Linguo-Didactic Potential Of Internet Technologies

Abstract

The global Internet computer network opens new perspectives for improving the educational system. It is obvious that various forms of Internet communication means (e-mail, chat, forums, web conferences, Internet projects, etc.) influence the formation of foreign language communicative competence in the process of education. The authors stress the fact that the common use of Internet sites as a source of additional information for the teacher in teaching foreign languages is becoming wide-spread. That is why the topic of the article is vital. The article identifies and classifies training opportunities of online resources, capable of providing formation of communicative-activity competence in teaching foreign languages. Didactic tasks necessary for formation of skills and abilities during direct use of authentic cultural materials of the Internet are formulated as well. Some types of Internet technologies are presented, analyzed and their linguodidactic potential is proved. Moreover, five most common didactic algorithms currently used in the world of educational practice are described in details. The authors explain and prove the usefulness of computer technologies and Internet recourses in the process of foreign language teaching, because new methods of teaching contribute to better mastering of the language. The authors achieve the purpose of the their study which is to determine the content and the lingual didactic potential in the use of Internet resources and Internet technologies for the formation of communicative competence in teaching foreign languages in secondary and higher education system.

Keywords: Authentic materialscommunicative competencelinguo-didactic potential

Introduction

The development of the global Internet computer network opens new perspectives for improving the educational system. On the one hand, this factor puts forward new requirements for the technical equipment of educational institutions, their ac-cess to the world information resources, and on the other hand gives a powerful impetus to the development of the teacher's activities content, to the use of new training types, methods and forms focused on the active cognitive activity of students (Polat, 2008). The analysis of publications showed the common use of Inter-net sites as a source of additional information for the teacher in teaching foreign languages.

The analysis of current sources shows that methodological grounds for the use of Internet resources are of particular interest in teaching foreign languages. The first attempts in developing an integrated system of computer training were undertaken by foreign authors, such as A. Bork, R. Williams, K. McLean, S. Pa-pert, B. Hunter, and B. B. Andersen, K. van den Brick, John. Belz, S. L. Thorne, A. A. Cook, G. Custers, R. Taylor, D. Teeler works et al. (Andresen & van den Brink, 2013; Thorne & Black, 2008; Teller & Peta, 2000). In Russia research papers devoted to the questions of in-troduction of information and communication technologies in educational process were carried out by such scientists as L. V. Baranova, M. Y. Bukharkina, B. S. Gershunsky, M. V. Goncharov, S. D. Karakozov, E. A. Karmatskikh, L. V. Kuzi-aeva, V. V. Laptev, E. I. Mashbits, O. B. Medvedev, M. V. Moiseyeva, E. S. Polat, I. V. Robert, A. K. Cherkasov, J. L., Shriberg, A. Y. Uvarov and others.

Problem Statement

The question of integration of the Internet into the educational process, its application in various subject areas and, in particular, in teaching foreign languages, is extremely relevant nowadays considering the implementation of competence and communicative approaches in education.

In recent years during the implementation of innovative technologies at all levels of the education system, the question of the content of new information and communication technologies (ICT) of education is a hot issue. Over the past decade, a large number of theoretical and methodological works have been written, in which researchers revealed the positive impact of various forms of synchronous and asynchronous Internet communication (e-mail, chat, forums, web conferences, Internet projects, etc.) on the formation of foreign language communicative competence in the process of education. Indeed, the widespread use of ICT makes it possible to implement a personality-oriented, developing, competence-based approach to the student's personality, which is the main conceptual educational direction in the XXI century. It brings the possibilities of communicative, speech, cognitive development of students to a new level in an authentic language environment, it pro-motes the development of their creative abilities and the creation of conditions for their self-education and self-development in the fields of knowledge interesting for them, combining the integrative potential of various subjects (Shchukin, 2014). And the content of information and communication technologies means a set of forms, methods, ways, techniques of training with the use of Internet resources (Sysoev, 2008).

It should be emphasized, however, that the global informatization of society and the modification of modern information and communication technologies have led to a change of views on the educational opportunities of the Internet. The world wide web has been regarded not only as an information resource, but also as a didactic one that provides the user with the necessary services in a particular educational situation thus becoming an interactive means of learning, a means of creating conditions for adequate intercultural communication. The Internet resource provides possibilities to use authentic texts, listen and communicate with native speakers, that is effectively participate in intercultural communication

Research Questions

Having analyzed scientific and methodical literature it can be concluded that it is necessary to:

• identify and classify educational opportunities of Internet resources that can ensure the formation of communicative and activity competence in teaching foreign languages;

• to formulate some didactic tasks that ensure the formation of skills and abilities with the direct use of authentic culture related materials of the Internet of varying degrees of complexity;

• to present some types of Internet technologies, to show their lingual didactic potential.

