Formation of foreign language grammar competence in English lessons primary school students with the help of song material

Abstract

The article deals with the role songs play in formation of the foreign grammatical communicative competence of young learners during the English lessons. The age groups are identified and peculiarities of English as a foreign language learning for every age group are outlined with special stress on young learners as the target age group. Young learners (students at the age of 6-10) have limited attention spam, that is why tasks have to be short, various and meaningful, grammar explanation should be avoided while grammatical patterns should be presented indirectly through interactive contexts. On the basis of identified needs and preferences in learning basic principles of presentation and practicing of grammatical patterns among young learners are revealed in the article. It is focused on teaching methods and techniques suitable for the target age group, among which total physical response teaching method and storytelling are chosen as the most productive ones. The article also reveals benefits of a foreign language acquisition rather than learning and overviews principles to be followed in order to create the process of acquisition in and beyond the classroom. Songs and short rhymes are chosen as an easy to remember way to present grammatical patterns. While singing songs young learners unconsciously remember not separate words but complete grammatically correct phrases or sentences and will be able to use them in other language context. Such way of presentation enables learners of primary school to develop grammatical communicative competence without direct learning. The article gives the procedure how to implement songs to develop grammatical competence of young learners.