Three aims which should be achieved in foreign language teaching

In this article it is given the changes of three-fold: practical — students acquire habits and skills in using a foreing language; educational — they develop their mental abilities and intelligence in the process of learning the foreign language; cultural — students extend their knowledge of the world in which they live.Therefore we can emphasize at least three aims which should be achieved in foreign language teaching practical, educationl and cultural.

Key words: practical, educationl,cultural, to achieve, communication, interrelation, thinking, phenomena, word associations, the intimate relationship

Every teacher should know exactly what her students are expected to achieve in learning her subject, what changes she can bring about in her students at the end of the course (year, term, month, week and each particular lesson), i.e., she should know the aims and objects of foreing Ianguage teaching in school.

The changes may be of three-fold: practical — students acquire habits and skills in using a foreing language; educational — they develop their mental abilities and intelligence in the process of learning the foreign language; cultural — students extend their knowledge of the world in which they live.Therefore we can emphasize at least three aims which should be achieved in foreign language teaching practical, educationl and cultural.

Practical aim the foreign language as a subject differs from other subjects of thé school curriculum.Whereas the teaching, for instance, of mathematics is mostly connected with the imparting of maths laws and rules, which students are to leam and the teaching of the mother tongue leads to master the language as means of communication either in oral and written form, the teaching of foreign language should result in teaching the studenfs gaining one more code for receiving conveying information; that is, in acquiring a second language for the same purpose as the native language to use it as a means of communication.

In modern society language is used in two ways: directly or orally and indirectly or in written form. Thus we distinguish oral language and written language. Direct Communication implies a speaker and a hearer, indirect communication implies a writer and a reader. The practical aims of teaching foreign language are four in number listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening, speaking, reading and writing within carefully selected linguistic material will constitute the fundamentals of the language.

The nature of the language should also be taken into consideration in determining the aims of the language teaching. Learning a living language implies using the language of sounds, that is speaking. Scientific research gives a more profound insight into the problem. It is not so much the abilities to speak that is meant here but rather the oral treatment; in other words, the language of sounds, not of grafic signs sould serve as basic means of teaching.

In foreign language learning all forms of work must be in close interrelation, otherwise it is impossible to master the language. However, attention should be given mainly to practice in listening, speaking, and writing. Thus students must achieve a level in their knowledge of the language which will enable them to further develop it at the institute or in their pracitcal work.

The achievement of practical aims in the foreign language teaching makes possible the achievement of educational and culturail aims.

Educational aim learning a foreign language is of great educational value. Through a new language we can gain an insight into the way in which words express thoughts, and so achieve greater precision in our communications. Since language is connected with thinking, through foreign language study we can develop the students' intellect. Teaching a foreign language helps the teacher develop the students' voluntory and involuntory memory, her imaginative abilities, and will power. Indeed the student should memorize words, idiorns,sentence patterns, structures and keep them in long — term memory, ready to be used wheriever she needs them in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Teaching foreign language under the conditions when this is the only foreign language environment,is practicailly impossible without appealing to students, imogination. The lack of real communication forces the teacher to create imaginary situations for students to speak about, making each student determine her language behaviour as if she were in such situations. Teaching the foreign language contributes to the linguistic education of the studcnt, the later extends his knowledge of phonic, graphic, structural and semantic aspects of the language through contrastive analysis, of language phenomena. [1]

Cultural aim learning the foreign language makes,the students acquainted with the life, customs and traditions of the people whose language they study through visual materials and reading materials dealing with the countries where the target language is spoken. Foreign language, teaching should promote students general educational and cultural growth by increasing knowledge about the foreign countries, and by acquainting them with progressive traditions of the people whose language they study.Through learning a second language the students gain a deeper insight into the nature and functioning,of the language as a social phenomenon.

Language and culture make a living organism; language is flesh and culture is blood. Without culture, language would be dead; without language, culture would have no shape because when we speak we show our culture. Without culture, there would be no communication at all. Language makes communication easier and sometimes promotes and sometimes hinders communication. Our language shows our culture, for example, highly cultured man never uses insulting words in his speech. People of different social groups speak cant, for instance thieves’ cant. People of various professions use jargonizes in their speech.

As in the Uzbek language exist such words as саuldron (казан), tandir (a kind of oven which is used for baking round flat bread), suri (a square large bench, where people eat and sleep in summer),we use them both in Russian and Uzbek, so Russian speaking people from other countries will not understand some words in our speech.

People of different cultures can refer to different things while using the same language forms. For example, when one says lunch, an Englishman may be referring to hamburger or pizza, but an Uzbek man will most probably be referring to round flat bread or somsa. The word dog in English, and ‘it’ in Uzbek, refer to the same kind of animal. English people associate dog with man’s best friend, a good companion, being kept at home as a pet. Most Uzbek people, by contrast, associate “it” with watchdog, defending the household from thieves, a noisy animal. Being culturally loaded, English words and their Uzbek translations (or vice versa) are seldom equivalents, and often give rise to different associations or images.

A survey of word associations was described in ELT journal. [2] It was designed for native Chinese speakers and native English speakers. In the survey, ten words (food clothes, family, friend, money job, culture, success, happiness, love) were given, which are related most closely to people’s lives, and cover both material and spiritual aspects of life. A similar task was used in our classes. The students were asked to write the associations with the word ‘food’.

1) From the first category finds of food, we see that NUS and NES have some food in common like meal, fruit, The specific food items listed the most by NUS are pilav, cabob monty which are the typical food of the Uzbek people. Hamburger, pizza, etc are the representative food items for NES.

2) From the second category we see that NES tend to use more adjectives to describe their food and feelings.

3) From the last category we find that both NES and NUS care about their health.

The intimate relationship between language and culture is strikingly illustrated by the survey of word associations. Between language and culture there is always an interactive influence: the two cannot exist without each other.

References:

1. H. Douglas Brown Teaching by principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Longman USA 1994
2. Forum 1997–2003