Levels of methodological competence in foreign language teaching

Abstract

The notions “methodological competence” and “methodological competency” are differentiated in the scientific literature but their use in the methodological works is not always appropriate according to their essence. There is no gradation of these terms to different levels depending on knowledge, skills and abilities in teaching if to speak about people having different scientific and methodological potential. Therefore, it brings to the necessary to determine the level of methodological competence/competency of pedagogues who teach foreign languages in preschool, secondary, higher educational institutions and scholars-didacts and methodists. Due to the limited number of pages of a scholar paper only the problem of “methodological competence” differentiation is highlighted in the presented work. Purpose is to determine the levels of methodological competence of foreign language teachers with different scientific and methodological potential. Methods. Literature review on the topic of the research, comparative analysis of different definitions of methodological competence, generalization of the scholars-didacts and methodists’ experience. Results. This study analyses the notion “methodological competence” and determines its definition. Three levels of methodological competence have been developed and substantiated. The precise distinction between three levels has been defined and described taking into account the content of seven links of the teaching process introduced by us in the work. The first level of methodical competence correlates with the first level of language and speech competences (Martynova, Bodnar, 2022), as well as with the ability of calendar and lesson planning; the second correlates with the second level of language and speech competences, as well as with the ability to plana foreign language teaching process during the academic year and semesters, with the subsequent composing professional educational programs and syllabus; the third correlates with the third level of language and speech competences, as well as with the ability to plan foreign language self-study process, both in language and communicative and speech aspects, to the possibility of students creating their own speech products in a foreign language. Conclusion. It has been concluded that three established levels of methodological competence will clarify the essence of this concept, detail its components and become objective characteristics of educators’ methodological knowledge and skills.