CONTEMPORARY LINGUODIDACTICS: DEFINING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

In: Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta: naučnyj recenziruemyj žurnal = MGIMO review of international relations : scientific peer-reviewed journal, Heft 4(31), S. 328-331

Abstract

The author suggests her own interpretation of goals and objectives of foreign language teaching based on the author's original conception of mastering a foreign language as a process of bilingual development. At present the practical goal of foreign language teaching is formulated by linguodidactics in terms of competences. The communicative competence is treated as a key concept integrating all other competences. It denotes a subject's ability to carry out cross-cultural interaction and to use a foreign language as an instrument of such interaction. However, this interpretation of the goals of foreign language teaching does not demonstrate specificity of foreign language learning in comparison with other disciplines studied at school or university. While studying those subjects a student interprets them in terms of her own, monolingual, picture of the world. She does not have to develop notions, which are absent in the native culture. The foreign language is totally different: in order to master it, a student has to step outside the boundaries of her own picture of the world and master a number of new notions and concepts. In other words, a student must become bilingual and bicultural. Otherwise her understanding of the foreign language will remain limited by the conceptual system of the mother tongue, she will not be able to see the proper meanings of the other culture. Therefore the goals and objectives of foreign language teaching should be defined according to regularities of bilingual development. The final goal should not be described as a set of competencies, but as a form of bilingualism. In that case the final goal consists in the student's achieving the stage of balanced mixed bilingualism which is optimal for professional activity with a foreign language. This involves development in a student of an additional complete mechanism of language command responsible for producing and perceiving speech in the foreign language. Intermediate goals and objectives should be defined by the task of forming each block of the mechanism of foreign language command.