SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON APPROACHES AND METHODS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
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Authors: Kardovich Irina
Keywords: foreign language, teaching, method, socio-economic factors, competence-based approach
Abstract: Teaching of foreign languages has a rather long history and has had several stages of development. Methods, approaches to teaching foreign languages and content of teaching programs have been changing in different historical periods as the society has set different goals and objectives for education depending on socio-economic and even political conditions and factors in each particular country or groups of countries. This research considers how socio-economic factors and conditions have influenced the goals and objectives of teaching a foreign language. This dependence is traced in different historical periods in various countries of the world in general and in Russia through the 19th to the 21st centuries in particular. The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21th century are characterized by deepening the processes of globalization, and as a result, the demand for specialists with language skills increased. The country became flooded with English-language textbooks, written by native speakers. They were fundamentally different from the domestic textbooks of the English language. It took quite a long time to realize that not all such textbooks are equally good. The most significant shortcoming of these textbooks was that they were created without taking into account the characteristics of Russian learners. Shortly after the invasion of foreign textbooks into the Russian educational market, there were attempts to combine the scientific Russian approach to teaching English and modern Western methods, aimed at simplifying and accelerating the learning of the language by all possible means - both visual and auditory. The outcome was the combination of the authenticity of texts and audio recordings with exercises and tasks aimed at concentrating on those lexical and grammatical phenomena that are difficult (abstruse) for the native speaker of the Russian language. The integration of the economies of the whole world has led to the urgent need to teach a foreign language not only as a means of communication, but also to form a professionally competent polylingual and multicultural personality, ready for intercultural professional communication. Now foreign language curriculum content includes not only lexical and grammatical units, but those competences that will be developed in the process of learning a foreign (English) language. To apply this approach, it was necessary to revise the methods of training used in practice. Classical English-language textbooks and methodologies of Russian teachers-practitioners were not entirely applicable. Now more and more attention is given to group project work, case-study method, presentations, round tables, and discussions.