Essentials of pedagogical profession. Учебное пособие

Situation 2.

An English student in RSU

Student A: You are a usual English boy/girl. Student B is your Russian friend who is a student at RSU. Ask the student questions about her university.

• What facilities the university can offer.

• How many faculties there are in the university and what they are.

• For how many years the students study at the university. • If the students can get any degrees and what these degrees are. • How often she has to take exams and credit-tests.

• Why she has chosen the faculty she studies at.

Situation 3.

Missing classes

Student A: You are a student who has missed the English classes. Student B

is your group mate. Ask your group mate questions to find out everything about the classes and try to learn the task for the next classes.

• If there were English classes last week. • What they were doing at classes.

• If they checked up the previous homework. • If they did the translation.

• If the teacher asked about you.

• What homework for the next classes were.

Situation 4.

History faculty

Student A: You are a respected person in your large family. Student B is your niece who is a student of History faculty at SFU.

Ask your niece questions about her student life.

• Ask how many years she is studying in the university and when she will finish it.

• Why she had chosen this faculty.

• Who she becomes after graduating from the university. • If she wants to be a teacher of History and why. • Why she is sure this profession is suitable for her. • If she thinks she will be good at this profession.

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Situation 5.

Lending money

Student A is a businessman/woman. Student B is your daughter, who wants to go abroad for a year and needs money for the trip. She wants to borrow £ 500 from you. Ask your daughter questions to find out much about her trip.

• Ask her if she wants to say you smth or ask you about smth. • Why she wants to go abroad, what she will do.

• How long she is going to stay there. • If she knows where she will live.

• Ask if she has money and agree to help her but say you can only borrow her money.

• Ask when and how she is going to pay them back.

Situation 6.

Shopping

Student A is a customer at a women`s (men`s) ready clothes department. He/she would like to buy a cocktail dress (a suit) for the restaurant. Student B is a shop-assistant. Act out the situation and ask the shop-assistant questions about the dress you need:

• if they have all sizes and colours.

• Ask the shop-assistant to show you the dress. • if you can try it on.

• Ask to bring another dress (this one is too small or big, or you don`t like the colour)

• how much the dress costs.

• if you should pay in cash or they can take a cheque. • Ask to wrap the dress and thank the shop-assistant.

5. Group-work. Ask and answer questions and discuss the problems of modern school and the ways of solution this problems.

VOCABULARY REVISION

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PART IV. TRADITIONAL TEACHING THEORIES

Unit 1.

Mental-discipline theories

1. Study the following words and phrases:

«The earliest mental-discipline theories of teaching were based on a premise that the main justification for teaching anything is not for itself but for what it trains – intelligence, attitudes, and values. By choosing the right material and by emphasizing rote methods of learning, according to that theory, one disciplines the mind and produces a better intellect.

In Greco-Roman antiquity, the ideal product of education was held to be a citizen trained in the disciplined study of a restricted number of subjects – grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. The mode of learning was based on imitation and memorizing, and there was heavy emphasis on the intellectual authority of the teacher. In later centuries, it was further taken for granted that the study of Greco-Roman literature and philosophy would have a liberalizing effect on the student.

In the hands of the Renaissance Dutch philosopher Erasmus and the Jesuits, that method of instruction took more sensitive account of the psychological characteristics of young learners. Understanding had to precede learning, and, according to the Jesuits, the teacher’s first task was careful preparation of the material to be taught. But even with that greater awareness of the learner’s needs, the concept of mental discipline still underlay the whole process of instruction.

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The theory of learning involving mental discipline is more commonly associated with the “faculty psychology” of Aristotle, by which the mind is understood to be composed of a number of faculties, each of which is considered to be relatively independent of the others. The principle had its origin in a theory that classified mental and spiritual life in terms of functions of the soul: knowing, feeling, hungering, reasoning, and doing. From the Middle Ages to the early 19th century, the number of recognized faculties grew and included those of judgment, duty, perception, and conception. It was a natural step to assume that learning would consist of the exercise of these “parts,” or mental capabilities. Certain school subjects were thought to have particular value as agents for exercising certain faculties. Geometry trained the faculty of reason, and history trained the memory.

Psychological faculties, used as categories, no doubt influenced the study of so-called mental factors. When different cognitive tests are given and the results compared, similarities are found among all the tests and among smaller groups of them. The bases for the similarities are identified as mental factors, including the ideas of intelligence, reasoning, memory, verbal ability, number capacity, and spatial intelligence. The existence of common mental factors underlying different school subjects would support the idea of formal discipline and would lead to the notion of transfer of training, by which exercise in one school subject leads to improvements in learning of another. The transferred elements could be common facts, learning habits, methods of thinking, attitudes, and values.» [12]

(Abridged from https://www.britannica.com/)

2.Give full answers to the following questions:

1)What is the main principle of the earliest mental-discipline theories?

2)How can we produce a better intellect?

3)What was the target of education in Greco-Roman antiquity?

4)What was the basic method of learning in Ancient Greece and ancient Rome?

5)What was considered to have a liberalizing effect on students?

6)What role did the Renaissance Dutch philosopher Erasmus play in the development of education?

7)What was teacher`s first task according to Jesuits?

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8)What theory is mental discipline usually associated with?

9)What is the essence of Aristotle`s faculty psychology?

10)What theory does Aristotle`s principle originated from?

11)What mental capabilities were added during the Middle Ages?

12)What faculties are exercised by certain school subjects?

13)Do psychological faculties influence the study of mental fac-

tors?

14)What ideas result from the existence of common mental factors?

15)What are the transferred elements in learning?

