II. Peculiarities of teaching grammar through modern techniques to develop learners’ productive skills

II. PECULIARITIES OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH MODERN TECHNIQUES TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’ PRODUCTIVE SKILLS

2. 1 Using Modern Techniques and Technological Tools to Teach Grammar

 

The process of learning active grammar skills is characterized by the fact that it goes through a series of stages, of which each has its own particular task.

1. The preparatory phase - familiarization with the grammatical phenomenon. At this stage, students are psychologically prepared for the assimilation of a new phenomenon. To do this, they are set a goal from the very beginning. The teacher tries to interest students, arouse their attention and activity. The more complex the syntactic structure, the more necessary visual support, visual aids, etc.

2. The elementary stage. It includes the assimilation of individual actions on the use of a grammatical structure or form of a word. The content of the elementary stage includes exercises in the use of ready-made word forms in this structure and in the formation of a form in one pattern. At the elementary stage, further comprehension and memorization of the samples by highlighted grammatical forms and their meanings takes place.

3. Combining stage. At this stage, a series of actions continues to be consolidated in the context of its coordination with other actions. The new grammatical means at this stage is combined or interleaved with other means. In exercises there are more elements of creativity, mechanical exercises fade into the background.

4. The stage of systematizing generalization. This stage is necessary when assimilating the generalizations of the second stage and systematizing the acquired through exercises in analysis, comparisons and qualifications. This stage serves equally, both for strengthening the material, and for teaching the skills of understanding the grammatical means of the active minimum when reading. Visual aids are diagrams and tables.

5. The stage of incorporating grammar skills into speech activity. At this stage, the use of the learned material in the speech activity of students occurs.

For better mastering by middle-school students of grammar material in the English language, information and computer technologies, in particular, Power Point presentations, should be used.

For the effective assimilation of grammatical material, it is necessary to consider the study of grammar as a means of learning, select a grammatical minimum and ensure a firm grasp of this grammatical minimum. The purpose of teaching grammar: the formation of students' grammar skills, speaking, listening and writing skills. As a result of the training, students should recognize grammatical phenomena when reading and listening to extract meaningful information. Communicative teaching methods and conditions for consolidating language and speech skills in solving specific methodological problems aimed at the active practical use of vocabulary and the assimilation of grammatical models that contribute to the reproduction and transformation of sentences are proposed. Particular attention is paid to the formation of students' positive attitude to the process of learning English. A clear organization of the language material will allow foreign students to correctly apply communication skills in specific language situations. The formation of any speech skills is carried out taking into account the stages and a certain sequence, subject to specific requirements. The guiding principle for organizing grammatical material is the principle of semantic grouping, and the speaker’s speech intent, which determines his intention to express a communicatively meaningful meaning using speech means, is the unit of selection of speech acts.

The organization of educational material involves the inclusion of the studied linguistic phenomena in different forms of expression in various situations of educational and extracurricular communication.

The concrete choice of methodological teaching methods should, in our opinion, be based not only on methodological expediency (depending on the tasks and learning conditions), but also on the teacher’s clear idea of ​ ​ the specifics of the fact being studied, of his place in the system of language relations. The conditions for consolidating the language skills and speech skills of foreign students suggest solving specific problems aimed at the active practical use of vocabulary and the assimilation of grammatical models:

1) awareness and assimilation of the systemic properties of the structure of the studied proposal as a support for the further development of knowledge, skills;

2) the development of skills to isolate the studied syntactic units from the text;

3) the inclusion of syntactic units for writing a story on a proposed topic.

    All types of speech skills are formed in parallel and interconnected and on a single lexico-grammatical, thematic and textual basis ”, therefore, serve as the basis for proper speech activity, which is formed at all levels of language proficiency.

Among the main methodological tasks in teaching foreign students complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory, we single out the following:

1) to organize grammar material in such a way that the student is armed with “various means for expressing one or another communicative design”;

2) to build work on the formation of speech skills on the basis of the studied grammatical unit based on various types of speech activity (listening, speaking, reading, writing).

    Flipped learning is a teacher centered approach which provides the use of High technology. As means of technology, teachers use Web 2. 0 technologies. The reason why this blended learning teaching model is called “flipped” is that students do their classroom activities not in the class but at home, so students are able to work on problems, do their practice activities in the classroom.

The advantage of using flipped learning is that a teacher can pay more attention to each student and work with them individually. The history of flipped learning lays in 2009. Then teachers just created the PowerPoint presentation and video for the students who had been late or was absent in order students not to miss classes. As a result most of the students agreed it was a good decision so teachers then had more time to make practice and lead students.

