РЕЗУЛЬТАТИВНЫЙ ПОДХОД КАК СОЦИАЛЬНО-ОПОСРЕДОВАННОЕ СРЕДСТВО ПОЗНАНИЯ ПРИ ИЗУЧЕНИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО ЯЗЫКА ПОСРЕДСТВОМ ВНУТРЕННЕЙ РЕЧИ СТУДЕНТА

Introduction

The students’ ability to self-realization and self-development in creative and transforming activities, in the center of which there must be a priority of an integral, socially mature, highly intellectual personality and creative self-expression is the condition for intensifying higher education. Since a second language teaching takes place through communication, which is a purely personal process of exchanging ideas, interests and transferring character traits, then communicative teaching greatly needs taking into account personal characteristics of students. Neglecting these factors leads to detaching students’ speech actions from their real feelings, thoughts, interests, that is, the source that nourishes the speech activity is lost [5].

Accounting of personal characteristics is necessary for realizing a situational communicative motivation, which ensures a student's initiative in educational or real communication. [6]

A great number of scientists interpret the activity of a person through the ability to self-organization, self-regulation, self-development and self-realization as a subject of life [1]. The specificity of the human mode of existence is in creating the possibility of changing the subject. At the same time, self-changing with the subject is not so much an advantage as the main meaning-life value, expressing the internal need for self-development and self-realization. The purpose of the article is to outline the core concepts of a subject intension, molding and development, being also important to understanding Vygotsky’s view of cognitive development who clearly suggests that it is inseparably linked with speech intellectual activity and because of it is reality reflection as if refracted in the light of linguistic meaning.  As a result, communicative collaboration with adults or peers that are more skilled contributes to the development of self-regulation, that is, the capacity for independent problem solving and self-directed activity. Using sociocultural theory and its tenets as a framework, we would see a highly interactive language classroom, where the students’ zone of proximal development is identified through such strategies as “portfolios”, and “dialogue journals”. Attention is drawn to a highly interactive classroom identified through the actual experience by a student the socialized active personality development prospect. Attempts are made to provide insight into areas where new connections between theory and classroom activity can be made. A foreign language is a tool, which is available through participation in societal contexts [3]. The achievement of this aim is very complicated if you take into account standard theories of language development. We believe that a simple act of understanding another person demands some restructuring of your dispositional structure, which requires a reflexive approach. Sociocultural theory makes it possible to show a direct relationship between the concept of output as a socially-constructed cognitive tool and the formation of a student’s personal qualities as a subject of educational activity.

Method

The model of language acquisition under discussion allows to be sensitive to students’ needs and abilities and support the overpowering and transformative agency embodied in the learner [4].

Out of the whole variety of properties, personalization, which provides a challenge to communicative motivation, traditionally suggests taking into account six methodically most significant personal characteristics of any student: activity context; personal experience; spheres of desires, interests and inclinations; emotional sphere and sensory perception; worldview; student status in the group. All these encourage students to learning.

A second language mastering in its cognitive function contributes to the formation of linguistic instinct; the satisfaction of cognitive motives in the process of studying forms a sustainable motivation for constant work; the use of a foreign language to obtain certain information (reading magazines, newspapers, explanatory dictionaries, and so on) makes this language indispensable in a student’s cognitive activity, while the language itself enhances the general cognitive activity of a trainee, and consequently, the motivation for learning the language also increases. [2]

The initial statement is that private speech appears with different students in the process of understanding the discourse explanations and examples on the part of a teacher. In the framework of the cognitive theory of “learning”, a person is considered as a sole channel through which knowledge flows. In addition, this process becomes a possible (depending on circumstances) means of mediating the personality mental activity itself [7]. The students immerse themselves in another culture and another language when communicative tasks demand speaking a foreign language in the context of an attempt to make a decision. So, a foreign language serves as a means of transmitting information and an instrument of thinking. The concept of “participation” is adopted as communicative teaching within the concept of output here. The reasons for failure are considered to be non-participation in the practical communication and insufficient mediation from the teacher. The mediated studying can be appreciated by means of such research methods as grounded theory, discourse, case studies, narrative inquiry, and analysis [8].

The semiotic theory by L.S. Vygotsky makes the connection between psychological processes in individual and social forms of behavior between different persons and can be formulated in the following statement: “Internalization of cultural forms of behavior includes the reconstruction of psychological activity based on symbolic operations” [10]. In other words, we learn a language without remembering random linguistic forms and sounds, and then using them in a goal-oriented activity. On the contrary, we initially participate in different activities such as schooling, shopping, maintaining a conversation, and answering a teacher's questions. These activities are mediated by all kinds of signs, such as gestures, facial expressions, linguistic forms and sounds. With the help of these mediating means or “symbolic operations”, external social interactions become “internalized”, that is internally reconstructed psychological processes as ways of thinking and ways of learning [12].

