PlANNING LEARNER AUTONOMY
PlANNING LEARNER AUTONOMY
Anar Ryskeldina
PhD in Pedagogic sciences, associate professor, Karaganda Buketov University,
Kazakhstan, Karaganda
ABSTRACT
Under the influence of more communicatively oriented language teaching theories, great emphasis has been placed on learner-centred teaching, that is teaching which makes the learners’ needs and experience central to the educational process. To compensate for the limits of classroom time and to counter the passivity, students need to develop their own learning strategies, so that as far as possible they become autonomous learners.
Keywords: learner autonomy, planning, foreign language aspects.
Due to the rapid development of science and technology the younger generation can't be content with that knowledge which they gain at school and higher education institution. Therefore the main objective of training today is to teach them to learn, that is to develop such qualities at future specialists as ability to to expand their knowledge on their own and orient in a prompt flow of scientific and political information.
“ Only then, if you learn to understand this issue on your own, only then you can consider yourself sufficiently firm in your beliefs and defend them to anyone anywhere, anytime successfully” [1].
“Nothing can compensate for what is missed in the most important sphere where a person should be a “worker” - in the sphere of thought”, - wrote Sukhomlinsky V. [2].
It is difficult to revaluate value of learner autonomy because knowledge gained on one’s own is deeper, more valuable. Satisfaction with results of the work stirs up subconscious and mental activities of students, enlarging their outlook, gives rise to a motivation to further work. This is its great educational value.
Experience and skill of the teacher, tradition of educational institution, peculiarities of the planning of educational process, condition of material resources and some other factors is of great importance for development of learner autonomy. In case of the planning of learner autonomy each teacher is recommended to take into consideration educational training of trainees, to represent what language phenomena cause the greatest difficulty in training process, to use those textbooks or create such supplementary benefits which would correspond to training tasks, to consider experimental and theoretical data of interdisciplinary sciences: psychology, linguistics, sociology, constantly to create a warm, creative environment promoting more successful learning.
In carrying out learner autonomy by students in the classroom, the leading role of the teacher is not decreased, on the contrary, it is increased because he monitors work of students, directs them, makes additional explanations and instructions, corrections, and estimates. Also he clearly imagines what questions he will put to all audience and certain students and how he will focus attention and mental activities of students, what methods of explaining new material will choose as well as how to lead students to generalization and conclusions [1, 85].
It is better to set aside time for some kind of independent work when planning classes. Depending on the nature of cognitive activity of students learner autonomy is subdivided into several types: the reproductive, including tasks, accomplishment which requires establishment of connection of the passed material with new one; this type includes various exercises; the informative and search, tasks with problem situations, tasks of this type also contain research elements; the informative and practical, including compilation of tables, visual aids, reports, articles for newspapers, magazines; the creative type, including tasks which requires manifestation of autonomy thinking of students. During this type of work students use additional literature, reference books, the Internet, etc.
Each type of learner autonomy takes a certain place in educational process. Many types of learners’ autonomy are interconnected and applied consistently in the process of material studying. The system of learner autonomy is built on the basis of specifics of foreign language teaching.
Firm and conscious acquisition of lexicon and understanding of grammatical rules of a foreign language, their systematic application in practice during learner autonomy will help trainees to master a foreign language.
Students' learner autonomy should be an integral part of students' work on language learning in class and at home. The individual tasks performed by students at home are the final stage of that work which they perform in the classroom under the leadership of the teacher.
Education of attention, conscious studying of material, ability to analyze and generalize features of language, to compare and contrast them, highlighting the main things in the material covered creates a solid foundation for successful learner autonomy.
It is necessary to observe a certain sequence in carrying out learner autonomy on the study of educational material for the best mastering of all aspects of a foreign language: work on pronunciation and reading, on grammatical material, on lexicon, on development of speaking skills, on reading and translation of the text.
Let’s consider work on pronunciation and reading. The main objective here is to teach correct pronunciation and reading. The American methodologists consider that it is absolutely useless bringing to perfection pronunciation of some sounds which do not influence to the meaning of the word or a statement. Besides, some students won't be able to get rid of the accent completely. Therefore premature desire to achieve perfection of a pronunciation can only disappoint students. Though perfect pronunciation is that ideal at which all foreign language learners aim [3].
During the work on pronunciation those sounds which influence on word meaning should be worked out. Some types of work on pronunciation and reading are reading phonetic exercises, expressive reading fragments from novels, poems, regular listening of the English speech, recording of the speech, scoring of filmstrips,singing songs, etc. Also much attention is paid to intonation.
