BUILDING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THROUGH LITERARY TEXTS IN EFL CLASSES

Background: The chapter argues that building critical thinking skills and enhancing students’ cognitive processes has become a primary goal of teaching in secondary schools. It is generally agreed that the relationship between learning and reading literature has always been very close. Also, literature is widely recognised as an effective, motivating and enjoyable facilitator for work on critical thinking skills through challenging students’ cognitive processes by means of comparing and contrasting of and differentiating between the specific events of the plot, analysing main characters, interpreting the meaning created by the author’s choice of words etc. For these reasons this chapter investigates the efficacy of literary texts in building critical thinking skills in secondary schools. Purpose: The main focus of the chapter was on designing effective and feasible critical thinking model of teaching instruction that incorporates literary text in EFL classroom to stimulate students’ cognitive processes. Results: Many methods have been suggested to teaching reading literary texts. For the purpose of this study the authors adopted personal growth model developed by Lindsay Clanfield. The model draws heavily on learners’ involvement in reading with the aim of explaining the implied message of the literary text through employing crucial critical thinking skills such as problem solving, decision making, interpretation, logical reasoning, and metacognition. The critical thinking model consists of the three stages defined as “challenge – comprehension – reflection”. Each of the defined stages focuses on utilising some of the six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning objectives through activities that promote these cognitive processes. For example, to complete activities of the ‘challenge’ stage students rely heavily on their knowledge; cognitive levels of comprehension, application and synthesis are essential at the ‘comprehension’ stage; finally, at the ‘reflection’ stage students are involved in evaluation ideas of moral and social aspects discussed in the text and appraising of their acquired experience. Drawing on this conclusion, the article presents a practical implementation of the model with the focus on cognitive processes and development of critical thinking skills in teaching English through literary texts. Discussion: In further research, it is necessary to experimentally verify the effectiveness of the critical thinking model in building critical thinking skills through literary texts in EFL classes.

DIDACTIC ASPECTS OF TRANSLATION THEORIES

The relationship between translation theory and translation pedagogy is undeniable. Translation studies developed, in fact, as a result of analysis and theoretical generalization of both professional and classroom translation activities. However, the views on the role of theory in translation instruction are rather controversial. Moreover, even though numerous studies have given detailed insights into translation theories, there are still issues to consider. Unexplored are didactic aspects of translation theories: to our knowledge, no research has discussed the didactic contribution of translation theorists to translation pedagogy. Hence the purpose of the paper is to carry out a critical analysis of literary, linguistic, communicative, and cognitive translation theories with a view to exploring and interpreting their didactic strengths and weaknesses. The research methodology relies on the analysis of available literature as well as textbooks in translation practice to discover the didactic contribution of translation theories to translation pedagogy. Noteworthy is the fact that every translation theory has contributed to the development of translation pedagogy as a branch of applied linguistics. Among the major gains of literary theory is textual approach to learning and teaching translation. Linguistic theory has provided the theoretical foundations for translation pedagogy and creating textbooks that meet the didactic requirements. Teaching translation from the standpoint of treating it as a process of communication has become the achievement of communicative theory. The gains of cognitive theory include the adoption of a competence-based approach to teaching translation, as well as the intensification of research efforts in the field of translation pedagogy. In addition to progressive aspects, the translation theories had certain shortcomings. Literary theory, for instance, rejected the idea of translation pedagogy because of perception of the activity as art. Linguistic theory overemphasized certain aspects of language in teaching translation and promoted the idea of interlingual equivalence. This idea has led to the absolute predominance of bilingual dictionaries in translation classrooms, which is currently considered unjustified. The concept of communicative equivalence, supported by the advocates of communicative theory, has negatively affected evaluation of classroom translations. Finally, cognitive theory is criticized for its failure to apply its theoretical concepts to the development of translation pedagogy.

AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF SENIOR SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH ENGLISH EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

The article deals with the problem of aesthetic education of senior school students, which provides the development of creatively active personality, who can fully perceive the beautiful, harmonious and perfect in the environment. Therefore, modern school channels its efforts to ensure the aesthetic education of the pupils, creating pedagogical conditions that enhance aesthetic education of the learners. Since ancient times, aesthetic education has occupied a prominent place in the process of shaping personal and cultural identity. The ability to feel, perceive, understand, realize, and create beautiful things are specific manifestations of spiritual and cultural maturity of a person whose aesthetic perception and sense is shaped and developed throughout the life. One of the ways to enhance the development of aesthetic values and perception is through engaging learners in extracurricular activities. The latter enable students to expand cultural horizons and world view as well as enhance creative thinking. Extracurricular work deepens sociocultural knowledge as well as adds to the FL communication skills of the learners. Pupils who have failed, for various reasons, to realize their creative potential in the classroom, can do when engaged in extracurricular work due to the atmosphere of trust, mutual understanding, cooperation and mutual created. The authors offer a practical guide to an extracurricular activity in English for senior schoolers. The purpose of this activity is to improve pupils’ communication skills, enhance aesthetic sensitivity and motivation for learning a foreign language.

