INTEGRATION OF COGNITIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES IN
THE PROCESS OF TEACHING ENGLISH
The article considers the problem of realization of the cognitive and communicative
approach in language education. The concept of a cognitive and communicative approach in the
language education of students, which is based on the integration of cognitive and communicative
approaches, has been given. In linguodidactics, the emphasis was primarily on language and
communication aspects, but with the development of cognitive science, the priority of
the communicative approach has been replaced by a cognitive and communicative approach in
recent decades. In teaching languages, the problem of revealing the connection between
communicative and cognitive approaches to the organization of linguistic education became
relevant because essential characteristics of the cognitive process are predetermined by the
integrative study of language as a means of learning, cognition and as a means of communication.
This relationship of cognitive and communicative aspects in linguodidactics is based on the
integration of the two main functions of the human language: communicative and cognitive.
Keywords: cognitive and communicative approach, language education, methodology,
didactics
INTRODUCTION
The necessity to integrate cognitive and communicative approaches and apply them in
teaching university students the English language is an important issue that occupies the minds of
many methodologists.
The cognitive-linguocultural methodology as a universal conceptual basis for multilingual
and multicultural education was developed at the Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International
Relations and World Languages by S.S. Kunanbaeva [1]. In her theory the scholar offers a complex
of methodological principles as the fundamental provisions in language education with the
cognitive principle being defined as the leading one. The language education, based on the
cognitive principle, is carried out through the thought process, when a correlation of knowledge
with existing cognitive concepts is interrelated.
MAIN PART
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Mastering of languages is based on the application of successive systems in cognitive
strategies. This happens through the use of a set of cognitive techniques, such as metacognitive,
cognitive and social. Talking about various areas of professional activity, according to E.I.
Golovanova [2], they are considered as special cognitive-communicative systems. The base of each
system is a complex of significant concepts, categories, and subcategories.
O.A. Skriabina tries to answer the question, what cognitive skills provide the internal
processes of successful movement of thought to the word [3]. Another problem is the
implementation of the communicative intention of the writer and whether it is important in the
creation of the text. O.A. Skryabina determines that in writing a whole range of cognitive skills
relate to inner speech and it is important: to set a goal and plan its achievement using imagination,
forming and formulating a thought, choosing a language form and orthographic spellings and
punctuation for its adequate graphic design. Further it is also critical to anticipate the choice of
writing and prepare for it; to stop on "thinking", relying on reflection. The following stage should
be choosing consciously the necessary forms and using rational-logical thinking, or intuition,
relying on the "sense of language" in activating long-term memory and operational memory in
correct spelling. The final stage might be to control the image of the result with the real incarnation
and to correct and edit the message created by the course in the written paper, combining verbal
self-control with spelling control. These skills are formed in written speech as activities based on
cognitive mechanisms: goal setting, planning, preliminary assessment, choice and control [3].
Before considering these skills some mention should be made on the practical material to
teach the skills and the teaching techniques as such. In some of her works, Kulgildinova attempts to
consider the integration of cognitive and communicative approaches in textual activity [4]. The
functions of each of the approaches should be defined as well as the aspects that unite them. The
communicative approach in teaching English using textual activity is understood as the orientation
of learning on the semantic perception of formation a text by students. Understanding a text while
reading and learning linguistic material, to construct speech utterances is important to aim at the
final result in the text discussion. The cognitive approach as a learning procedure for isolating
semantic support is directed at processing the information contained while producing speech is
sufficient to perceive the meaning of the text at a deeper level, using keywords and activating basic
knowledge in the form of situational models: So, we might deal with extra linguistic factors of
speech activity as important elements outlining the language design of speech. The cognitive
approach is realized mainly in the classroom and is aimed at determining how students receive
information about reality, the way they decode it, conduct comparisons, make the necessary
decisions, or resolve problems that arise in the process of reading and interpreting the text. In this
respect, communication strategies are aimed at making the cognitive information from the text
using communication tools.
In order to manage reading comprehension process it is necessary for the trainee to work on
updating and identifying relevant knowledge and ideas about the information embedded in the text.
Communicative attitudes, which students receive immediately before reading the text, make the
process of thinking purposeful; help to predict the topic or idea of the text. Many methodologists
attach special importance to cognitive strategies of comprehending the names of topics that often
have great informative value. The cognitive communicative approach to textual activity is
determined by three types of communicative needs - contact-setting, information and impact, and
also with three aspects of cognition that are viewed in the process of perception, cognition, and
presentation. The activity of the teacher and students in information processing is expressed in the
cognitive strategy of the lesson, which allows the teacher to mobilize the necessary amount of local
and global information in order to implement a dialogical strategy for its interpretation, taking into
account the following moments of the discursive organization of the text:
- the general composition of the text, which requires the student to identify the author's
techniques for promoting the most important information and creating a background;
- the unity of the text, which is denoted by the terms “cohesion” and “coherence”.
