Defining Content of Foreign Language Learning at Secondary School: an Alternative Vision of the Problem

- Пасічник, Олександр Сергійович (2018) Defining Content of Foreign Language Learning at Secondary School: an Alternative Vision of the Problem Український педагогічний журнал, 1. pp. 93-103. ISSN 2411-1317

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Abstract

Content of learning and content of education are fundamental for determining what is to be taught in educational institutions and which values are to be adopted by students. In this respect the problem of defining their elements has been one of the key tasks for researchers. The author draws a margin line between the two notions: “content of education” and “content of learning”. Based on linguistic and didactic analysis it is concluded that content of education is a more global category which comprises numerous aspects of educational process, whereas content of learning includes only what a student is taught in the process of learning a particular subject. The author relies on the four-component structure of content of education suggested by didactics (I. Lerner and M. Skatkin) in order to define the components relevant to the content of foreign language (FL) learning. As far as FL learning has its own peculiarities the author has to adapt the didactic pattern to them. Besides traditional components (knowledge, skills, topics and spheres, capabilities to perform complicated creative tasks, ability to learn and obtain new knowledge etc.) the author emphasizes that learning a FL is not a neutral process as far as learning a new culture is concerned. Getting to know a new culture stimulates developing students’ ‘cultural awareness’, emotions and helps to shape new values. Thus, it is deemed appropriate to consider forming new values as an important component of FL learning. The suggested scheme is vital for educators as provides a framework for developing new curriculum, constructing FL textbooks. The suggested scheme can be successfully applied to describing content of FL learning in other institutions (including colleges and universities where a FL is taught for specific purpose or is used as a medium of instruction).

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