OVERCOMING COMMUNICATION BARRIERS WITH 6TH- GRADERS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

This paper focuses on the problem of overcoming communication barriers with 6th grade secondary school learners studying a foreign language and searching ways of its solution. The authors analyze the concept of communication barrier and offer their own interpretation of the phenomenon under investigation. The paper also highlights the psychological and pedagogical conditions that affect the process of overcoming an FL language communication barrier by younger adolescents. The article claims that the enhancement of learners’ interaction activity and diminishing the fear of communication can be achieved by implementing a gaming technique in an FL classroom. The authors provide a set of games for 6th graders aimed to overcome communication barriers in the process of oral interaction in a foreign language. The effectiveness of the proposed technique was experimentally proved. The research results demonstrate positive influence of using communication games on students’ emotional state, communicative involvement during foreign language classes, motivates the learning process and enriches their social and communication experience. The survey, conducted among the learners, showed that most of them (90%) experience anxiety and difficulties during communication, which confirmed the prevalence of communication barriers among students at this school age. At the same time, 83.3% of students like games as a type of activity in foreign language lessons, and 76.6% of the respondents admit that the atmosphere in the classroom improves significantly during the game. Observations have also shown that regular use of games in foreign language lessons has had a positive effect on students’ interpersonal relationships. Most students (86.6%) confirmed that in the process of a game they become more active in communication, do not focus on the fear of making a mistake and are more prone to spontaneous speech. 83.3% of respondents noted that during the game, they significantly reduce the level of anxiety in the process of FL communication.

TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ORIENTAL PHILOLOGY

This publication is a detailed lesson plan on the topic “Power and Money” within the course of the English language taught as the second foreign language to the first-year students majoring in the oriental languages. The lesson focuses on enhancing topical vocabulary through practicing speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. It also aims at developing students’ skills of reasoning and evaluative judgment. The tasks are introduced in the plan in accordance with the principles of the contemporary communicative student-oriented approach to teaching foreign languages.

COMICS IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: BUILDING SOCIO-CULTURAL COMPETENCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

The article investigates the instructional potential of comics in building the socio-cultural competence of secondary school students in the Ukrainian language classroom. The urgency of the problem is related to the task of reforming Ukrainian school education to create learning conditions aimed at the development of a learner as a subject of culture and multicultural language personality, able to successfully engage in social interaction with the bearers of another culture. Moreover, there is a lack of research of the educational potential of comics in the Ukrainian context, which also determines the relevance of this article that aims to explore the ways of using comics in the Ukrainian language classroom to boost the socio-cultural competence of secondary school students. Apart from reading comics, the creation of them in the classroom is extensively used as a means of building socio-cultural competence in the context of world education. It is the syncretism of graphic and text-verbal components that makes the genre of comics a unique teaching tool. Although using comics in language instruction is viewed as an innovative technique of building socio-cultural competence as well as enhancing the communication skills of students, it has limited application in Ukrainian secondary schools. Therefore, based on the analysis of the available research and the authors’ experience, the paper proves the effectiveness of comics in boosting socio-cultural knowledge, increasing motivation to learn, developing critical and creative thinking of students. The authors of the article substantiate the instructional advantages of using comics in language teaching and offer a lesson plan in the Ukrainian language for 6th-grade school students.

BUILDING LATIN SOCIO-CULTURAL COMPETENCE IN LINGUISTICS MAJORS: EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES

The article focuses on the development of Latin socio-cultural competence in Linguistics majors. The research under consideration outlines the techniques applied in the process of teaching Latin and contributes to building a number of professional competencies. The material of practical classes and the authors’ observations define the types of tasks that help to master the discipline, facilitate students’ interest in the Latin language and contribute to their comprehensive development. Multimedia tools combined with the arsenal of methods and creative activities developed by the teacher promote qualitative, thorough, and effective training. It has been found out that interactive methods in combination with the linguistic and cultural approach contribute to the active interaction of participants in the educational process and are an effective means of building the cultural competence in students. In particular, Latin dialogues and greeting formulas encourage live communication; the medieval texts, carefully selected based on the students major, encourage heuristic conversation and enhance awareness of certain historical events. The paper reveals an important role of metatexts in the teaching process; on the one hand, the texts are an entertaining element, and on the other – a material for the analysis of lexical and grammatical phenomena. Additionally, the classical poetry as the classroom material was analyzed. The classical poetry appeared an effective model to follow and a stimulus for individual translations not only into students’ native language, but also into the target foreign language. The paper also reveals a significant role of creative contests and presentations in the enhancement of students’ teamwork skills and their creative potential. The article concludes that the Latin language is a subject that develops the intellectual and artistic abilities of future professionals, encourages teamwork, and inspires creativity.

