Fiction As A Means Of Developing Sociocultural Competence

Abstract

Learning foreign culture, value perception of the modern world, understanding the importance of the human personality and the place it takes in the cultural process are getting more and more urgent in the context of a new culturological model presuming the realization of human cultural perfection mechanisms. Today, the contradiction between multidisciplinary opportunities of literature and highly unilateral use of its means in the process of developing students’ pedagogical culture has become more evident. Insufficient development of artistic-cultural component conditions in the pedagogical culture determines the relevance, significance and the choice of topic of a given research. The paper aims at highlighting the importance of such disciplines as First and Second Foreign Languages History of Literature and Home Reading, which should be integrated into the course of First and Second Foreign Languages Speech Practice in order to develop students’ sociocultural competence. The emphasis is put on the significance of fiction studies in preparing professionals having not only good linguistic skills but also realizing a wide range of cultural peculiarities of foreign countries. On the example of three chapters from the novel by Günter Grass the approach to using historical facts in developing sociocultural competence is revealed being supplemented with a number of pre-reading and post-reading activities suggested to students learning German as a second foreign language.