Every day thousands of teachers deliver the exact same lectures or lesson in class to mullions of students, so every night millions of students do their home assignments trying to find out how to solve or do it. Traditionally students listen to lectures in class and work on problem at home. In most of the cases students are not confident so they just do not say if they do not understand which for sure leads to some problems in doing homework. Flipped learning allows both teachers and students to save their time and work more effectively. The advantages of using flipped learning are as follows:

1. It allows all students to learn at their own pace as videos can be watched again.

2. It is more efficient, as students enter the classroom prepared to contribute.

3. It enriches the lesson, as more time can be spent on group work and projects.

4. Doing homework in class allows students to help each other, which benefits both the advanced and less advanced learners.

Flipped learning also brings more changes for teachers. Traditionally teachers are eager to ask those students who are more confident than others, flipped learning allows teachers to target the students who need help, and also instead of instructing from the front teachers work side by side with the students.

Content of the class can be presented in different ways. Most of the popular way is presenting a video and a presentation. It is also available to give textbooks, online books and audio books.

Most of the studies claim flipping learning is more efficient than traditional learning. Most of the school teachers in the USA are allowed to use any model of teaching, if it suits the students, therefore flipped learning becomes more and more popular.

The use of flipped learning in teaching English is very efficient, but what about teaching writing skills? The use of flipped learning is also considered to be a useful model to teach writing skills.

If it is available for each student to use Internet technologies at home, the internet may become as a borderless resource of information. The use of podcasting tool of Web 2. 0 would let students to figure out how to write appropriate essay, their types, formal and informal letters and et cetera. Nevertheless Internet as a source of information gives students endless ideas of organizing the writing assignment, letting students to be ready to write an essay in the classroom.

Writing in the classroom allows students to work on the problems which occur during the process. Students are able to discuss the problems either with teachers, either with students. Therefore the flipped learning suggests the use of peer assessment and peer review. In fact, it should be taken into consideration that peer familiarity is also plays an important role in the flipped learning. In fact students of the same class in the USA may also not be familiar with each other therefore the use of flipped learning becomes a little bit difficult for the students, interaction between peers may be lost, but it can be solved by a teacher. However this kind of problem may not occur in our country, Kazakhstan. According to the law of the Kazakhstan a group of students make a class where students attend each class all together.  

Students also may be allowed to use Microsoft Word program at home for writing assignments, and if it is possible to integrate the laptops or computers into the classroom for each student the use of Word is also allowed.

The use of tablets also effective for writing assignments, because it let students to write on it with a pen, so the motoric skills of the students will also develop and the spell check corrections would not work, so students would not count on it and students would start learn spellings of the words.

The big advantages of flipped learning for the writing skills of the students are that teacher can control the writing process and also the writing assignments are not copied from the Internet.

There are several ways of making the classroom:

1. Standard flipped classroom

2. Discussion oriented flipped classroom

3. Demonstration focused flipped classroom

4. Faux-flipped classroom

5. Group based flipped classroom

6. Virtual flipped classroom

7. Flipping the teacher. [25]

In the first way, standard flipped classroom, students do their school activities at home, and their home assignments at classes practicing what they have learnt.

In the second flipped classroom the learning process is oriented in the discussion, teacher provides some source of information through podcasting, like videos on YouTube, and during the classes students just discuss the content. It may be efficient for subjects where content is everything. It also can be used in teaching English. In order to improve sociocultural competence the themes connected with the culture may be used in the discussion oriented flipped classroom, students would be able to figure out differences and similarities at home and discuss whether they find some facts interesting or not.

Those subjects where it is not available to have discussions or just practice use the demonstration focused flipped classroom. Because of the difficultness to acquire these subjects as Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics teachers allow students to rewatch the video material.

Another way of using flipped learning is in primary schools, in some primary schools home assignments are not use at all, because it may be difficult for students to produce the knowledge they acquired, therefore in the classroom student watch video materials and presentations, which allow them to rewatch the videos, so they may not be misunderstood. This option is called Faux-flipped classroom.

The other option of flipped learning is student centered while the Standard flipped classroom is teacher centered. Everything is as same as in Standard flipped learning until students come to the classroom. Students join for work in pairs or group work for projects provided by teacher. This option is called Group based flipping learning.

The other option may even eliminate the need in the use of classrooms. This option now is mostly used in Higher education where teachers provide some source of information by recording videos and et cetera. In this case students mostly do not need the classroom, the subject may be learnt only theoretically but in the case of need students are able to meet teacher in order to clarify the case. This option is called virtual flipping.

The last one, flipping teacher, is mostly used to motivate students and also to increase their competence allowing students to make a video where they can show their abilities, or teacher also may suggest play of roles.

