DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL SKILLS OF FUTURE TEACHERS OF ENGLISH IN MIXED-ABILITY GROUPS

Abstract

The ultimate goal of pedagogical education is to prepare specialists who possess a sufficient level of professional competence and are able to teach successfully at school. To achieve this goal, it should be taken into account that students in one academic group may differ in a number of characteristics, such as their cultural and social background, motivation, learner styles, level of academic performance in different subjects, etc. The study aims to set out guidelines for developing professional skills of future teachers of English while working in mixed-ability groups.
 The analysis of students’ academic performance in the courses of methodology and General English leads to the conclusion that the levels of professional skills in one academic group may differ considerably from student to student and that the acquisition of these skills is in many cases affected by students’ level of language command, but the impact in question is not limited to this factor.
 The study also outlines the particularities of teaching methodology in comparison with teaching English to ordinary learners. In the process of teaching methodology, it is recommended; 1) to consider students’ level of communicative competence; 2) to identify the reasons for the discrepancy between students’ levels of communicative and professional skills and to take these data into account while developing the course; 3) to use differentiated instruction explicitly; 4) to adapt the process and product of teaching (but not the content) to the students’ needs; 5) to delegate responsibility for differentiation to students; 6) to use all modes of interaction (whole-class activities, individual work, work in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups). Following these guidelines by methodology teachers may increase the chances for pre-service teachers of English to acquire all the professional skills stated in the educational program by the end of Year 4.
 Further research in this field involves: 1) developing the algorithm of teacher actions in planning and using differentiated instruction while teaching the course of methodology to pre-service teachers of English; 2) working out a set of activities for teaching the course of methodology to pre-service teachers of English and verifying the effectiveness of these activities via conducting a pedagogical intervention.