиваете других? Любят ли друзья рассказовать вам секреты?»
I’m a good/bad listener.
The structure of the skill-formation process
The stages of skill-formation (этапы формирования)
A link (звено) as a smallest unit of the skill-formation process.
Classification of tasks and exercises
Practically any skill whenever a basic one or a functional one passes through the following three stages of formation:
Presentation (ознакомление)
Practices (тренировка)
Performance (речевая практика).
Of course there are some skills which do not require presentation as a separate stage. For instance, some sounds are so similar to Russian ones that at an ordinary school we can consider them identical and we do not explain how to articulate them. They can be imitated. [m, g, b]
There are some structures that we don’t have to explain (He wants to buy it).
During the first stage (presentation) the main activity is cognitive. The tasks students do need not be communicative. They are very fragmentary. At this stage are shape new concepts: from very simple ones (voice, voiceless consonants) to very complicated notions (the notion of unreal condition)
We teach the learners to perform elementary operations which are not yet done automatically and which will became real operations later.
Presentation is a foundation for the further practice.
During the stage of practice the main activity is automatization. It’s here that we develop fluency so that the learner is able either to understand an utterance or to produce an utterance unmistakably, quickly enough and without any hesitation pauses. And every utterance should be produced with a perfect rhythm.
Language skills – functional skills, from how to say to what to say, from form to meaning.
Performance. (what to say) Here the main focus is communication. But there is no hard and fast line between the stages. Thus during automatization we may arrive at same subtler shades of meaning. And on the other hand practice should be communicative.
During the stage of performance the process of automatization continues but it becomes practically unguided. That is you may suggest that the learners should use some material but you’re not supposed to impose it on the learners. But these 3 stages which are universally recognized are not sufficient to describe gradual progression from one level of difficulty to another.
As a result we sometimes come across text books where all the 3 stages are observed but are hopelessly disconnected. In such textbooks grammar or vocabulary practice is usually restricted to formal tasks like “open the brackets”, or “ask the question to the adverb modifier”. And then the students face truly communicative tasks like “speak about…”. There is a terrible gap between practice and performance, because no matter how many exercises we do in filling in the brackets and so on, they do not help us to communicate.
Therefore we need a smaller unit than a stage to show gradual transition from formal drills to authentic communication so as to observe the snowball ideology.
During the presentation stage we can single out at least two links. Within the next stage – 3,4,5 links.
Link 1
The students study efforts are minimized, i.e. subdivided into minimal steps. Usually the teacher gives some explanation which is also subdivided into minimal portions, doses, units. And every bit of information is accompanied by some activity on the part of the learner. Every study effort (учебное действие) has its own aim. So it is quite concrete.
Подчеркните правильный вариант: “She is very unhappy: she (lost, has lost) her bag”.
Вставьте нужный союз, соответствующий русскому «через»: across, through over; e.g. their house was very near – just … the road.
Link 2
The tasks need not be communicative. They are performed without hurry. Very often they require a good discussion. The teacher does not insist on the perfect rhythm, tone, the integrity of sentence production. The difference between two links: in order to perform a link-2-task a learner has to overcome more than one difficulty, so that the goal of the exercise is attained. Each of them is still a conscious study effort, but it is deprived of its own purpose. It leads to the attainment of the common aim. The learners are still unable to combine 2 or more study efforts and do them simultaneously. The attention shifts from one study effort to the next one until we arrive at a final result.
Скажите, с какими существительными можно употребить неопределенный артикль: «тетрадь, ручка, книги, мел, доска, Европа, стулья, страна, горы»
Раскройте скобки, употребив нужную форму глагола: «Why didn’t you answer the phone at once? – I (put) the baby to bed». «Did you see the beginning of the film? – No, when I came home, the film (begin)»