Most of the teachers spend most of their time planning lesson, but planning should also consider before and after class planning especially in planning flipped classroom. Also with the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy you can check students’ understanding. You can use a number of activities and different kinds of quizzes.

Planning should be divided into three:

a) before class

b) during class

c) after class

Bloom’s taxonomy in before classes activities allow students to reach “Understanding and Remembering” levels. In traditional classrooms very good qualified teachers and professors spend their time helping students to reach that low levels instead of focusing on higher levels as Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing and Applying. Thus the use of flipped learning may be efficient in reaching all levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Figure 10 may show the use of Bloom’s taxonomy in the flipped classroom.

 

 

Figure 10-Bloom’s Taxonomy in flipped classroom

 The use of after class planning also encourages students to search for more information. While before classes activities involve “Understanding and Remembering”, during class activities involve “Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing and Applying”. After the classes teachers encourage students to search for more information in order to involve all the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.

In the world of education the term “productive struggle” became popular. It is the process of effortful learning that develops creative problem solving. Many researchers claim that the use of productive struggle is a key to achieve deeper learning. However, this is not easy thing to do with each student in the classroom. Therefore the use of “game based learning through high-tech material use approach” comes as a solution.  

Well-designed games have a unique quality that engages students an effortful thinking while they are solving a problem. However, teachers should take into consideration that not all games are able to do this.

Key principles that well-designed games embody the attributes that sit under the hood that help make games an effective medium for engaging kids in productive struggle:

1. Problem based approach to learning, instead of saying students what to do, games present students a puzzle they must figure out.

2. Learning by failing; in games students learn by doing, which means they are learning by failing. Students are exploring through multiple pathways until you figure out one that works. That is how the culture of games works. It lets students:

a) To make mistakes

b) Safe to fail

c) Solve problems

3. Informative feedback

4. Progressive growth.

In this field of learning most of the people confuse terms “gamification” and “game based learning”.

Gamification helps training process, but it is not training tool itself. It uses game mechanics to engage students in training efforts. Some of the gamification techniques are:

1. Competition

2. Stories

3. Levels

4. Achievements

5. Stages and rewards

All of these techniques are used to increase motivation, make the training fun, engage students and improve competition rate, but it does not make students learn.

The learning process requires a concept to be learnt the ability to put concept into practice and possibility to receive feedback as to visualize the results of the performance. That is where game based learning comes onto the scene.

Game based learning through high tech approach helps students to improve the reading, listening and speaking skills in English language. However, is it required to use game based learning in order to improve writing skills?

Game based learning may be useful to improve spelling of the students, but writing is not only spelling. Writing style may be formal and informal, and the use of games may influence to formal writings so students may confuse between formal and informal writings using informal style expressions in their assignments.

Essays and topics cannot be included into the games therefore the game based learning may not be efficient.

Personalized learning is a way of implementing the educational process in which the students is the subject of educational activity. Personalized learning is based on the position that students develops better if they are motivated. In this approach students are given opportunity to plan their own educational trajectory. Also students are able to change educational trajectory during the educational process. Students are able to choose subjects they want, whether they want to work individual or in small group, or pairs, students are also able to choose the assignments they want.

It goes without saying this approach becomes more and more popular, but it is a student-centered approach, where teacher just leads students, therefore teachers cannot provide tasks in order to improve writing skills.

Despite of the fact that all these high tech approaches are efficient in language learning, only flipped learning is an appropriate way to use both high tech and teacher centered approach.

There are some useful techniques that can be used during the practice which are also used in order to develop writing skills, such as:

1. Writing based on picture

2. Writing based on template

3. Writing based on topic

4. Fill in the blank

5. Dictation

6. Writing a card

Writing based on picture technique requires the use of pictures that is paired into a logical sequence. Students are asked to describe the things and events in the written form.

Writing based on template technique requires the use of sample in the learning process. Students are given the examples of written assignments where they could understand how to write in an appropriate way.

Writing based on topic technique is the most common one. In this technique students are given an issue which they should discuss. Discussing the issue students will be able to write a topic or essay in details.

Fill in the blank technique is also common one, which is mostly used as after-reading task. Students are required to read the text first and fill the blank with an appropriate phrase or word.

Dictation is not commonly used because this technique is time-consuming. However, this technique is the best one used to improve spelling of the words. In this technique one person dictates the other transcribes what was spoken.

Writing a card is a technique which is used mostly to involve students into the learning environment. First of all, teachers explain what the card is and then give students opportunity to do the work by themselves.

 

Tasks are offered in which the transfer of finished speech samples to new speech situations is observed, when students, using complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory sentences, demonstrate the skills:

- request information: Tell me, please, which sportsmen of the world have already arrived at the Olympics in Sochi?

