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THE SPECIFICS OF TEACHING PRESCHOOLERS A FOREIGN
LANGUAGE: GOALS, PRINCIPLES AND FORMS
Bobomurodova Baxtigul
Termiz davlat universiteti Xorijiy filologiya
fakulteti 4-bosqich talabasi
Annotation:
The relevance of early learning a foreign language is dictated by the needs
of society. The progressive development of interethnic ommunication in recent years necessitates
teaching children a foreign language, especially English, starting from preschool age.
At
preschool age, when teaching English, the child, first of all, learns communication.
Key words:
preschool age, a foreign language, communication, a language barrier,
linguistic information, speech interaction, development of the thinking, cognitive and search
activities, teaching a foreign language.
Preschool age is unique for mastering a foreign language. This is possible
due to such mental characteristics of the child as the plasticity of the natural
mechanism of speech acquisition, the rapid memorization of linguistic information,
the intensive formation of cognitive processes, the ability to analyse and synthesize
speech flows in different languages without confusing these languages and their
means of expression, a special ability to imitate, the absence of a language barrier.
Susceptibility to mastering a foreign language is at a special level up to 8 years, it
is already much more difficult to start learning later.
One of the main advantages of early learning a foreign language is that
young children are still learning their native language, and therefore natural
learning strategies will be applied in parallel to mastering a new, non-native
language. In this case, teaching children a foreign language will not be more
difficult than mastering their native language. Preschool children do not have a
deep knowledge of the grammar of their native language, the rules for constructing
sentences and forming words, etc. t is easier for them to learn a foreign language
because they do not tolerate patterns of changing cases, declensions and
conjugations, they do not compare the structures of two different languages. They
learn by directly speaking the language. Those children who started learning
English from childhood speak much more clearly, without an accent, they
understand the speech and culture of another country more. Preschool children do
not have psychological barriers. Older children and adults are afraid to make
mistakes, to seem ridiculous, and therefore they are often pinched and, as a rule,
cannot learn from mistakes.
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The success of teaching preschoolers a foreign language largely depends on
the understanding of the psychological characteristics of a given age, the
appropriate teaching methodology and, of course, on the personality of the teacher
himself. For learning to be effective, the center must be the child himself, his
motives, goals, his unique psychological make-up, i.e. child-student as a person.
All methodological decisions of the teacher should be refracted through the "prism
of the student's personality". In the period covering preschool age, there are
significant transformations in the activity of all psychophysiological systems of the
child. Perception becomes multifaceted, meaningful, purposeful, analyzing. Speech
has a significant influence on the development of perception - the child begins to
actively use the names of qualities, signs, the state of various objects and the
relationships between them.
The attention of a preschooler reflects his interest in the surrounding objects
and the actions performed with them. Gradually, attention becomes more
concentrated and stable. Leading the attention of the child, adults give him the
means by which he subsequently begins to control his own attention. The memory
of a preschooler becomes the leading function of age. If the events had emotional
significance and made an impression on the child, they can be remembered for the
rest of their lives. The most significant feature of the development of the thinking
of a child aged 2-6 years is that his first generalizations are associated with action.
Based on the visual-effective form of thinking, a visual-figurative form of thinking
begins to take shape. Children become capable of the first generalizations based on
the experience of their practical objective activity and fixed in the word. The
prerequisites for the development of logical thinking are laid at the end of early
childhood, when the sign function of consciousness begins to form in the child.
The development of speech goes in several directions: its practical use in
communication with other people is being improved, at the same time, speech
becomes the basis for the restructuring of mental processes, an instrument of
thinking. During the preschool period, the child's vocabulary continues to grow. By
the end of preschool age, the process of phonemic development is completed. The
grammatical structure of speech develops. Children learn subtle patterns of
morphological order (word structure) and syntactic order (phrase construction). An
older preschooler can retell the story he has read, describe a picture, convey his
impressions of what he saw. An important feature is the emergence of inner
speech.
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Taking into account the characteristics of preschool age, the organization of the
educational process in teaching a foreign language can be based on the following
recommendations:
Thus, for the organization of teaching a foreign language to preschoolers, a visual-
effective,
subject-practical,
personality-oriented,
communicative-activity,
emotionally-saturated support for building educational communication is of
particular importance.
