Key words: the language of specialty, motivation, communicative needs, professional knowledge, individual
(personal) potential, the vision of the world.
Foreign students from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, who get the basic language training at the
Language and General Education Department, should be ready to study for a Master’s Degree program
during a short period of time. The total training period lasts 9 months, out of which 5 months are assigned for
mastering the discipline “Language of Specialty”.
The question is how to make the process of developing communicative competences more effective under
the intensive regime. It is obvious that the efficiency of teaching depends on the competently chosen
methods and methodological approaches to the process of teaching based on the real communicative needs as
well as on individual and language potential of learners. Communicative needs of learners are to acquire
knowledge, competences and skills, which will enable them to use the Russian language as the medium of
professional activities for extending their professional knowledge.
The individual potential and individual characteristics of the members of the academic group are
considered to be decisive in choosing the methods of teaching. This entails the following: a high degree of
awareness of the learners as individuals, methods of organizing and implementing the educational, -
pedagogical activities, controlling of the learners progress and difficulties and methods of stimulating the
academic and cognitive activities.
Now it is essential to get acquainted ‘closer’ with our learners. All of them got a higher education at the
universities of Afghanistan on different specialties, i.e. they have already got a Bachelor Degree. Most of
them speak English, have certain pedagogical experience, the average age of whom is 30. In the group there
are only students from Afghanistan, all of them know Farsi and their mother tongue (Pashtu, Dari, Uzbek).
These students are planning to study for a Master’s Degree Program and perhaps, they will continue their
studies for a PhD degree in other countries where education is conducted in the Russian language. The fact
that the learners know the language of specialty perfectly well is the essential positive point. But it is
necessary for them to be adapted to a new language perception of the world, to plunge into it extending their
professional knowledge in the language space mastered by them.
Thus, it is very important to be aware of the individual potential of learners, which will enable to choose
more effective approach to teaching.
Two observations are required here:
The first is that there must be long-term purposes / aims of teaching: for the students of this category
learning the language is of great practical significance in the future. It will be related with their future
material well-being, which creates a powerful impetus in their activities. It is obvious that aims provide only
a general direction while for achieving them it is necessary to involve an effective functioning of the
personality.
The second is that there must be the individual self-regulation which is understood as “a high level of
self-consciousness, adequate self-estimation, reflexive thinking and independence of a self-organized,
Абай атындағы ҚазҰПУ-нің Хабаршысы, «Педагогика ғылымдары» сериясы, №2 (50), 2016 ж.
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purpose - orientated and strong -willed personality”.[2;25]. In the course of the pedagogic activity the
learners, to more or less extent, have developed these qualities. In the real academic process these qualities
are expressed as:
- the ability to analyze educational tasks, including planning, setting aims and choosing the academic
strategy;
- comprehension of the significance of personal results (self-estimate, self-correction);
- the ability to organize the independent cognizant activity.
Certainly, not all the students are able to demonstrate these qualities to a full extent. Besides, there are
some factors that complicate the academic process: psychological peculiarities of the age; educational and
pedagogical experience with the stereotypes of the alien culture, adapting to a new perception of the
language world – all of them require a certain period of time. Before the start of learning the language of
specialty the Afghan students study the Russian language only for 3-4 months. The students realize that the
level of knowledge of the Russian language is not sufficient for the effective coverage of the suggested
material, and it may cause some panic and fear among them. Consequently, the teachers are to choose such
strategies of work in order to help the learners avoid any kind of stress and start acquiring the new material
consciously. The teachers must do their best to use effectively the individual potential of students.
In regard with this, the teachers at different stages must use different approaches to teaching. Not
rejecting the traditional role of the teacher who is responsible for presenting the certain amount of
knowledge, for forming and controlling the skills obtained by the learners, it is also desirable to use the
elements of the individual - centered teaching. This approach creates conditions for disclosing the personal -
individual potential of the student and promotes the establishment of partnership relations between the
teacher and the learner, and no doubt, it will lead to a future success. In this case, as it was noted earlier,
teachers have been inclined to assume that it was exclusively, or at least principally, those approaches which
they controlled that had the greatest influence upon learners’ achievement.
Let’s characterize in general the main principles of the above mentioned didactic approach. The
individual -centered language teaching based on the system of mutually connected notions, ideas and
methods of activities promotes and supports the processes of self-assertion and self-realization of a
personality of a student, development of his inimitable individuality. The individual – centered teaching is
solidified by the subjective experience, i.e. it is focused on the emotionally valuable attitude of a learner to
materials under study. The learner obtains not only subject skills but also general education knowledge,
namely: determines the content, aims, forms of teaching/ learning activities: reflects and estimates the results
of the process; gets the opportunities to influence the course of the academic activity by choosing the content
of the teaching program, forms and techniques of teaching processes, etc. The student learns how to acquire
knowledge and to use it independently. No doubt, this approach corresponds to the individual potential of the
learners to a large extent.
Let’s see how the algorithm of organizing the academic process with the elements of the individual -
centered approach to teaching is presented.
The teacher together with the learners determines tasks and objectives of the entire course, jointly
planning their future actions; if it is necessary they introduce some corrections (it depends on the objective
conditions and language level of the group).
The organization of the academic process is carried out in such a way as to make the learners
acknowledge what they are doing and what for. The unity of forms of controlling and criteria of assessment
of all the types of speech activities of students throughout the course is the indisputable rule. It is necessary
to make controlling as a stimulating factor of students for an active independent activity and forming an
adequate self-assessment. The logical continuation of an adequate self-assessment is the ability to correct
your own actions, i.e. to be able to acknowledge what can be changed in these actions in order to make the
results correspond to the requirements.
The competently drawn up strategy of the work will enhance their motivation, initiatives and acquisition
of the managerial cycle; will promote the development of their imagination, analytical thinking and speech.
Besides, it will lay down the foundation for using the Russian language for specific (professional) purposes
of students and for enlarging their special knowledge on the subject.
As it has been mentioned above, in the individual - centered teaching the strongest point of the
educational process of a foreign student is his independent work. The researchers define independent work as
“the purpose - oriented, internally motivated activity, structured by the subject himself through the jointly
fulfilled actions and processes, and the results correlated with them. Its fulfillment requires a sufficient level
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