Work on grammar. One of types of learner autonomy on grammatical material is on students own acquaintance with a new topic. There are various types of exercises for the learnr autonomy of students at home and classrooms. The important role in development of students of free and conscious use of grammatical forms is done by a grammatical paraphrase ofsentences. First students make the replacement of grammatical forms in written form, then orally. Students’ individual correction of mistakes at home serves as the best acquisition of grammatical rules and consolidation of skills of their practical application. To correct errors, students need to do the following: to understand the rule on which the mistake is made, to repeat this rule, to retell the rule by the own words and to make up examples, to correct errors.
Work on lexicon. It is necessary to work on expansion of a lexicon as the hesitation arising in the course of speaking, readings constantly occurs due to bad knowledge of words. The existing method of learning words encounters the growing resistance of most of trainees today who don't wish to spend the time for the hard and uninteresting work connected with the searching of the word in the dictionary and by writing out unfamiliar words. The task of the teacher to teach them to the most effective working methods of learning lexicon, to understand independently word formation, to find a root, a prefix, a suffix and by means of attraction of antonyms, synonyms etc. [4].
Types of learner autonomy on lexicon are various. Tasks may include riddles, game elements, proverbs, sayings, idioms, reproductions of paintings of the famous artists, etc. Everything depends on creative abilities of the teacher.
It is also possible to stage contests oral, written on the best composition, the story. Such types of learner autonomy enrich a lexical inventory of students and develop ingenuity and a capability to express the thought precisely, expand informative activity of students.
Work on development of oral speech. It is very important type of work as it promotes increase in interest of students in studying of a subject and is of great importance for practical acquisition of a foreign language. However, possession of the sum of knowledge in a foreign language doesn't mean ability to speak this language.
Practice in the country of the learned language is necessary for development of communication skills. However for most of people it is unrealizable. Not all have an opportunity also to communicate with native speakers within the country. Nevertheless, the skill of speaking has to be so developed in the course of training that students could communicate in a foreign language as soon as there is a need in it. It is known that any communicative act doesn't assume instant exchange of thoughts. As for one it is the native language, for another is foreign. In the course of communication there are always hitches, pauses, repetitions, specifications. Misunderstanding can arise also at the expense of an originality of intonation, tone and a timbre of a voice, a facial expression. In this regard before beginning to speak, it is necessary to have a long practice of listening to the foreign speech.
Various types of autonomous work on the development of oral speech include: holding games, competitions, parties, watching movies, meetings with foreign guests, learning songs, drawing up topics, conversations, comparison of customs, traditions of the studied countries to our reality, with our country, with our way of life, etc.
Work on reading and translation of the text. Despite the exclusive attention to communication, value of reading remains exclusively high. Reading offers much wider communication channel in comparison with oral speech. According to physiology, for a unit of time people perceives on the visual channel in 16 times more information, than on acoustical. Reading should be considered as an independent kind of activity. Well- planned autonomous reading constantly turns from work into a source of esthetic pleasure and knowledge. For this purpose it is necessary to train students in the system of learner autonomy on the translation of the text which consists of intensive and extensive reading of the text, and full translation, the grammatical analysis of difficult sentences, check of the made translation and correction of style. At first it is necessary to draw the attention of students to the title of the text as it will give an idea of content of the text. Then they have to read fluently all text for understanding a general idea of its content. After preliminary reading of the text students at slower speed read it again and again to separate clear from unclear and in detail to stop on difficult sentences.
The translation has to convey meaning of the original text correctly and precisely. Great interest of students is attracted by such type of the work as back translation of the text. This exercise helps them to realize and remember the existing divergences in the use of words and grammatical forms of the native and foreign languages.
The teacher should teach students to properly organize learner autonomy on the text, understanding its content, retelling the content in their native language, then in a foreign language, working on expressive reading, composing questions, highlighting the main thing in the text, learning how to make extracts, to learn to do the logical analysis and give critical evaluation of the contents read text, etc.
The planning of learner autonomy at home and in classrooms systematically promotes deep acquisition of a foreign language. For successful accomplishment of learner autonomy the teacher should maintain the following main requirements: students have to know the purpose of independent tasks, as knowledge and understanding of the purpose is the main condition of conscious and successful task performance, to shortly describe tasks, to establish term for its accomplishment .
References:
- Passov E.I. https: //publishing-vak.ru
- Sukhomlinsky V.A. http://theholisticeducator.com/sukhomlinsky
- Finnocchiaro M. researchgate.netscientificM-Finnocchairo
- The use of foreign methods of teaching reading in English lessons. Scientific journal №17 (147) 2023
- Liberman N. I. English for higher education institutions of arts. M.:2010.p. 135