Purpose of the Study

Is to determine the content and the lingual didactic potential in the use of Internet resources and Internet technologies for the formation of communicative competence in teaching foreign languages in secondary and higher education system.

Research Methods

Such theoretical methods of research as analysis, generalization, comparison, interpretation, systematization were used. The analysis of publications showed the wide use of Internet sites as a source of additional information for a teacher in teaching foreign languages. For example it can be the design work during which students create their own comics. It can be created using special Internet services, such as, for example, Pixton.com (http://www.pixton.com/fr/for-fun). To use this service, you must register via e-mail. At the main page you need to choose the interface language (English, French, German, etc.). The detailed information on the creation of a comic book is described by the authors in the article "Foreign language comics at foreign language classes" (Grigorieva & Reznikova, 2016).

Findings

One of the main principles of the language policy pursued in the framework of the modern educational system is the principle of mobility, which provides ac-cess to any area of knowledge. That is why in modern conditions it is necessary to improve the cultural development of students, cultivate their sense of respect and tolerance to cultures and lifestyles of other peoples, including those living in the countries of the studied foreign language. That is why it is essential to make full use of all the opportunities offered by new technologies and means of education, first of all the Internet, both as a means of interaction and an integral tool for the acquisition of socio-cultural knowledge and communicative skills (Karamysheva, 2001).

The didactic aspect of the Internet is determined by the following features:

• preliminary selection of authentic materials presented in hypertext and multimedia formats for reading, grammar and vocabulary study on a certain topic / group of topics;

• pre-recording of necessary audio and video information (speech of politicians or government officials, media speakers, fragments of TV programs, movies, TV programs, interesting speeches of native speakers on various issues) for the development of listening skills;

• conducting an oral discussion of the emails and comments received by the project partners by e-mail or online, analyzing the peculiarities of communication and national mentality;

• holding the discussion of a problem information obtained from the Internet in groups and then in a general discussion;

• carrying out linguistic analysis of certain messages, oral or written statements of native speakers containing phraseological units, realities, idioms, proverbs, sayings, neologisms, reflecting the specifics in the functioning of the studied language in the culture of the people;

• the use of at least fragmentary works of art (the authors of which are native speakers of the studied language) obtained in virtual libraries.

The list of opportunities that characterize the didactic effect of the use of Internet resources in the process of teaching foreign languages contributes to the solution of a number of didactic tasks that provide:

• formation of reading skills and abilities using authentic Internet materials connected with culture and having varying difficulty;

• improvement of listening skills based on authentic audio materials from the Internet;

  • improvement of the ability to create monologic and dialogical statements based on the problem discussion of socio-culturally colored materials of the net-work;

• improvement of the ability to write speeches taking into account the national mentality of the people of the country of the studied language making individual responses to partners, participation in the preparation of abstracts, essays, other products of joint activities with partners;

• replenishment of both active and passive vocabulary of a modern foreign language reflecting a certain stage of development of culture of the people, social and political structure of society;

• formation of stable motivation of the students activity using a foreign language on the basis of systematic use of "live" materials, discussion not only of the issues in the texts of the textbook, but of hot issues interesting to all and each participant of communication (Polat, 2001).

The most important advantage of the Internet at foreign language lessons is to use it primarily as an interactive medium that connects people despite all the borders and distances.

The colossal communication capabilities of the global network gives a total freedom of communication when students and teachers communicate with real native speakers of any language and culture. In addition, being the most dynamic and extensive information bank, which represents all the institutions and spheres of life of society – from the mass media to entertainment – the Internet can give an invaluable set of socio-cultural knowledge regularly and promptly updated, unlimited in its informational composition and richness about the country of the studied language and its people in a variety of aspects. This is a huge difference and the ad-vantage of the Internet over the traditional textbook, which is widely used in classes of a foreign language.

Communicating in an authentic language environment, provided by the Internet, students find themselves in real life situations. Involved in a wide range of meaningful, realistic, interesting and achievable tasks, they are trained spontaneously and adequately to respond to them, which stimulates the creation of original statements, rather than template manipulation of language formulas.

