PEDAGOGICAL CONDITIONS OF THE MORAL AND AESTHETIC DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNERS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LESSONS

Introduction

The basic foundation of pedagogy is centred on the proposition that any learning process should be developmental and educating. The necessity for this type of training is reflected in the twofold objective: to create conditions for independent acquisition of the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge and to develop a creative, active, and initiative individual.This idea plays an essential role in connection with the school subjects that are focused on the moral and aesthetic development of students and on the formation of their spiritual appearance. Fundamental and modern research works deal with the philosophical conception of spirituality and morality (S.G. Gutova [2], S. K’erkegor [5], K.G. Mironov [8]), historical premises of the problem analysis (L.A. Serikova [9]), modern educational conception of spiritual and moral development (A.Ya. Daniluk [3], Sh.A. Mirzoyev [7], and particular studies connected with moral development of learners in the process of foreign language learning (P.S. Koroleva [4], L.A. Makarenko [6]).

However, moral and spiritual development of school students in the modern world, especially in Russia, has suffered crucial changes predetermined by the fast development of technology and, in consequence, of the society. Hence, the study of the conditions necessary for effective moral and aesthetic development of a student seems to be urgent and timely in the contemporary pedagogical science.

The principal objective of the present research is to single out pedagogical conditions under which moral and aesthetic development in the foreign language lesson will be stable and effective.

Method

The complex of theoretical and methodological methods was used to determine pedagogical conditions of moral and aesthetic development of foreign language learners. Projecting educational process based on the determined conditions was followed by the scientific experiment that allowed testing its effectiveness.

Discussion

Moral and aesthetic development of a school student is determined by the dialectical relationship of external influencing factors and internal psychological readiness of a person to accept this influence. It allows us to determine pedagogical conditions of moral and aesthetic development as a set of internal parameters and external characteristics of functioning, which provides great effectiveness of the educational process and meets the psychological and pedagogical criterion of optimality. External conditions affect the formation of moral and aesthetic culture being perceived by a learner through the inner interpretation.

Thorough analysis of the foreign language teaching process, built according to the principles of communicative language teaching and according to the requirements of modern educational standards, proves that autonomy found in the modern world allows singling out such a set of pedagogical conditions, in the framework of which we can abstract away from an unlimited number of influencing factors and describe particular generalizing groups of a fundamental character. Such groups of conditions are sufficient and, at the same time, indispensable for moral and aesthetic development of a learner. Thus, we consider that principal conditions of successful development of moral and aesthetic characteristics of a personality include the following issues.

Firstly, it is important to speak about positive motivational and intellectual background of training sessions and lessons. During the lessons of a foreign language it may be created by means of culture study, parallels between the foreign and native culture; through application of authentic and culturally specific materials.

Secondly, we should provide the learners with an opportunity to see and to follow a “pedagogical example”. It is obvious that a teacher should be an aesthetically developed person. The very personality of the teacher and his or her methodological skill should be a model for the learners.

The third condition for effective formation of moral and aesthetic culture of a student is organisation of their independent creative activity. This can be achieved with the help of different activities, exercises and methods which will stimulate learners’ active participation in the language learning process and their abundant communication.

Today, when more and more people begin to learn foreign languages, it seems appropriate to use different methods for the moral and aesthetic development of an individual, since we consider this development to be the main component of a person’s spiritual culture.

Furthermore, in the context of a foreign language lesson it is necessary to consider the components of moral and aesthetic development of a learner’s personality. The process of mastering a foreign language is based on the development of communicative, social and cultural skills. Language learning as well as imitation of the native speakers’ speech habits takes place together with the awareness and mastery of the basic moral and aesthetic values of the culture of the country or countries where the target language is spoken.

Thus, analysis of the ways foreign language learning determines the development of such components of moral and aesthetic development as the culture of speech and culture of communication, aesthetic evaluation and creative activity, responsiveness and humanistic outlook, makes it necessary to focus on such fundamental concepts in the methodology of foreign languages as intercultural communication and communicative competence. This approach allows us to identify several areas of the research, which are connected with the pedagogical conditions of moral and aesthetic development of students.

1. First of all, we should consider the issues related to the dependence of moral and aesthetic education on the social and cultural aspects.

2. Moreover, we should study the issues related to the formation of universal moral values that underlie moral and aesthetic development of an individual.

3. Besides, it is important to determine the possibilities of creative development in the process of moral and aesthetic development.

4. Finally, it is necessary to define the features of moral and aesthetic education in the process of teaching intercultural communication.

Results

Speaking about the social and cultural aspects we should note that education is a sphere of social practice, the main function of which is to help learners inherit and expand reproduction of general, professional and spiritual culture. On the other hand, one should not forget about the dialectical interdependence of culture, of the current socio-cultural situation and of the educational process.

One of the tasks of the teacher is to provide all the necessary moral and aesthetic information, which often becomes the only counterweight to the current system of values of young generations.

From the position of the learner-centered approach, systems of values focus on the development and self-development of spiritual and moral qualities of an individual. The latter is expressed in such priority areas of creative life activity as meaningful expansion of spirituality and culture of an individual, active leisure, personal growth and self-improvement.

