FORMATION OF STRATEGIC COMPETENCES OF STUDENTS IN GERMAN AS A SECOND FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Abstract

The article examines characteristic features of teaching strategic competence as a way to reduce the number of communicative failures. Strategic competence is one of the components of communicative competence and is defined as a set of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that serve to compensate for gaps in communication. It involves planning further speech actions, including the ability to self-correct. The object of the study is the process of teaching foreign language strategic competence to students of primary courses. The subject of the research is the content, means, methods of forming communicative strategies of word use. The purpose of the study is to identify and select the most appropriate strategies of word use for educational purposes, as well as to develop a method of organizing the teaching of strategic competence in the initial courses of language faculties. The realization of this goal involves solving the following tasks: to determine the place and role of strategic competence in the structure of communication and to describe different approaches to its consideration; to analyze the peculiarities of the formation of foreign language strategic competence among elementary school students studying German as a second foreign language; to conduct experimental training in order to determine the dependence of the quantity and quality of communicative strategies on the organization of training; to develop a method of forming communicative strategies of word use and to reveal its effectiveness. Different types of communicative strategies are divided into reductive strategies (avoidance of the topic, avoidance of conveying the intended content), achievement strategies (compensatory strategies, switching to another code, verbatim retelling, replacement, paraphrase, explanation in other words, word creation, restructuring, direct or indirect question about help) and correction strategies (waiting, using the semantic field). After analyzing of the use dynamics of strategies by the students of the control and experimental groups, we found that the number of positive achievement strategies began to increase as students learned to use strategies. At the same time, the number of used reductive strategies decreased and reached minimum values in the last classes. The total number of used strategies first began to increase, then slightly decreased and stabilized at an average level (26.8 units), while the use of reductive strategies significantly decreased to minimum values, which is the result of teaching students the methodology of strategic competence and their application of strategies in practice when answering in lessons.