DOI: 10.12731/wsd-2014-9-5 UDC 372.881.111.1
TRAINING PROSPECTIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS: THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUALIZATION
Burlakova M.V., Burlakova T.V.
This article describes the means of individualization applied while training English Language teachers at the university. The relevance of the use of the individualized approach is predetermined by the change in the conditions of training prospective teachers in the current system of vocational education. The authors give a brief overview of the individualization of training prospective English language teachers at the university level, and offer a number of practical solutions for the implementations of their theory into practice at the lessons of conversational practice of the English Language.
Keywords: individualization; professional training of students; prospective English Language teachers; conversational and written practice of the English Language.
ПРИНЦИП ИНДИВИДУАЛИЗАЦИИ В ПОДГОТОВКЕ БУДУЩИХ УЧИТЕЛЕЙ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
Бурлакова М.В., Бурлакова Т.В.
Данная статья посвящена описанию средств индивидуализации в процессе преподавания английского языка в педагогическом университете. Актуальность использования данных средств предопределяется изменением условий подготовки будущих учителей в современной системе профессионального образования. Авторы дают краткую характеристику положений индивидуализации подготовки будущего учителя в вузе и предлагают ряд решений для реализации данных положений в рамках изучения дисциплины «Практика устной и письменной речи английского языка».
Ключевые слова: индивидуализация; профессиональная подготовка студентов; будущие учителя английского языка; практика устной и письменной речи.
The recent changes of the structure and the contents of the higher vocational education in Russia have brought about an urgent issue of the search of efficient means of formation and development of various competences of specialists to provide their competitiveness in the labor market.
Training an English teacher means developing all communicative skills of the students, namely:
■ the speech competence - communicative skills in speaking, listening reading, writing;
■ the linguistic competence - acquisition of new phonetic, spelling, lexical, grammatical language means;
■ the social and culture competences, including a student's ability to represent their native country and its culture in terms of the intercultural communication.
In addition, a prospective foreign language teacher should have high levels of learning and cognitive competencies (i.e., know the ways and means of self-study of languages and cultures) and a solid understanding of the methods for intellectual development and education of students by the means of a foreign language.
The discipline «Conversational and written practice of the English Language» has a key role in addressing this difficult and complex issue. This course has a practical focus, and is meant to provide comprehensive multi-sided training of a specialist, able to use the potential of their subject to teach, provide intellectual development, and lay the foundation for further improvement of their students' foreign language skills. Along with this, the discipline is aimed at improving the overall literacy of the students, which has a significant social and professional value both from the point of view of the development of a student's personality and from the point of view of the development of their professional competences.
However, the authors' experience of teaching «Conversational and written practice of the English Language» at the teacher training university identified significant difficulties that have become particularly acute in the past few years. First of all, there is a contradiction between the requirements of the educational standard and the pacing of learning with different students. The reason for this are mixed groups, in which Russian students study together with the foreign students from the former countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, who don't speak Russian as their native language.
The pace of learning of the former student group is slower, largely due to the fact that teaching this discipline implies the comparison of the English and Russian reality, and they have some different back-
ground knowledge of the world: beginning with the religious aspects and the differences of the national cultures and ending with different knowledge about the relationship in the family and at school. Besides, there is a significant imbalance of the development of individual skills of each student, which is related to their individual characteristics. For instance, quite a lot of students with a good knowledge of grammar lack fluency of speech or creativity, whereas those students who are fluent in English often make grammatical mistakes and do not aspire to correct them.
In this situation, we assume that the methods and means of individualization can prove most effective in teaching «Conversational and written practice of the English Language», because these allow a professor to influence the professional development of prospective English language teachers purposefully, to facilitate the deployment of their own internal work on self-fulfillment and to enhance their abilities for teaching practices.
The analysis of the concept of individualization of training has shown that it is being gradually modified in the contemporary Russian research works [1]. Individualization is now understood as the transforming activity aimed at educating a person and the positive change in their inner world, rather than as a form or a method of teaching.
The author has come to the conclusion that individualization of training future teachers at the pedagogical university, like any other educational process, is characterized by two interrelated and interdependent entities: the inner entity and the outer entity. The outer entity of individualization is concerned with adapting the content and the forms of the training process to the individual peculiarities of every student and providing pedagogical support with the purpose of the
development of a student's individual traits of personality. The inner entity of individualization involves a student's focusing on the fulfillment of their individual aspirations, on working out the life strategies and developing the individual style of teaching [1].
The general provisions, reflecting specific features of individualization of training future teachers at the university, are as follows [2]:
■ students develop their self-awareness of being future teachers by the thorough study of professional values and teaching experience, therefore, the initial stage of individualization of training involves the incorporation of future teachers in a variety of connections and relationships with all members of the pedagogical process;
■ the human demand for an individual standpoint implies one's own way of existence; in turn, one's own way of being in the profession implies the existence of an individual standpoint regarding the chosen profession;
■ individualization, which is defined as the process of establishing one's identity, helps students to achieve a greater degree of independence and relative autonomy, which is manifested in the ability of self-determination and self-regulation; therefore, a prerequisite for individualization is the development of students' ability of introspection, reflection and motivation;
■ individualization is a unity of self-realization and dedication: on the one hand, it encourages a person to identify and develop their abilities to the fullest, to learn one's own peculiarities, and on the other hand, it stimulates the desire to impart one's knowledge and experience;
■ the training process is deeply individual: a student consciously and independently transfers the external sources into the internal, their own sources.
The above-mentioned provisions are implemented in the foreign language teacher training process by the means of the methods of in-dividualization, which reveal a certain interaction of a professor and a student, and embrace the goal of the training, its contents, methods and techniques.
The approach is aimed at training a competent teacher, who has an individual standpoint regarding their professional practices and is capable of conscious personal development, self-improvement and self-realization in the profession as well as of the success in life.
The contents of the individualized training are set by a few components: the core contents of the discipline; the potential increase of a student's personal and individual capacity while studying the discipline; the expansion of the view of one's educational, social and professional opportunities, etc.
The methods of individualization embrace various techniques and tools [3]. They are characterized by:
■ result-oriented activities of each student, which includes doing projects, solving competency tasks, being involved in goalsetting and reflection at all stages of training;
■ a new attitude of the professor who creates the conditions for independent choices, self-determination and self-realization of each student, provides support of their individual educational activities, implements individualized techniques.
While teaching «Conversational and written practice of the English Language», there can be observed the following particular implementations of the provisions of individualization:
1) it is advisable that the professor should constantly remind the prospective foreign language teacher about the importance of an integral inclusion of their linguistic knowledge in their activities, encouraging their social interaction and personal development. We argue that professionalism is an internal personality characteristic. Not only does it allow one to meet the regulatory requirements of the profession, but also one stands out due to their originality and individu
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