When teaching a foreign language, the teacher requires not only specific language
knowledge, but also an understanding of the general philological, psychological,
pedagogical patterns of the child's development, as well as the ability to combine
conduct classes with children in a relaxed,
trusting, emotionally positive environment;
use various types of activities: cognitive and
search activities, role-playing games, fairy tales,
creative activities, physical activities;
use visual, attention-grabbing materials: audio
and video materials, toys, bright diagrams and
pictures, ect;
alternative different types and focus of activities
conduct a dialogue with students, use surprise
moments
;
pay spescial attention not just to memorizing the
material by children, but to form the dasire to
learnit, to form a general concept of the
language;
pay attention to their own professional and
personal self-development
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the child's general abilities, especially speech in his native language, with the
development of speech in a foreign language.
The goal of primary language education is the formation of elementary features of
a “secondary language personality” in preschoolers and primary schoolchildren,
making them capable of intercultural communication at an elementary level. Such
an understanding of the goal means, firstly, the children's mastery of the language
as a means of communication and the corresponding foreign language "technique",
secondly, the assimilation of various extralinguistic information (i.e., not directly
related to the language) and, thirdly, the development of such qualities that are
necessary for adequate communication and mutual understanding of
representatives of different cultures.
In domestic methodological science, the goals of early learning of foreign
languages are interpreted quite broadly:
-
to promote earlier familiarization of preschoolers and younger
schoolchildren to a new language space for them at an age when children do
not yet experience psychological barriers in using a foreign language as a
means of communication;
-
to form in children a readiness to communicate in a foreign language and a
positive attitude towards its further study;
-
to form elementary communication skills in four types of speech activity
(speaking, listening, reading, writing), taking into account the speechto
acquaint the children with the world of foreign peers, with foreign song,
poetic and fairy-tale folklore and with samples of children's fiction available
to children in the foreign language being studied;
-
introduce children to a new social experience using a foreign language by
expanding the range of social roles played in game situations typical of
family, everyday, educational communication;
-
to form an idea of the most common features of speech interaction in the
native and foreign languages, of the mores and customs of the countries of
the language being studied that meet the interests of preschoolers;
-
to form some universal linguistic concepts observed in native and foreign
languages, thereby developing the intellectual, speech and cognitive abilities
of students.
From the above formulations of the goals of teaching foreign languages, it is
obvious that the development of children's ability to communicate in a foreign
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language at the intercultural level is associated with the formation of
communicative and intercultural competencies in preschoolers.
The formation of communicative competence is the practical aspect of goal setting.
It includes the following set of knowledge, skills and abilities:
1. Knowledge of linguistic means of communication (phonetic, lexical,
grammatical) and the rules for operating them, that is, the rules by which these
linguistic units are transformed into meaningful statements (the so-called linguistic
component of communicative competence);
2. The ability to use linguistic means in accordance with the goals, place, time and
areas of communication, as well as in accordance with the social status of the
communication partner (sociolinguistic component);
3. The ability to understand statements in meaningful semantic blocks and convey
information in coherent reasoned statements;
4. Knowledge of the sociocultural specifics of the country of the language being
studied and the ability to build one's speech and non-speech behavior in
accordance with this specificity (sociocultural component);
5. The ability to analyze and evaluate situations of communication and, in
accordance with this, build one's speech behavior, control one's speech actions and
the actions of one's communication partners, and also use one's own speech
experience to compensate for existing gaps in knowledge of a foreign language
(compensatory or strategic component).
Thus, preschool age is especially favorable for starting to learn a foreign
language: children of this age are particularly sensitive to linguistic phenomena,
they develop an interest in comprehending their speech experience, the "secrets" of
the language. They easily and firmly memorize a small amount of language
material and reproduce it well. With age, these favorable factors lose their strength.
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1.
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Kondakova Natalia N., Zimina Elena I ., Prokhorova Mayya Y. 2020
Derzhavin Tambov State University, T.
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EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.
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