- provide information: I learned that on February 6, 2014 the Olympic flame arrived in the capital of the Winter Olympic Games - the city of Sochi;

- explain the perceived information: The article talks about what problems worry the youth of the world;

- to express an opinion: I think that you need to study not at the medical faculty, but at the economic faculty, because you know mathematics better than chemistry and biology;

- express a feeling of joy (chagrin, surprise): How wonderful that the Olympic flame will be carried through the streets of the city of Belgorod on January 17!

- start a conversation: Please, tell me how to get an appointment with the dean?

- thank: Thank you for organizing such an interesting event,

- express sympathy: It’s a pity that I could not go to the Olympics in Sochi to support the athletes of my country,

- clarify the reliability of possible events: Do you know for sure that he is the strongest athlete in single figure skating?

- express approval (disagreement, conviction): I think that in this situation you were absolutely right (I do not agree with the fact that..., I am convinced that. ).

In contrast to speech skills, which are stereotypical in nature, the formed communicative competence of students is creative, therefore, the next step in teaching grammatical phenomena is techniques designed for communicative activity. Communicative techniques dictate a certain organization of educational material, which implies " the inclusion of the studied linguistic phenomena in different forms of expression in various situations of educational and extracurricular communication".

The situation proposed by the students must necessarily contain an extralinguistic task that requires resolution. For instance:

• Using complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory clauses with a proper question mark of parts -

where, how, when, how much, ask questions: to the librarian, if you are in the library; seller - in the store; to the teacher - in the audience; Secretary - in the dean’s office; passerby on the street; Passenger - in a trolley bus.

• Agree with your friends when they say that:

car - friend (enemy); Russian girls are beautiful; American films are boring; Japanese computers are excellent; Russian grammar is difficult.

• Remind your new friend when sports activities begin.

• Read the story, pass on its content, using complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory sentences. Express your sympathy for the hero of the story in that he was unable to participate in the Olympic Games due to his illness.

• Read the beginning of the story, write a continuation of it, including complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory sentences expressing an emotional assessment of what happened.

• Using complex sentences with an interrogative connection of parts, write 4-5 questions that: a) your mother asked you in letters; b) would you like to ask the rector of our university.

The exercises we offer create the conditions for transferring the formed language and speech skills into a situation of conditional and then real communication, continue the work begun at the previous stage, and bring the ability to use language material to the level of automatism.

The system of exercises creates real conditions for the implementation of a differentiating and individual approach to learning with “taking into account the needs, abilities and capabilities to stimulate the student’s subjective position in learning, provide for problematic presentation of information in order to encourage the student to observe, reflect, make independent conclusions and generalizations, and also aim at independent search for information. To promote the development of the need for self-realization, self-esteem”[28; 8]. Grammar mastery

side of speech determines the level of ability of foreign students to use grammatical units in their own statements.

In this case, options for working with text are possible when the student is presented not with a simple, but a complex stimulus that requires a detailed answer in the proposed monocultural and intercultural speech situations using the studied grammatical structures. So, as tasks to the text “Earth is our common home”, speech tasks are offered:

• Read the text and answer the question: What did you learn about the main environmental issues? (When responding, use complex sentences with subjunctive explanatory sentences).

• Ask polite questions to your friends to learn about existing national conservation programs.

• Express your opinion on the gas contamination of big cities in your countries.

• Do you agree with the statement: “Nature will avenge man for his careless attitude to it”?

• Express your wishes on how to relate to nature.

Thus, mastery of grammar material allows you to create language skills and speech skills with which foreign students are able to carry out speech acts, while choosing language tools that are appropriate for their communicative intention or speech task of the interlocutor.

The main task of education in the competency-based approach is the formation of key competencies, including grammatical. Mastering the grammatical side of speech involves mastering the basic code of the language system, its grammatical rules, the lexical system, the rules of word formation, the construction of syntactic structures. At the same time, despite the high relevance, the development of speech skills in modern scientific literature, issues of the structure of grammatical competence, theoretical and methodological justification, teaching principles remain debatable, which determines the relevance of the chosen research topic.

Researchers do not currently have a unanimous answer to what constitutes a category of competency. In the most general form, competence is understood as “a certain sphere of application of knowledge, skills, abilities and qualities that together help a person act in a variety of situations, including new ones”; psychological personal neoplasm, which, along with behavioral, cognitive aspects, includes the long-term ability of a person to carry out certain activities. Thus, the formation of key competencies provides the opportunity to set personally significant tasks, implement certain communicative and behavioral strategies to achieve the planned results, and carry out processes of reflection and self-reflection.