In addition, the Internet resources that can be used in the process of teaching foreign languages offer not only a greater connection with current socio-cultural events and studied topics than textbooks, but also they are more arbitrary and adaptable to the needs of modern students from a methodological standpoint. With the rapid development of society textbooks materials quickly become outdated and the topics and grammar material for studying are often arbitrary and cannot be easily adapted to the needs of students and teachers and cannot take into account their individual characteristics.

An important feature of Internet resources is also the fact that the Internet is an environment that requires joint creation. It provides students with the opportunity to learn a foreign language, keeping in mind their own interests, objectives and goals of the subject, the teacher and other participants of the educational process, the opportunity to actively contribute to the authentic materials that are included in the learning process. This makes the learning process interesting for both the teacher and the students, and redistributes the responsibility between them for the results of teaching.

Systematizing the conclusions about the didactic properties of Internet resources, one can represent them as follows:

• The Internet makes it possible to use modern, regularly updated authentic resources, connected with the national specifics of the country of the studied language. The Internet provides round-the-clock access to authentic materials located anywhere in the world, which give students the opportunity to see how native speakers use it in real situations, the possibility of continuous development of their knowledge and skills.

• The online materials can be used both in a computer and printed out in advance.

• The expansion of didactic possibilities of teaching foreign languages as opposed to traditional means of teaching is connected with the use of multimedia, hypertext technologies.

• The value of Internet resources in terms of their culturological, socio-cultural and linguistic characteristics is manifested in the fact that the information on the websites is posted by native speakers. Students who study these materials, presented in the natural language environment and related to real situations from the life of native speakers, have the opportunity to learn a foreign language "first-hand".

• Materials from online resources provide an opportunity for foreign language teachers to integrate country-related specific authentic materials in teaching all kinds of language activity (reading, writing, speaking, listening). Internet re-sources also provide new forms of student involvement in speech activities using a foreign language (receiving, search of information, communication in a foreign language), which provide completely new opportunities to get acquainted with relevant and authentic information about the country of the studied language, as well as about any other country in the world.

• Online resources support and expand the capabilities of search training, research nature of the education.

• Control over the process of mastering the language is carried out by the student himself (of course, with the direct participation of the teacher).

• In the conditions of the Internet environment, the student begins to have a creative competence that allows to use language means in various socio-cultural contexts spontaneously and at a productive level, which ensures effective communication activities in the studied language, adequate to specific social situations and peculiarities of the national mentality of other peoples.

• The language is used in situations of everyday communication in various spheres of society. Consequently, the learner who studies a new language has enough time for language practice, while the social need for this language is extremely high.

• The process of motivated language learning as a means of communication (due to high visibility, visualization, cognition of Internet resources, information relevance) also contributes to the direct assimilation of social rules and cultural knowledge of the native speakers.

However, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that the mere availability of access to Internet resources is not a guarantee of rapid and high-quality language education. In modern scientific literature there are many examples when incorrect or, more precisely, methodically illiterate teacher's work with students using Inter-net resources at foreign language lessons contributed to the formation of not only false stereotypes and generalizations about the culture of the country of the studied language, but even racism and xenophobia (November, 1998). That is why at the present stage of learning a foreign language when teachers choose to use the latest Internet technologies, there is an urgent need for careful selection of Internet re-sources aimed at a comprehensive formation and development of:

• aspects of foreign language communicative competence in the whole variety of its components (linguistic, grammatical, socio-cultural, compensatory, educational and cognitive);

• communicative and cognitive abilities to carry out search and selection, to make generalization, classification, analysis and synthesis of the received sociocultural information;

• communication skills to present and discuss the results of work with Internet resources;

• ability to use Internet resources for education and self-education in order to get acquainted with the cultural and historical heritage of different countries and peoples, as well as act as a representative of native culture, country, city, etc.;

• ability to use Internet resources to meet one's own information interests and cultural needs (Sysoev, 2001).

In this regard didactic algorithms, that is educational support notes for working with Internet resources were developed.

On the base of the classification of foreign researchers J. Belz and S. L. Thorne, and R. Black (Belz, Thorne, & Black, 2006), adapted to Russian conditions by a Tambov research team of scientists P. V. Sysoyev, M. N. Evstigneev, M. D. By Gritskova, A. K. Cherkasov, A. V. Kudryavtseva in the monographic study "The use of Internet resources in teaching a foreign language", let us consider the didactic possibilities of the five most common didactic algorithms currently used in the world of educational practice (Sysoev, 2008; Belz & Thorne, 2006). All of them can be used in teaching foreign languages.

