EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF THE DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION OF ESP LISTENING AND READING COMPREHENSION TO THE FUTURE IT-SPECIALISTS

Abstract

The article presents the results of a methodical experiment, organized to verify the effectiveness of the methodology of differentiated instruction of English for specific purposes (ESP) listening and reading to the future specialists in the field of information technology (IT). The hypothesis, the object and tasks of the experiment, the experimental material, the phases of the experiment, the nature of the experiment (basic, natural, vertical-horizontal) and the varied and non-varied values are outlined. The testing tasks are described to determine the students’ level of foreign language proficiency in listening and reading. Using the coefficient of training proposed by V. P. Bespalko the data of the pre-experimental and post-experimental sections are analysed. The results of experimental training using the criterion φ* ‒ the Fisher transformation of the corner are interpreted. The pre-experimental results were lower than 0.7, and this declares the fact that students in all groups had an insufficient level of foreign language proficiency in listening and reading. Also the groups of future IT specialists were heterogeneous. With the aim of differentiated ESP instruction the students were differentiated according to the level of foreign language proficiency (В1 and В2) in receptive types of speech activity. Also using the Rebecca Oxford's Style Analysis Survey (SAS) the students were divided on the base of their learning style. According to the post-experimental results, the usage of differentiated ESP instruction of listening and reading to future IT-specialists, states the growth of the level of the foreign language proficiency in listening and reading, as well as the significant reduction of the imbalance among students. According to the data, the second variant of the developed methodology, has been proven to have a higher effect. The experiment showed, that with the usage of the differentiation according to the learning style and the level of the foreign language proficiency in listening and reading increases the objective need for flexible variation and integration of individual features of the future IT-specialists for their maximum full and effective implementation in the educational process.