Having become an integral component of the domestic educational system, the competency-based approach predetermined the ontological transformations of the teaching processes and the content of instruction at all levels of the educational system, which is characterized by high differentiation, the implementation of an individual approach, and the modeling of the educational process in accordance with the individual psychological and pedagogical characteristics of each student.

In the process of teaching as part of the educational process, the priority goal is the formation of key competencies, including communicative, in the structure of which grammar should be separately distinguished. Most often, the grammatical category in modern pedagogical and methodological literature is understood as “a person’s ability to make communicatively appropriate and situationally adequate use of grammatical knowledge, skills and abilities in order to realize their speech behavior”. In its most general form, the grammatical side of speech can be defined as “a system of rules that allows one to produce ordered chains of elements, i. e. to build statements and sentences ”[1], the material basis of speech and thought activity.

Neither in foreign nor in domestic pedagogical, methodological literature there is a single approach to theoretical and methodological substantiation, understanding the ways of forming the grammatical side of speech: the role of grammar is either exaggerated, for example, in the grammatical method, which emphasizes priority on the form of concepts in isolation from the internal content; or was underestimated, completely excluded, and the mastery of the grammatical side of speech should be carried out by itself while mastering other language systems. In other words, traditionally in teaching grammar there are two approaches: explicit and implicit. In practice, in the process of forming grammatical competence, two indicated approaches are successfully synthesized, which makes it possible to achieve the set didactic goals.

The role of the English grammar is not limited to mastering the skills of adequate modeling of syntactic structures, the ability to logically and syntactically correctly build monological, dialogical and polylogical discourses in accordance with the norms and rules of the Russian language, but it also implies knowledge of a set of norms and rules of word formation, the logic of constructing syntactic structures, all a set of rules that determine the logic for constructing discourses.

The development of grammatical competence is the development of skills, the use of grammatical tools in the process of modeling your own discourses, the ability to change and combine lexical units, in other words, the ability to use language as a means of communicating in an academic, professional environment.

In modern scientific literature there is no single approach to understanding the structure of grammatical competence. As a complex, multidimensional phenomenon, this category includes knowledge, skills that provide automation of the correct grammar, conceptualization of the semantics of utterances.

Grammar skill is a heterogeneous “synthesized action performed in skill parameters and providing adequate morphological and syntactic design of a speech unit of any level in speech”; “The correct communicatively-motivated automated use of grammatical phenomena”; “Stably correct and automated, communicatively-motivated use of grammatical phenomena in oral speech”; “Automated operations performed with the grammatical material of the language in the process of speech activity, when the consciousness is aimed at the content of the utterance” [29; 155].

Most researchers (E. I. Passov, S. V. Merzlyakov, E. A. Ryazanova, and others) distinguish the following components of grammatical skill:

- the choice of a structure adequate to the communicative goal set, the speaker’s intentions;

- the choice of speech units that form the structure in accordance with the norms of a given language that correspond to a given communicative situation;

- implementation of the processes of reflection, self-reflection in relation to the correctness, adequacy of the chosen communication strategies.

The choice of structure depends on communicative tasks, intentions, acts as the functional side of the grammatical skill; the choice of language units that take part in the formation of the structure is the formal side, the conceptualization of the skill.

Grammar skills that ensure the implementation of adequate processes of morphogenesis, morphology can be classified as morphological (for example, case endings of nouns, adjectives, etc. ); the skills responsible for automating the arrangement of words within the framework of syntactic constructions can be differentiated as syntactic speech skills, syntactic stereotypes. In writing, graphic and spelling skills are actively involved.

Receptive grammar skills are automated actions for recognizing and interpreting grammar information of a discourse; productive - provide modeling of their own syntactic constructions, discourses in accordance with the rules, standards of grammatical design.

In the most general form, the process of formation of grammatical skills is reduced to the stages of perception, consolidation and mastery, providing the ability to operate with skills in various communicative situations. E. A. Ryazanova details these stages and identifies the following stages of the formation of the grammatical side of speech:

- perception of the typical structure;

- substitution;

- transformation;

- reproduction;

- combination.

All these stages are interconnected and interdependent: the strength of assimilation is due to the nature of the primary perception and work on consolidation; the flexibility of combination is largely due to the development of transformation skills, etc.

At the stage of perception, the formation of not so much skills as a theoretical base, knowledge that is an integral part of any competence, including grammatical, is carried out. Practical educational activities of this stage include introducing students to the rules-instructions.

At the stage of consolidation (substitution, transformation in the classification of E. A. Ryazanova), the material under study is presented in the form of syntactic constructions for their repeated repetition in oral and written discourses. At the final stage (reconstruction and transformation stage), the development of skills in operating language material in various types of speech activity is carried out.

