Implementation of the concept of childhood in the educational process: lexical aspect

The theme of childhood in the educational process is unique in its ontological nature, as it allows the most complete realization of the fundamental principle of learning, in which the child becomes the subject of the educational process. Middle adolescence (14-17) is characterized by a special level of demand for the study of childhood in connection with the development of such an idea as the "I-concept", namely, a complex of self-concepts, which implies a high level of self-awareness, self-reflection, retrospection and the need to study them. According to K.N. Polivanova, the pre-adolescent crisis involves a shift in self-identity, as teenagers become more conscious of their abilities and stop identifying themselves as children [1]. During the senior stage of education, teenagers often reevaluate their place in society, establish broader social connections, and immerse themselves in a more diverse social and activity context. They reflect on the stages of life they have already passed through and begin to prepare themselves for adulthood, which includes letting go of childhood. Thanks to the emergence of such a new experience as the "feeling of adulthood", a mental separation of a teenager from his childhood experience occurs and an attempt is made to analyze the period of childhood from a new perspective. Such processes are key to the developing a well-rounded, fully-realized individual. Nevertheless, studying childhood, it is necessary to possess not only cognitive skills of synthesis and analysis of one's own experience, but also to have acquire a fairly wide range of multilevel language means that contribute to the objectification of "childhood" both in written and oral speech.

Verbalization is a key element for the development of students' communicative competence. According to statistical studies by J.S. Gergenreder, foreign language learners note the development of speaking competence as one of the most relevant and necessary among other skills [2]. This situation is especially true in modern realities, where artificial intelligence is already able to perfectly imitate written speech (ChatGPT), which leads to the displacement of translation and writing skills to the periphery of demand. The dominant communicative methodology in the modern educational process provides a whole range of methods and techniques for teaching verbalization skills.

One of the most successful methods of modern methods of teaching foreign languages is the method of drawing up mind maps, which allows a student to generate and structure the ideas, as well as visualize the information presented for subsequent output into oral activity. Mind maps by their nature are one of the most effective means of visualizing a concept. According to A.P. Babushkin, the concept "is a mental representation that determines how things are related to each other and how they are categorized" [3]. The core of the mind map contains the central concept, with branching nodes representing the basic associative connections emanating from it. Thus, drawing up a mind map by students to visualize the concept of childhood can be an excellent warm-up for the lesson to introduce a topic, foreground previously studied vocabulary and recognize new necessary lexical units.

In our research, conducted on the basis of the study of the usual means of representing childhood in the English mind on the basis of dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations and euphemisms, the following lexico-thematic groups were identified, which can be arranged into an mind map and provided to students as an option to expand their own with new ideas and vocabulary:

• 1.    Child: boy, girl, baby, kid, infant, youngster, toddler, minor, brat, junior, little, small, young, stillborn, unborn, little, young, three-day-old, six-week-old, ten-month-old;

• 2.    Period, age: babyhood, girlhood, boyhood;

• 3.    Child behavior: good, obedient, well-behaved, delinquent, difficult, disobedient, fractious, mischievous, naughty, problem, sulky, unruly, wayward, wilful, cry, scream, whimper, whine, misbehave;

• 4.    Training: schooldays, student, pupil, bright, gifted, intelligent, precocious, dull, slow;

• 5.    Family or relationship of a child with a parent: well-cared for, abandoned, abused, neglected, fatherless, motherless, adopt, bring up, raise, rear, indulge, pamper, spoil, abduction, abandon, care for, look after, feed, bottle-feed, breastfeed, nurse, burp, wean, change, bath, comfort, cradle, cuddle, hold, pick up, rock, take, swaddle, play with, daughter, descendant, heir, issue, offspring, progeny, son;

• 6.    Nostalgia: friend, sweetheart, home, dream, fantasy, memories, scenes from sb's childhood.

As you can see, when describing the concept of "childhood", the greatest frequency is noted in the use of such parts of speech as adjectives and verbs.

To consolidate new lexical units, it is proposed to perform multiple choice:

• 1.    My younger brother was always _____ and would throw tantrums when he didn't get his way.

a. Well-behaved,          b. Disobedient,

• c.    Mischievous, d. Unruly, e. Sulky

• 2.    My parents were always very strict with me and expected me to be a _____student.

• a. Bright,      b. Gifted,      c. Intelligent,

• d.    Precocious, e. Dull

While the exercise can be used to prompt a discussion of personal experiences with family members, teachers, and others, it's important to respect students' privacy and avoid pressuring those who may not feel comfortable participating in such discussions. When interacting with high school students with the help of an mind card, it is assumed to identify the following dominants: happiness, nonchalance, nostalgia. For the verbalization of one's own experience, it is expected that the following structures will be used in speech.

• 1.    «When a child, I used to...»  (e.g.,

• 2.    «One of my fondest childhood memories is...» (e.g., «One of my fondest childhood memories is going on family vacations to the beach» etc.)

• 3.    «As a child, I always...» (e.g., «As a child, I often spent hours reading books in my room» etc.)

• 4.    «Growing up, my favorite thing to do was...» (e.g., «Growing up, my favorite thing to do was ride my bike around the neighbor-hood» etc.)

• 5.    «When I look back on my childhood, I remember...» (e.g., «When I look back on my childhood, I remember spending a lot of time with my grandparents» etc.)

• 6.    «I have vivid memories of...» (e.g., «I have vivid memories of building forts in the backyard with my siblings» etc.)

• 7.    «As a kid, I was always fascinated by...» (e.g., «As a kid, I was always fascinated by space and astronomy» etc.)

• 8.    «One of the most important lessons I learned in my childhood was...» (e.g., «One of the most important lessons I learned in my childhood was the value of hard work and perseverance» etc.)

«When I was a child, I used to love playing with » etc.)

Thus, the study of the concept of childhood at the senior stage of education is extremely necessary for understanding one's experience, becoming a mature adult and identifying one's own orientations for the future.

The verbalization of childhood in English lessons can occur by creating mind maps, as well as discussing their experiences through the proposed language patterns and by referring to the materials of video blogs (TEDTalk, TED etc.) and podcasts of respected figures in the field of childhood psychology and English-speaking peers of Russian schoolchildren, which will create not on- ly a scientific, methodological and theoretical basis, confirming the need to study various means of verbalization of the concept of "childhood" as the key to self-identification and deeper reflection, but it will also make it possible to place Russian middle and high school students in a more diverse and situa-tionally heterogeneous communicative and educational environment.