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It is the teaching of foreign languages (in common with the teaching of the national
language) that acts as an effective means of developing the communicative abilities of trainees,
preparing them for interpersonal and intercultural interaction/cooperation, both within their own
country and at the international level. It develops value orientations, including, on the basis of the
involving students in the dialogue of cultures, contributing to the formation of a person of culture,
striving for self-development and self-realization, which can avoid and overcome conflicts. The
main objective of modern foreign language education is not only the formation of effective
communication skills, but also the social and personal development of students - the development
of independent critical thinking, the culture of cognition and mental work among the students, the
training in self-education skills, associated with the search for information and its processing and
implying the variability of the approaches used to implement the learning process. The
implementation of innovative approaches to teaching a foreign language today should be seen as a
way of innovative transformation of modern pedagogical reality and the educational environment
by a teacher. It is the teacher who designs and implements various forms of the organization of the
learning process in general and the learning sessions as its individual elements. The teacher may use
a variety of methods, forms, means, and technologies, ensuring the gradual movement of the
students thought along the path of cognition and creating a varied educational environment.
It should be noted that the traditional methods of teaching a foreign language at school
imply the assimilation of knowledge in artificial situations so that the student does not have the
opportunity to see the connection of the studied subject with his life or to correlate it with his future.
In this regard, in recent years, the modernization of scientific approaches to the teaching of a
foreign language in schools has been aimed at the direction of a cultural dialogue. The
transformation of scientific approaches to teaching a foreign language is taking place today under
the influence of research in the basic for the methodological science of foreign language teaching.
The main combination of directions which determined the emergence of a cognitive-communicative
approach is psychology and linguistics. New trends and technologies in methodology are based on
the interdisciplinary and multidimensionality of educational content and there appeared new
scientific terms. The cognitive-communicative approach is considered as a modification of the
cognitive approach with the addition of its communication component.
The cognitive aspect must be included in the communicative methodological approach,
subordinated to it, and at the same time it is important to have a scientific basis for this. It is
necessary to find analogies facilitating the assimilation, or, on the contrary, to reveal the differences
in order to avoid mixing the terms. The present research is conducted according to the point of view
that there is a certain interrelation of communicative and cognitive components in learning. The
derivation of the concept of "cognitive" in the name of the approach to the first place is due to the
historical primacy of its appearance and the basis of personal-individual and socially-personal
characteristics of the students in choosing the methodological tools and approaches to learning. The
cognitive-communicative approach to learning is, on the one hand, the theoretical justification of
the communicative methodology for teaching foreign languages, that is, the solution of such
methodological issues as selection, organization, the sequence of studying linguistic and speech
material and the ways of presenting and training it, taking into account the communication needs of
students of a certain age and educational conditions. On the other hand, cognitive positions ensure
the conscious assimilation of knowledge and information of linguistic, cultural and aesthetic
character, satisfying and developing the cognitive interests and requests of a student developing
personality learning English. In this regard, the student becomes an active participant in the process
of foreign-language learning and socialization and not simply an object of the teaching activity of
the teacher.
Thus, the most important component of integral technology is a hypertextual representation
of knowledge, intended for mastering a linguistic material, which is aimed at teaching the
understanding of the text of learning, hence, conscious remembering of the information obtained
[4]. In the mainstream of this approach, the theoretical basis is the position about the activity nature
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of language, according to which language is viewed as a cognitive process carried out in
communicative activity and provided with special cognitive structures and mechanisms in the
human brain [5]. A cognitive approach is understood as the solution to traditional problems of
linguodidactics by methods that take cognitive aspects into account, which include the processes of
perception, thinking, cognition, explanation, and understanding.
At the English lessons the main important parameters of communication are modeled,
including:
-
creating a discussion-oriented situation;
-
ability to predict the possible course of the discussion and determine your
own strategy of argumentative speech behavior;
-
making possible alternative judgments on the main staging question and
determining the course of counter-arguments;
-
ability to build his speech on the basis of a demonstrative discourse,
suggesting the removal of the majority of different points of view;
-
ability to choose the logic of constructing his speech and tactics of his speech
behavior on the basis of taking into account the nature of the interlocutors;
-
ability to use metacommunication influencing tools to create a background
for supporting your point of view;
-
ability to get in touch with the audience.
The language picture of the world, according to I.P. Susov, is built on the cognitive
structures that have undergone language processing that provide the student with orientation in the
environment, as well as control his behavior. A communicative-pragmatic space is created around
the trainee, whose functions in describing the surrounding reality include: a) the interpretation of
the information received; b) the "new" subjective reflection of the world (Susov 1985). For the
formation of cognitive abilities, which include the construction of images and the logical conclusion
on their basis, the acquisition of new knowledge, drawing on the available information, drawing up
and implementing plans (Demyankov 1994), it is very important to introduce a cognitive-
communicative approach, which is the key to solving questions related to the analysis of cognitive
processes. The cognitive-communicative approach as a scientific paradigm is defined as a
linguodidactical complex of methods and technologies associated with the use of language as an
instrument of cognition of another linguoculture based on the application of cognitive-
linguocultural complexes, including the sphere and the situation of communication, determine
which conditions must be modeled in the educational process for their integration (Sharandin 2015)
[6].