In the above-mentioned classification there are five types of didactic algorithms, systematizing work with Internet resources: hotlist, treasure hunt, subject sampler, multimedia scrapbook, and Web Quest. We reveal the structure and didactic content of each of the five types of algorithms.

Hotlist – is a list of websites (with text material) on the topic under study. It is quite simple to create it and it can be useful in the learning process. Hotlist does not require time to find the necessary information. All you need is only to enter the keyword in the Internet search engine (Yandex, Google, Altavista, etc.) and you get the desired hotlist. Therefore, hotlist can be created in advance either by the teacher or by the student online.

Multimedia scrapbook (multimedia draft) is a unique collection of multimedia resources. Unlike the hotlist, the scrapbook contains links not only to text sites, but also to photos, audio and video clips, graphic information and very popular now animation virtual tours. All scrapbook files can be easily downloaded by students and used as an informational and illustrative material in the study of a particular topic.

Treasure hunt in many ways resembles hotlist and scrapbook and based on the principle of the use of hypertext technology. It is an educational resource created by the teacher or already existing in the network, containing links to various sites on the topic under study. The only difference is that each of the links contains questions about the content of the topic under study. With the help of these questions the teacher directs the search activity of students from one Internet resource to another, from one problem to another. At the end of treasure hunt students may be asked a general question on a holistic comprehension of the topic (the actual material). A detailed answer will include answers to previous, more detailed questions on each of the covered resources and studied issues.

Subject sampler is the next level of complexity compared to treasure hunt. It also contains links to text and multimedia materials of the Internet (photos, audio and video clips, graphic information). After studying each aspect of the topic, students have to answer the questions. However, unlike the treasure hunt, with the help of which we can study the actual material, subject sampler is directed to the discussion of socially important and controversial topics. Students need not only to read the material, but also to express and argue their own opinion on the subject under study. In a group work, you will need to divide one topic into several aspects. After discussing their aspect in a group, students can present the results of their discussion to all class.

Web Quest (Internet project) is the most complex type of algorithms presented for working with Internet resources. Web quest is a scenario of organizing stu-dents ' project activities on any topic using Internet resources. It includes all the components of the four above algorithms and suggests a project involving all the students. One of the scenarios of organizing students' project activities using Inter-net resources may have the following structure. First, the whole class gets acquainted with the general information on the topic under study, thereby immersed in the problem of the upcoming project. Then the students are divided into groups, each group gets one specific aspect of the topic for study and discussion in the group.

The teacher needs to select Internet resources for each group according to the studied aspect of the topic. After studying, discussing and fully understanding the specific problem in each primary group, students are regrouped so that the newly formed groups have one representative from each primary group. During the discussion, students learn from each other all aspects of the problem under discussion. In this discussion students can express their own opinion, draw conclusions, predict the future possible course of actions (if applicable). In the course of solving Web Quest through the study material and discussion students have to answer one common question in the process of the discussion.

It is obvious that each of the five types of didactic algorithms for working with Internet resources at a foreign language lesson stems from the previous one, gradually becoming more complicated and thus allowing to solve more complex educational tasks for the development of socio-cultural competence of students with the involvement of a wider range of Internet resources reflecting the national specifics of the country of the studied language. Hotlist and multimedia scrapbook focus on search, selection, classification information. Treasure hunt, subject sampler and Web Quest contain elements of problem-based learning.

Conclusion

Internet resources at foreign language classes, as shown by the analysis of scientific and methodological sources and systematization of ideas that reveal the linguodidactic potential of Internet resources and Internet technologies on the problem of research can be used by teachers not only for developing skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking, but also for expanding the horizons of students about the country of the studied language. In the context of above-mentioned classification the didactic opportunities of Internet resources have been identified, the tasks of teachers on organization of educational process in teaching foreign languages on the basis of special types of teaching algorithms, systematizing the work with Internet resources have been formulated which being: hotlist, treasure hunt, subject sampler, multimedia scrapbook, and Web Quest.

Thus, the implementation of interaction with the help of Internet technologies and the use of Internet resources in teaching a foreign language allows to bring communicative activity, linguistic and socio-cultural training of students to the level of active, cognitive creativity, which, on the one hand expands the potential of their development and on the other hand contributes to the integration of knowledge and effective processing of the information in their own communication and cultural experience.

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