3.Match the words on the left with their definitions on the right.

4. Read the definitions given below and look for the words in the text. Translate the definitions and the words into Russian.

1)t _____ to teach a person or an animal the skills for a particular job or activity; to be taught in this way

2)e_____ to give special importance to something

3)d _____ to train somebody, especially a child, to obey particular rules and control the way they behave

4)m _____ to learn something carefully so that you can remember it exactly

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5)p _____ to happen before something or come before something/somebody in order

6)u _____ to be the basis or cause of something

7)i_____ to affect sometimes improperly or corruptly the mind or actions; make somebody think and act in proper way

8)i _____ to recognize somebody/something and be able to say who or what they are

9)s _____ to give assistance or help in doing something; keep from failure

10)l _____ to go with or in front of a person or an animal to show the way or to make them go in the right direction

5.Work with a partner to answer the questions. Use complete sentences.

1)What disciplines did you study at school?

2)What effect do drugs have on people?

3)When do teenagers become independent from their parents?

4)What is the origin of computers?

5)What are you house duties?

6)What capabilities do you need to become a good teacher?

7)What are the similarities between Russian and British systems of education?

6.Discussion. Discuss the following questions in small groups. You may need to use different sources to find the information necessary for argumentative discussion.

1)Why do you think mental-discipline theories were popular for so long?

2)What “faculties” do different subjects train?

3)What cognitive abilities do you know? Define each of them.

Unit 2.

Naturalistic theories

«A few educational theorists view the education of the child as an unfolding process. The child develops inevitably as a product of nature, and the main function of the teacher is to provide the optimum conditions for that development. That view leads to the theory that the child’s experience is the essential thing. A Swiss educator, J.H. Pestalozzi (1746–1827), was a leading theorist in that

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field, and his practical schemes were designed to provide the most appropriate experience for the child’s development.

The 18th-century Swiss-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau also started from the assumption that humans conform to nature. Since, more than Pestalozzi, he assumed the certainty of a spontaneous development of powers and faculties, he urged that any form of constraint was to be avoided. Thus, it has been held that he saw humans as noble savages growing in isolation in a state of nature. But nature also means a social life. The consequences of Rousseau’s basic view have been (1) a reduced emphasis on knowing and greater emphasis on acting and doing, (2) a promotion of positive interests in learning, and (3) an encouragement of children to depend on their own resources. In their purest form, naturalistic theories are clearly inadequate in the modern world of technology, but their emphasis on spontaneous child activity, as opposed to excessive formal instruction, is a valuable component of the educational process.»

(Abridged from https://www.britannica.com/)

1.Read the following questions and give detailed answers:

1)What is given to a child according to naturalistic theories?

2)What is the main function of a teacher according to naturalistic theories?

3)Who was the theorist of naturalistic theories?

4)What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau assume?

5)What must be avoided according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

6)What did Rousseau think about humans?

7)What consequences did Rousseau`s basic views lead to?

8)What is a valuable component of educational process?

2.Give the English equivalents to the following words and phrases:

1)развивающийся

2)неизбежно, неминуемо

3)развитие

4)основной, обязательный, нужный

5)план, программа

6)предположение

7)подчиняться, руководствоваться

8)уверенность, несомненный факт

9)настаивать на

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10)принуждение

11)последствия

12)зависеть от

13)чрезмерный, излишний

3.Define the grammar form of the words in bold.

4.Work with a partner to answer the questions. Use complete sentences.

1)How many functions of television do you know?

2)What do you think is more important – physical or mental development?

3)What modern bloggers do you know?

4)How often do you think people should get promotion?

5)What resources of knowledge do you know?

6)How often do you use new internet technologies?

5.Discussion. Discuss the following questions in small groups. You may need to use different sources to find the information necessary for argumentative discussion.

1)How do you understand the following statement “the education of the child is an unfolding process”?

2)Can you think of the examples of “appropriate experience” for the child`s development?

3)How do you understand the term “social life”?

Unit 3.

Apperception theories

1. Study the following words and phrases:

«Another theory assumed that human learning consisted essentially of building up associations between different ideas and experiences; the mind, in accordance with the ideas of the 17th-century

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English philosopher John Locke, was assumed to be at first devoid of ideas. The 19th-century German philosopher Johann Herbart made an important contribution by providing a mental mechanism that determined which ideas would become conscious and which would be left in the subconscious, to be called upon if circumstances warranted it. Such was the mechanism of apperception, by which new ideas became associated with existing ideas to form a matrix of associated ideas called the apperception mass. New ideas were thus assimilated to the old. A 20th-century Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, argued that such assimilation was not enough, that accommodation of the established ideas to the new experiences was also required.

In any event, ideas such as Herbart’s were translated into a sequence of steps presumed to be required to carry out a lesson:

1.Preparation, whereby the teacher starts the lesson with something already known to the class

2.Presentation, introducing new material

3.Association, whereby the new is compared with the old and connected (the stage of apperception)

4.Generalization, whereby the teacher presents other instances of the new idea

5.Application, whereby the ideas are applied to further material, carried out by the child individually (a problem-solving phase)

Although these five steps give the teacher a clear role, they constitute a form of intellectual dominance and could lead to stereotyped lessons restricting the spontaneous creative learning by the pupil. Contemporary curricular revisions, on the contrary, aim at promoting pupil activity.»

(Abridged from https://www.britannica.com/)

2.Read the following questions and give full answers:

1)What is the essence of apperception theory?

2)Who was the leading theorist of this theory?

3)What contribution did Johann Herbart make?

4)What is the apperception mass?

5)What did Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget think about assimilation of new ideas to the old ones?

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