Interaction of students in English lessons

One of the most relevant and complex problems of modern methods is the teaching of oral communication.

To teach students how to communicate in a foreign language in the context of the educational process is a rather complicated task. Indeed, natural speech is stimulated not by necessity, but by the need for real communication.

The lack of active oral practice in the English lesson, the desire to increase the effectiveness of training, prompted the use of group work (to teach in collaboration) among students. Since in the learning process they exchange ideas, opinions, information, learn from each other. At present, in natural communicative situations, a person is much more likely to encounter dialogic and polylogical forms of communication. Therefore, a significant place in the educational process is given to work in pairs and groups. With these forms of work, students achieve their goals by collaborating with each other. It should be noted that all students work at such lessons. They learn to listen and hear. Everyone feels relaxed. Working in small groups, everyone gets the opportunity to realize what is his strength, and get help in what he is weaker than others. By cooperating, students learn to work without control from the teacher, together with friends, striving for the goal. Teaching group interaction in the lessons has become not only a method of teaching oral speech, but a natural component of the learning process.

The teacher’s work in this direction and observations have shown that the group form of organization of academic work has several advantages: it helps to increase motivation for learning, teaches you to objectively evaluate yourself and others, raises the student’s business status in the team, and diversifies the lesson. When working in a group, students show verbal independence. They help each other, successfully correct the statements of the interlocutors, even if I do not give such a task. In order for group speech cooperation to be effective, I came to the conclusion that it is necessary to purposefully train communication technologies, clearly observing the basic principles of training in cooperation.

I begin the organization of group communication with the formation of speech groups, taking into account the psychological compatibility of children. The optimal composition of the group is four to five people. At the same time, in each group there are strong, medium and weak pupils, necessarily girls and boys. If a group works together for several lessons, then it works in this composition constantly.

Practice has shown that the most successful are groups where their members complement each other: one is efficient, but not emotional; the other has personal experience, but does poorly; the third knows little, but is interested in this issue. In the process of work there is a feeling of cooperation, mutual support.

Participation in verbal communication involves the possession of the motive of the activity specified by the communicative task, and the commission of the speech act in accordance with this motive.

If all groups have to discuss the same problem, then I report on the purpose of the assignment after organizing the speech groups. (For discussion of various problems, assignments are better to be announced before groups are formed, then students who are interested in one topic will be able to unite for joint creativity.) The roles are usually assigned by the students themselves, but in some cases I do it myself.

Usually, the work of not one student, but the whole group is evaluated. In such lessons, it is necessary to evaluate not so much knowledge as the efforts and efforts of students. Very often, at the intermediate stage of work, the results of the work of each member of the group are evaluated by the leader of the group.

There are many varied learning options in collaboration. In training, I try to adhere to the individual group option. But sometimes it is necessary to diversify this option with a creative approach in relation to their students.

Using the example of five lessons that I am attaching to the description of my experience, I will try to describe the system of my work in developing students' reading skills with the extraction of basic information, improving reading skills, teaching writing, monologic, dialogical and polylogical speech when learning in collaboration.

In the first lesson, I teach children to read with the extraction of basic information from the text, which will form the basis of the monologue, and later dialogue and group communication. The guys are already used to working in three groups as a permanent staff. They know their “teachers" very well, remember the names of their groups. Pupils take their places and begin to read and translate the text in three groups at the same time on a turntable. Consultants (“teachers”) coordinate work, correct reading errors, and if translation is difficult, all members of the group provide assistance. After completing this work, each of the three groups answers the main question of the text: “Why is English taught and studied in almost all countries of the world?” The group that was the first to answer the question posed before reading the text receives assessments. Then follows a more detailed extraction of information from the text. The guys answer the questions of the exercise following the text. The entire first lesson of the five that I described, students learn in collaboration.

In the second lesson, we improve reading skills and learn to write, while continuing to work on the text. At the beginning of the lesson, we control the homework. Children read questions and check their answers to them, working in pairs. Then, based on the key phrases (written by me on the board), they set forth in writing the main content of the text. Work again in pairs. The rest of the lesson, the guys work in groups. They work on reading and translating the main content of a written text.

The purpose of the third lesson is to teach students monologic speech. Students throughout the lesson work in groups, learning in collaboration. They receive a series of exercises on separate sheets that will help them retell the text by the end of the third lesson. Working in groups, the guys answer questions, try to complete the sentences, having only the beginning before their eyes, then they draw up sentences based on keywords, play the game “Do you know what ...” (state the facts from the text).

At the next stage of work, students, relying on key Russian words, try to retell the text in groups.

At the end of the lesson, the groups are divided into pairs, and try to retell each other the text, based on the key Russian words.

In the fourth lesson, we learn dialogic speech on the topic, working again in pairs and groups.

At the beginning of the lesson, we control the homework. The guys play the game "Teacher - student" (mutual check, grading).

Then work begins in groups, each group receives assignments with specially designed exercises that at the end of the lesson will help children to be able to ask questions on the topic and even make up a dialogue. At the first stage, the guys make up questions from these words. Then they check them with the key written on the board, if there are errors, correct them, then answer these questions. After this, the guys should imagine that they are in a lesson on the history of the English language. They should ask their “teachers," that is, group leaders, as many questions as possible. At the end, the guys imagine that they are at a scientific conference on the history of the English language. The scientists at this conference are the leaders of the groups (there are three of them). They take places in front of the audience, and all the other guys ask them questions.

The entire fourth lesson, the children are trained in collaboration.

In the fifth lesson, students learn to communicate in groups, that is, they learn polylogue.

At the beginning of the lesson, homework control: students in pairs play a dialogue. I walk through, listen to the couple, evaluate them.

Then I propose to work in groups.

Without a doubt, the most difficult is group communication training. I believe that for the initial stage of teaching foreign languages, the most effective and accessible forms of group communication are dramatization and roleplaying.

Another form of group communication that is close to genuine communication is a discussion game, during which issues that are relevant and interesting to students are discussed.

Each student chooses a role convenient for himself and speaks on behalf of his chosen character. Thus, the psychological barrier of fear of a language mistake is removed, and the opportunity to express your opinion is provided.

At the initial stage of training, I usually take on the role of the organizer of communication, support the discussion with clarifying remarks, suggestive questions, draw attention to the original opinions of the participants, controversial issues, and relieve the tension. Over time, I transfer the role of the leader (leader) to one of the students in each group.

The content of such discussions is usually any problem in real life. For example, choice of profession, plans for the future, relations with parents, environmental protection, the role of women in society and others.