In the context of a comparatively new social and cultural situation in Russia, there have been major changes in the moral and spiritual attitudes of the people of the country. The emphasis of the spiritual life of the society has shifted from the formation of an individual's highly artistic tastes and respect for national cultural values and traditions to the promotion of consumer needs in the field of leisure and entertainment. There was a significant commercialization of the entire spiritual life of the society and its subordination to market values.

This process has had a particularly strong impact on the systems of values of modern teenagers. Reliance on Western axiological models, which are not yet clearly formed as socially approved behavioural standards in our society, leads to the fact that such models are assimilated in an extremely distorted form. The consequence of this is non-conformism, proneness to conflicts and deviant behaviour of many adolescents.

It seems that one of the effective ways to solve the problem of the distorted value orientations can be cross-cultural communication in the framework of learning a foreign language, when the process of assimilation and adaptation of new values to the conditions of the Russian society can significantly speed up. This statement allows us to logically move to the next step in the study of the problem: intercultural communication and intercultural communicative competence.

In the context of expanding contacts between countries and cultures within the framework of the European integration policy, the problem of intercultural communication is becoming increasingly important.

Since we deal with the problems of moral and aesthetic development of learners in connection with its components, including speech culture and communication culture, we are interested not only in the question of the target language knowledge. The interlocutors’ understanding of each other's communicative acts is ensured by their communicative competence. This concept is closely related to intercultural competence. The idea is justified by the fact that the communicative competence is not limited to the knowledge of a foreign language (linguistic competence), but also includes knowledge of the realities of the country, a certain amount of extra-linguistic information of a country-specific nature (thematic or country-specific competence); knowledge of behavioural strategies and tactics, etiquette norms, social and cultural context (socio-cultural competence); the ability to achieve mutual understanding, to find the way out of difficult linguistic situations (compensatory competence); the ability to learn (educational competence).

So, in order for a communicative act to be successful, the interlocutors must have a common "code" which implies the language of communication and culturally specific knowledge of a person. This code allows the speaker to act linguistically correctly in a certain linguistic situation within another culture, without violating the behaviour norms typical of this culture.

It is indisputable that representatives of different cultures have different moral and aesthetic knowledge. However, it is difficult for a person who has come into contact with another culture, and who does not have at least an elementary idea of its life and functioning, to achieve adequate understanding of the phenomena of this culture.

From the perspective of the issues covered above, we cannot but come across a question of the methodological support of a foreign language learning process. An important idea is that it should correspond to the goal of formation and development of intercultural (or even multicultural) communicative competence, which involves moral, aesthetic and cultural enrichment of students in the following areas:

- study of lifestyles and variability of lifestyles of countries and related social values, traditions and customs;

- study of socio-cultural portraits of countries, their peoples and languages;

- study of cultural heritage, cultural identity and mentality of the people;

- study of communicative behaviour of members of the cultural community;

- study of behaviour norms in the conditions of intercultural communication.

Teaching intercultural communication undoubtedly involves teaching to communicate in the target language. And here it is important to talk about the elements that correspond to the norms of communication, about the means that positively or negatively affect the success of language teaching. For example, we can name here elements that express confidence, readiness for joint actions, which are implemented in certain gestures and clichés. This also includes knowledge of such norms of non-verbal communication as the direction of looks during the conversation or permissible distance between interlocutors, which can vary in different communicative cultures.

It is obvious that non-verbal behaviour is communicative and nationally determined, and this should be taken into account when learning a foreign language. However, not everyone understands that sign language is not a universal language, and, as a result, learners may tend to transfer the symbolism of gestures from one culture to another. Hence, when teaching a foreign language to school children, it is necessary to teach them non-verbal behaviour of the speakers of the target language culture, giving them information about the sources of these differences and highlighting the factors that can contribute to successful intercultural communication.

At the same time, we should not forget about the main way of communication between people and the main task of a foreign language instructor – to teach a child how to speak the target language. In this sense, a text is one of the main units of intercultural communication. The problem of adequate perception, understanding and evaluation of the text is one of the essential issues. This problem is of great importance because it may affect teaching outcomes in the sphere of the Humanities, including moral and aesthetic development of students.

Moreover, in foreign language teaching the applied meaning of the text linguistics is revealed. The text is the beginning and the end of the work of a foreign language teacher and, to some extent, of the activity of students. It is impossible to learn a foreign language without listening or reading educational texts. On the other hand, speaking, writing and translation imply production of texts. Thus, we may state that the essence of the methodology of foreign language teaching is focused on helping students to find a way from an educational text to a real one, i.e. to the text created by the learner independently, for text creation is a complex process that involves different language levels and requires different skills and abilities.

In addition, the problem of adequate perception, understanding and evaluation of texts created in a different culture is of particular importance for the moral and aesthetic development of students, as its solution provides the necessary material that contributes to successful structuring and functioning of communication-and-speech mechanisms.

Conclusion

The results of the research conducted make it possible to reveal the main features of foreign language teaching that most effectively contribute to the formation of such components of moral and aesthetic development of a learner as the culture of their speech and culture of communication, which are closely related to responsiveness and humanistic outlook, aesthetic evaluation and creative activity.

Recognition of moral and aesthetic development of a student as an integral part of the educational process is an essential requirement for the contemporary language teaching classroom. Alongside with the provision of pedagogical conditions of effective moral and aesthetic development it allows making the language learning process productive.