Mastering the grammatical side of speech, the formation of grammatical skills should be carried out subject to a number of key principles. In addition to the principles of differentiation, individualization, which are mandatory components of the educational model within the framework of the competency-based approach, a particular pedagogical principle in the formation of the grammatical side of speech in the study of RCTs is the principle of situational-thematic organization of training aimed at improving the efficiency of structuring and organizing training materials by analogy with situations of real communication in which one or another grammatical phenomenon is justifiably used (for example, video mode the given form of the verb, the degree of comparison of adjectives, etc. ) depending on the stated didactic goals, which determined the choice of the content of training, didactic materials. Taking this principle into account provides learning variability.

The principle of functionality is aimed at developing the skills of using grammatical phenomena in one's own speech, knowledge and understanding of their functional potential, capabilities in the process of implementing a pragmatic function, and information message intentions. Taking into account the principle of functionality provides an understanding of the polysemy of grammatical forms.

The principle of consistency forms in students an understanding of the language structure as a system, all levels, the components of which are interconnected. Systematicity is understood as “an internally organized set of various elements (units) of a language, connected by stable relations inherent in a given language and determining the construction of speech utterances” [30; 412], respectively, the implementation of the principle of consistency allows us to generalize language units, to determine the laws of functioning of language units of various levels.

As T. M. Ivanova notes “in relation to the object of assimilation — the Russian language — it merges with the principle of linguistic systematicity and scientificness; in relation to the construction of a system of work, which provides for the ordering of various elements of the learning process: goals, content, techniques and methods of teaching and learning; as applied to a specific linguistic material - lexical - determines its complex communicative organization”.

Taking these principles into account allows you to optimize the formation of grammatical skills, and, accordingly, the formation of grammatical and communicative competencies. The main criteria for the formation of grammatical skills are the following:

- correct execution;

-automatization, the use of the correct grammatical form, without switching attention from internal semantics;

- pace of implementation;

- the ability to transfer, flexibility - the ability to operate the generated skills while expanding the volume of lexical materials.

In other words, the strength of mastering a grammatical skill implies not just its mechanical reproduction in speech, but free reconstruction, transformations depending on the communicative goals and the interaction situation: “in accordance with various tasks that can arise when using acquired knowledge for theoretical and practical purposes” in the practical academic or professional field of activity. Optimization of the processes of development of grammatical skills, the formation of grammatical competence in the process of studying RCTs requires the creation of an appropriate language environment, a language environment in which a student, " living the same life with this society and... observing the language process inside it, you can fully understand the method of thinking of this society and learn its language [30; 147].

Thus, in the framework of the establishment of a competency-based approach, the formation of key competencies, including grammatical, becomes a priority goal of training. The structure of grammatical competence distinguishes knowledge, skills and grammatical skills. Under the grammatical skills in the modern scientific literature understand persistent stereotypes of speech behavior, synthesis an action that implies automated adequate use of grammatical phenomena in the process of designing your own oral and written discourses. The process of forming grammatical skills is a complex, step-by-step process that requires the most complete consideration of a number of both general didactic and specialized principles, creating a communicative situation in the audience that is as close as possible to the situation of everyday communication.

The problem of teaching the grammatical side of speech has always been given great attention. When teaching grammar skills, there were problems that still remain relevant today. In the methodology of teaching foreign languages, this problem was paid attention to E. I. Passov, M. A. Kolpakchi, T. B. Klementyev, V. P. Kuzovlev and others.

The choice of this topic is determined by the importance of developing students' communicative competence as the main goal of teaching a foreign language. Without a sufficient grammar base, it is impossible to communicate in a foreign language. Studies have shown that grammar is the basis of language, but to study it, as a rule, is uninteresting and boring, which subsequently affects communicative behavior.

According to the famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, grammar can be compared with chess [30; 34]. You need to learn the rules to play chess. Who wants to play better, must master the theory. Then (in practice) a game of chess will be fun. Grammar is the most abstract tier of forms and meanings; therefore, mastering grammar as a system maximizes the mental development of students.

Currently, the teaching process constantly uses a variety of teaching methods of grammar. They cover a wide range of types of grammar instruction — programmed instruction, the use of visual aids, a variety of games, a structural method, and many others. The teacher is given the freedom to choose the methods used in the lesson when learning the grammatical side of the language and providing the most effective assimilation and application of one or another grammatical structure.

Genuine knowledge of a foreign language is possible only if there are automated speech skills (E. I. Passov) [31; 21]. The question is, where do these skills come from if they are not preformed. After all, one cannot seriously believe that they can be formed spontaneously, in “lively creative speech”: to form the skill of using any grammatical structure, special conditions are needed that cannot be created in a Russian-speaking environment.