Discussion

Referring to the private speech in his study, J. Smith (1996) operationalizes it as a ‘verbal attempt of self-regulation during problem-solving tasks’, that is, the result of stress that accompanies construction of the meaning in L1 or L2, the private speech is distinguishable from the interpersonal communication [9]. Smith examines a grammar class of high intermediate ESL students and claims that private speech can arise in a discussion. When teacher assumes the status of listener, it allows students to make public their problem-solving talks.  Thus, this co-construction process is triggered through the externalization of the student’s thinking and the tolerant and persevering responses of the teacher.  The authors included such provoking tasks to arise private and social speech in a dialogical context.  The thing is that classroom discourse is usually analyzed for its social, communicative value, neglecting the cognitive function of instructional talk. Instructional Conversations are based on Vygotsky’s idea that conversation and the semiotic mediation provoke learning, development, and human action. Later the concept of scaffolding was regarded as a mediational tool for language improvement (Wood, Bruner, & Gross, 1976) [11]. Classroom conversations depend on spontaneity, unpredictability and focus on new information. If the discussion is shaped toward a curricular goal, and teachers in their turns build or activate background knowledge in students, these conversations can also be instructional.

Direct instruction or modelling are used to promote more complex language expressions, at the same time, questions help students to expand, elaborate or restate their statements and replies. Instructional conversations are relevant to language classrooms because they provide opportunities for experiencing how language is used outside of the classroom. Current models of input, output, and interaction are insufficient as a framework for analyzing classroom talk [9]. The possibility of such conversation depended on management talk and extension activities, which show features of it most consistently and impressively.  The participation metaphor finds evidence for learning in an individual’s growing and widening activity. Classroom language learning tasks are thus best seen as uniquely situated; emergent interactions based on participants’ goals. In other words, students are taking part in a collaborative dialogue.  Communicative collaboration is based upon the active and purposeful agent on the part of a student. The authors offer the following model of ESL classes: 1) self-directed activity comprising self-dependence, activity, social direction, self-government, reflection → 2) reflective, problem-solving orientation in SLA class → 3) internalization of social interactive process in the zone of proximal development with the English language as a cognitive tool for the individual → 4) the second language mediated process of an agent formation in learning and professional activities.

Signs appear for some reason. They are used for something. They point to something, and in this instruction, by definition, there is a tendency that distracts attention from themselves to something else. L.S. Vygotsky calls signs “activity-oriented” or “goal-directed”. In Vygotsky’s focused semiotics, signs are means of regulating one’s own behavior and the behavior of others. Since, for the most part, when learning a language, linguistic structures are regarded as tools used in communication, it is very important to distinguish between signs and tools. Vygotsky makes a distinction between signs and tools by the way they influence human behavior: tools help to master nature (the surrounding reality), and signs serve primarily to influence others, and then to control oneself [10].

Results

We came to the conclusion that the concept of output as a socially-constructed cognitive tool based on the activity theory, socio-cultural theory, self-development and the theory of mental actions gradual formation contributes to the formation of personal properties, characteristics and abilities of a student as a subject of educational activity by means of private speech. The conducted studies let us note that internalization fundamentally affects students' thinking and develops their personal characteristics. The above-mentioned theories of mental activity help to present language learning taking into account an active and focused mediator. The socio-cultural theory claims that there are no practical and educational actions (information acquisition, teacher-controlled speech, exchange of the required information and etc.) cannot reverse the overwhelming and transforming mediation embodied in a student through instructional conversations.

Fig. 1. - Instructional Conversations percentage ratio in elementary and pre-intermediate foreign language classes

All the data received in the case study help to summarize the hypothesis items. The checking group vividly shows the advantage of using free talk and staying close to the discourse. In case the teacher talks to the class as a co-participant in the interaction, the problem of presenting all necessary language material and teaching techniques arises, so that the teacher could conduct a pattern where the teacher responds to comments of one student, poses questions of another, and, allows for student self-selected turns.

Conclusion

Taking into account all above-mentioned the author offers the following model of ESL classes: 1) self-directed activity comprising self-dependence, activity, social direction, self-government, reflection → 2) reflective, problem-solving orientation in SLA class → 3) internalization of social interactive process in the zone of proximal development with the English language as a cognitive tool for the individual → 4) the second language mediated process of a subject formation in learning and professional activities. This teaching methodology is more flexible and means developing a sensitivity to students’ current abilities.

The advantage of using the semiotic theory as a starting point for second language learning is that learning a foreign language can be considered as a different way of creating, transmitting and exchanging signs, and not just the acquaintance with new grammatical and lexical techniques that will later be used in communication. The meaning of these signs can be considered as index, iconic and symbolic, but it should be considered in the framework of a dialogue, when each uttered or written utterance is an answer to another and thus is initially ambiguous. The process of teaching a foreign language is accompanied by the development of new psychophysiological mechanisms with students, helping them to reflect objective reality in a slightly different way.  Observations at the lessons in a foreign language class at an ascertaining stage of the experiment showed that the use of these types of activities is possible when applying the concept of private speech in the area has not been considered in the literature yet. That is describing the process of understanding the material being studied at the lesson by students.