CONTENT-AND-LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING AND TEACHING SCIENTIFIC UKRAINIAN TO 10TH-GRADE STUDENTS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL MAJORING IN NATURE AND MATHEMATICS

Background. More and more secondary school students in Ukraine and Europe are opting nowadays to stream for Nature and Mathematics, which is preconditioned by the increased demand for the professionals in these areas. In this context, Scientific Ukrainian could be packaged into content learning of a range of science disciplines such as Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, and others if the appropriate CLIL framework is provided both for contact and distant learning and teaching. As the researchers claim (D.Koyl & D.Marsh), it is the development of speech operations and actions that affects knowledge and skills accumulation on the content level. Purpose: The purpose of the article is to revisit the instructional capacities of Scientific Ukrainian based on the syllabi and textbooks for the 10th-grade secondary school students majoring in nature and mathematics. The aim is to ground the dual focus on Scientific Ukrainian and content learning in upper- secondary school. Results and Discussion: Our theoretical speculations have led the authors to the conclusion that the language component of learning and teaching Scientific Ukrainian to 10th grade students should involve lexicography and working with dictionaries, lexicology and mastering the terminology, text search in media resources and its analysis, syntax of the scientific language and scientific text production. According to our observations, most Ukrainian 10thgrade secondary school students majoring in nature and mathematics are keen to master scientific Ukrainian for future careers related to the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. The distant CLIL instruction was carried out with the involvement of platforms and tools such as GoogleDocs, Zoom, Padlet, Prezi, Kahoot, Quizlet. The empirical part of the study, with 26 10th- grade students and their teacher of Ukrainian participating, has clearly demonstrated the advantages of CLIL in enhancing both content learning and language competence. Despite positive results observed, more research efforts should be channeled to the development of the criteria to assess every content component of Scientific Ukrainian as well as to enhancing cooperation between content and language teachers to create opportunities for using the new language resources by students in curriculum planning.

ENHANCING TEACHERS’ LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT LITERACY VIA ACTIVITIES OF A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION

The paper discusses the issues related to the language assessment literacy (LAL) of Ukrainian university teachers of English. The author overviews the development of LAL beginning in 2010 when the first survey of LAL state was conducted by her. The surveys conducted later enabled the comparison of teacher respondents’ perceptions of the advances and/or issues in LAL. Although the surveys were not large-scale, the samples were quite fully representative of the university teacher community which allowed to capture the major trends of LAL development. The author further describes the activities of a professional non-for-profit organization – Ukrainian Association for Language Testing and Assessment (UALTA) who made a major contribution to LAL development in the past 6 years by regularly holding training events. The latest event was an in-service teacher training (INSETT) course conducted online. The course has laid theoretical and organizational bases for the future events of such kind.

USING DRAMA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARNERS

The article deals with a thorough analysis of drama techniques in teaching English to primary school learners. The review of literature on the problem under discussion has enabled the authors to conclude that using drama in the process of teaching English is a powerful teaching tool that promotes the development of creativity in the learners and enhances cognitive interest in learning a foreign language. Theoretically, however, the problem is underinvestigated in the Ukrainian context; so, the topicality of the research is ensured by existing difficulties in using drama in teaching English to primary school learners. The challenges are mainly caused by the lack of specially designed tasks for this purpose. Hence, the goal of this article is to outline the theoretical prerequisites and develop a methodologically grounded system of exercises and tasks to use drama in teaching English to primary school learners. The methodology of the research relies on the analysis of the available literature on the issue under investigation, with age and psychological characteristics of primary school learners considered. The paper discusses the approaches to defining the concept of dramatization and reveals the essential characteristics of dramatization in the process of teaching English to primary school children. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the classroom benefits of using drama techniques in teaching English to primary school learners and illustrate them by offering a lesson designed for primary school learners. The material used for the lesson designing is based on the educational and language capacity of fairy tales. The paper concludes that a positive effect of using drama in the primary school classroom contributes to enhancing both language and cognitive skills of young learners.