The structure removed from speech is deprived of situationality, communicativeness, then it is necessary to create such conditions for the “removed” structure so that these conditions are adequate to the conditions of the communication process. This takes place in conditioned speech exercises. Belyaev V. P. recommends 4 stages of work on the grammatical side of speech:

- Preparatory (showing and explanation);

- Elementary (mechanical exercises in the substitution, which should provide automation of individual actions);

- Combining (a new grammatical means is combined or interleaved with other means);

- The stage of systematizing generalization (exercises in analysis, comparison and classification).

However, there is also the last stage, where grammar skills are included in speech activity, their use and repetition in speech exercises.

The concept under consideration has some disadvantages:

- one substitution cannot provide automation of actions and this will affect the transition to a combination of actions;

- the first and fourth stages are distinguished according to the criterion of “the learner’s actions” and not the learner (the learner goes through the stage of forming skills).

This concept, however, has a positive point: first working out one structure, then colliding it with others. The same idea is contained in the assumption of P. B. Gurvich [4, p. 94]. Automation is presented to him as a process consisting of three stages, which decomposes into stages:

1. The formal stage, where one or two exercises for memorizing word forms are performed, preparing for their assimilation;

The substantive-formal stage, in which there are three stages:

a) single-structure mining;

b) systemic contrast;

c) free opposition.

2. The content stage, ie naturally-motivated, “spontaneous” use of the grammatical phenomenon during all further education.

However, in this concept, a significant drawback is that the most important stage - automation - is presented in a minimized form; the name " single-structured mining" does not disclose those actions and their sequences that lead to automation.

Next the communicative teaching method proposed by E. I. Passov [7, p. 102]. By his definition, a grammatical skill is a synthesized action for choosing a model that is adequate to the speech task in a given situation, and for the correct execution of a speech unit of any level, performed in the skill parameters and serving as one of the conditions for speech activity. In the grammar skill, it is possible to distinguish its more particular actions:

1. The choice of a model adequate to the speaker’s speech intent in this situation;

2. The design of the speech units with which the model is filled in accordance with the norms of a given language and a specific time parameter.

The choice of model can be called the functional side of the skill. In contrast, there is also a formal side - design. The speed of speaking depends on it. This side is closely related to both operations of the lexical skill - the choice and combination, moreover, the design is based on them, depends on their level. That is why the formation of a grammatical skill is possible only on the basis of those lexical units that the student is fluent enough.

Currently, basically all training systems are aimed at the sequential formation of these operations: first, design (apart from speaking), then choice (often also not situational). This, of course, is very logical, but, alas, ineffective. The form and function of the speech unit must act in unity, which gives the ability to transfer. The choice of model depends largely on how well the speaker assimilates the grammatical meaning of the given form. And it is just closely connected with the design of this model, for the form and its meaning are one and inextricable. Thus, the grammatical meaning, on the one hand, is associated with the design of the model, and on the other, with the situation, on which the choice depends [32; 468].

The scientist gives an example: suppose we are dealing with a grammatical model of the future tense. Its grammatical meaning is an expression of the future action. The speech functions that can be expressed with its help are as follows: promise, surprise, message, assumption, demand, confidence, etc. Each system of speech means has a certain limited number of grammatical skills that make up the whole grammatical aspect of speech. It is necessary to identify their nomenclature, to establish their hierarchy (from the point of view of necessity) for mastering speaking, what speech functions each model is capable of performing.

E. I. Passov offers the following strategy for the formation of grammatical speaking skills, in which the automation process must go through six successive stages: perception, imitation, substitution, transformation, reproduction, combination. All stages are highlighted by the author according to the criterion of the learner’s action with digestible speech material. The strategy is demonstrated by the author on the example of mastering the model of the future tense.

-Stage of perception. It is known that a person’s first attempt to say something is impossible if he did not previously perceive it in the speech of another person. The role of pre-hearing in the formation of a dynamic stereotype is extremely great. It is necessary to achieve a high level of automation of execution. Perceiving foreign speech, a person at first does not hear, does not distinguish its composition, does not catch the grammatical form. He begins to hear only if his attention is directed to something by appropriate instruction or attracted by any means of presentation.

 If the preliminary hearing is organized correctly and students perceive the same phrases, understanding what function these phrases realize, then this contributes to the emergence of the speech stereotype as the basis of grammatical skill. The perception of the model is carried out in the classroom during the presentation, which can be defined as showing the model in action, showing its functioning in speaking. The teacher talks about what he will do on Sunday, highlighting the voice of the future tense. Then the teacher talks about his friends' plans for Sunday, then the students listen to the micro-text statement, then answer the preliminary question, then the exercises begin [31; 223].

