Dynamics of speech and language competencies formation while the level-based approach to teaching the discipline ‘foreign language’ is being implemented

Abstract

Introduction. The level-based approach to organizing foreign language teaching at the university is designed to take into account a number of objective factors: heterogeneity of the degree of foreign language proficiency of students in non-linguistic areas of training entering the university, higher requirements for the quality of mastering the discipline ‘Foreign Language’, and a limited number of academic hours allocated for mastering this discipline in the curriculum. The study aims to identify the dynamics of foreign language teaching when the level-based approach is being implemented. Materials and methods. The study was based on first-year students of non-linguistic areas of training at two higher schools of Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (236 people). The research methods were the entrance and final diagnostic tests, differentiation of teaching a foreign language (English) and statistical processing methods (the Shapiro-Wilk test, Spearman rank correlation coefficient and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Statistical data were processed using the IBM SPSS 23.0 computer software package. Research results. The data obtained allows assessing the qualitative growth of speech formation (reading and listening) and language (vocabulary and grammar) competencies. The differences between the entrance and final tests (p <0.001) are statistically significant and in all the aspects tested are in favor of the final test. Conclusion. The level approach proved effective for speech and language competencies formation in students of non-linguistic areas of training when studying the discipline ‘Foreign Language’, which is confirmed by statistical processing of the final test results. The level approach reduced the impact of such negative factors as heterogeneity of the initial language training of first-year students, psychological barriers, and short terms of teaching a foreign language to students of non-linguistic areas of training. Prospects for further research into the implementation of level-based teaching may be associated with analyzing how other components of foreign language communicative competence are formed.