Recognizing the effectiveness of the cognitive-communicative approach allows to
successfully implementing the strategy and tactics of communication, taking into account the
situation and offering cognitive strategies of language education. Cognitive strategies for the
formation of pedagogical discourse are represented by the following stages: general (global)
understanding - modeling of personal understanding - interpretative understanding - critical
thinking, relevant for interaction based on professional discourse, and cognitive resources of
communication subjects that correlate with a personal phenomenon (Niyazova 2017) [7]. Students
in the learning process should receive "an idea of both new ideas that have already been
implemented in the practice of advanced teachers or in experimental scientific research, as well as
the prospects for the development of methodology, to determine their attitude to individual
methodological provisions and specific recommendations, and then on the basis of developed point
of view to outline ways to improve their own practice of language education.
Among the most common cognitive strategies for the formation of scientific and
pedagogical discourse, traditionally scholars distinguish strategies that include 4 types of its
understanding. 1. General (global) understanding, it is expressed in the form of a common
perception, which is provided by a generalized comprehension of the topic, the ability to create an
analytical reference on a topic. At this stage, students' verbal behavior is modeled on a frame basis.
The frame of the situation-thematic formation of scientific and pedagogical discourse covers a
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range of problems related to the topic. Students build conceptual clusters from associations caused
by this problem. An important point in this approach is the acquisition of meaningful knowledge.
For example, students are required to be able to analyze a textbook, to determine which content
exercise corresponds to one or other conceptual frames. Thus, knowledge of the theory becomes a
tool for solving practical problems, because, in order to draw a lesson, one must be able to
creatively apply knowledge and systematize what has been learned. Analysis of the textbook
assumes a support not only for scientific knowledge but also methodological, taking into account
the requirements for the level of students of a certain class.
At the next stage, students’ process information related to the drawing up of the lesson plan.
Through the active transformation of concepts and their inclusion in professional personal baggage,
the second type of understanding is created - personal, which refers to the perception that links
information with personal experience. During the discussion, students comment on the different
options for the lesson, on a conventional basis (rules, norms, training standard), exchange opinions
and conceptualize the information in the learning process.
The interpretational understanding is a cognitive strategy of discourse formation, based on
the discussion of implied connections and ideas in different linguistic phenomena. The narrative
frame creates a unified framework for scientific and pedagogical discourse, which aims to reflect
the communicative strategy in the process of speech interaction. The interpretational understanding
requires students to be able to materialize speech behavior, presented in a single text of dialogue in
the form of a dialogue. And, finally, critical understanding as a cognitive strategy for the formation
of a scientific and pedagogical discourse assumes a critical assessment of the possible and already
obtained results in order to improve the process of activity and its product. The result of this type of
comprehension should be a written work that reveals the semantic-pragmatic content of the topic.
Students are required to use the language tools to express the objective meaning of the utterance, its
illocutionary aspect, which includes the appropriateness of the tasks, functions, and content of the
thematic-textual unity. Thus, the four types of comprehension of material considered by us teach
students information and speech impact, provide reasoning for the reliability of information,
improve their own practice of teaching and form a scientific and pedagogical discourse. In general,
when the scientific and pedagogical discourse is being formed, one can agree with the opinion of
T.N. Astafurova ǀ6ǀwho believes that cognitive strategies are mental strategies that involve planning,
control, and evaluation of knowledge since the reflexive strategy as an evaluation strategy of the
result of training is very important.
CONCLUSION
Thus, the cognitive-communicative approach as a paradigm of language education is based
on the fact that cognitive orientation of language learning, carried out in communicative activities
that stimulate their speech initiative, that is, cognitive activity, including the processes of
perception, categorization, and conceptualization of objects, is closely related to communicative
aspects of the language education. The cognitive-communicative approach in linguistic education
forms cognitive-communicative competence through the construction and understanding of
utterances, their perception from the point of view of the speaker and the listener, the psychological
processes accompanying the speech situation.
REFERENCES
1 Astafurova T.N. Strategies of communicative behavior in professionally significant
situations of intercultural communication (linguistic and didactic aspects): dis. Dr. of Philology. M.,
1997
2 Galperin, I. (2006). Text the as an object of the linguistic research. Moscow: KomKniga.
3 Golovanov, E. (2004, 33). Linguistic interpretation of the term: cognitive-communicative
approach. News of the Ural State University, pp. 18-25.
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4 Kondubaeva, M. (2013). The integral technology of teaching philological courses. Almaty.
5. Kulgildinova, T. (2008). On the implementation of the communicative-cognitive
approach in pedagogical communication. The Management in Education, 50(3), pp. 102-106.
6 Sharandin, A. (2015, 3). Lexical grammar as an object of cognitive linguistics. Questions
of Cognitive Linguistics, pp. 72-79.
7 Niyazova, A. (2017). The communicative and cognitive approach in learning English for
students of higher educational institutions. Symbol of Science, 165167.
М.Ж. Айнышева
1
, Д.С. Рыспаева
2
, Н.Ф. Немченко
3
, А.Т. Дуйсенбина
4
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