-Stage of imitation, substitution, transformation, reproduction. In principle, the indicated sequence of stages should not change, individual stages may only be absent, which depends on the nature of the grammatical material that does not allow the implementation of substitution or transformation, and on the needs of training, when, say, the first two stages are already mastered. The ratio of exercises is also important, in particular, the ratio between imitative and substitutional, on the one hand, and transformational reproductive, on the other. It depends on the nature of the grammatical material, intralingual difficulties of its assimilation, interlanguage interference, etc. What do these four stages contribute to the formation of grammatical skill?

Imitation lays the foundations for the connection of auditory and speech-motor images of a grammatical form. The awareness of the functional side of the model is strengthened, the formal side is remembered. Substitution begins to form a design operation. Awareness of the generalization of the model is emerging. The ability to reproduce based on analogy is increasing. During transformation, all these processes rise to a higher level. The clearance operation is being strengthened. The differentiation of temporary communication begins. The operation of self-calling the model is born.

Reproduction as a guided, isolated operation enhances the differentiation of temporary communication. The establishment of an association between the formal and functional sides of the model is nearing completion. The formation of the call operation, as well as the internal image of the model, is completed (at the level of guided speaking). The author notes that in exercises at these stages, the future tense is used in all its functions, which it is able to perform in speaking.

Further, E. I. Passov points to the next, more advanced stage in his strategy for the formation of grammatical skills. At this stage, the stages of transformation and reproduction are repeated. But these stages are repeated on new material and in new exercises, which significantly strengthens the grammatical skill. The main place is occupied by combination. The combination stage is called like this, because a special, purposeful, controlled combination, “collision”, “combination” of the model learned at the previous stages with the others learned earlier in other cycles takes place on it. It is a question of controlled combination: the exercises of this stage must be specially organized so that the assailable model is alternately combined with the main models that are used with it in natural speaking.

Each grammatical phenomenon has its own structural range, i. e. the totality of those forms with which it most often coexists in speech. This neighborhood is caused by functional-communicative reasons. The same principle should be embodied in exercises, which will contribute to the development of stability and grammatical skill. At the combination stage, the differentiation of the temporal connection is strengthened, and, therefore, the stability of the skill is strengthened. At the same stage, a selection mechanism is formed, namely the choice of the model, and not its call. These are different mechanisms: a challenge occurs when the consciousness is aimed only at the possibility of using the acquired model, since the statement remains at the level of one phrase, and the entire experience of replicas in previous exercises subconsciously prompts a challenge to this particular model; the choice takes place in such conditions when the statement is planned in the amount of two or three phrases. Naturally, the speaker’s attention is sprayed. It switches from an automated model to the content of the entire utterance, to the transfer of its meaning, to the speaking technique. In this case, it is already necessary to make the choice of the necessary model from a certain material, and in complicated conditions. Here one of the most important mechanisms begins to take shape, without which normal speaking is impossible - over-phrasal anticipation.

-At the combination stage, the same conditional speech exercises are used, but the installation in them aims the learner to combine different speech patterns. Thus, in two stages, the general ratio of imitative and substitutional actions, on the one hand, and transformational, reproductive and combined (as more creative, independent and therefore more useful), on the other hand, is approximately 1/3, which ensures the productivity of assimilation.

This theory of E. I. Passov is a scientific study of the process of mastering grammatical structures and mastering grammatical skills. The value of the theory lies in the fact that it provides a scientific basis for the process of mastering the skill itself - from the stage of perception through imitation and substitution to transformation and reproduction. This method extremely activates the assimilation of grammatical material, however, it requires careful study and adaptation to all the conditions and characteristics of training (age of students, level of knowledge of grammatical material).

 Grammar, along with vocabulary and sound composition, is the basis of speech. She has an organizing role. The analysis of the results of teaching grammar leads to the conviction that we need to significantly change the attitude and methods in teaching grammar. One of the most serious problems arises in teaching English grammar skills: the lack of interest of students in the “dry” and rather complex theory. However, the teacher is able to fundamentally change this attitude to grammar, turning to the experience of his colleagues, well-known methodologists — E. I. Passova, G. V. Rogova, M. A. Kolpakchi and others - and use in practice their traditional and non-traditional methods of teaching grammar.

The importance of using various methods of teaching grammar in the classroom in the ACT system is extremely high. A wide selection of methods develops the teacher, gives him the opportunity to constantly improve professionally and use his intellect and abilities in the field of teaching with maximum benefit. The teaching methods of each of the above authors have their advantages and disadvantages. By combining these methods, the teacher can use in class all the most valuable and important contained in them, and build the introduction of grammatical material in the lesson so that the grammatical topic is brief, understandable, truthful, not burdened by exceptions. This is the key to a good assimilation of grammatical material without spending titanic efforts.

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