A Principle of Thinking in Teaching as a Factor of Effective Foreign Communication

В статье рассматривается актуальная проблема изучения английского язык, как научиться разговаривать на английском языке язык без заучивания фраз. Данный метод основывается на использовании эффективного педагогического принципа – осмысленности в обучении и общении. Известно, что информация, которая была «пережита» сознанием воспринимается как самостроительство личности, ее коммуникативных способностей, основанных на субъективном опыте.

The main problem of people who want to master foreign language is to overcome the existing contradictions between conditions of learning foreign languages, wants of learners and their abilities to learning. In methodology of learning foreign languages we must distinguish between learners. There are a lot of different methods which are considered to be progressive but all of them may be formulated as the following principle of thinking and using technology of songs in learning.

Some researchers point out that everything is reflected in our brain and emotional speech situations can change the state of mind including language skills. These emotional situations can be compared with person’s development. The method when the teacher makes pupils think about the events they learn about and make some associations in brain was developed in the frames of context approach to education. So the basis of our work is the principle of thinking in learning.

We hear a question in English than we translate it into our native language, and answer must be translated into English, and finally, we reply in English. The whole process takes too much time, and it is one of the main reasons why so many people hesitate to speak English, they know nothing about the methods of mastering fluent speaking English.

The main principle of thinking in English as the factor of efficiency of communication needs a lot of time for practice. You must do all the time and you will have a good habit of doing progress in foreign language. So it is very important to think in English as it is a natural process and it will help you to concentrate on the moment of our real life and it is all right. After that you will be able to speak fluent English.

In this article we are going to speak about personal practice of learning - how to think in English instead of translating words from native language and then try to find different associations and to translate them into foreign language. We suppose that only this way can guarantee you a fluent way of mastering and speaking English.

The goal of that work is to attract readers attention to those people who learn English in Advanced level we want you to learn about one of the effective methods that corresponds to one of the main principles of humanity- freedom, independence ,abilities and capabilities – how to speak fluent English without any hesitations.

According to those goals, we may solve the following objectives:

1. To explain a true meaning of a speech producing process. The realizing of the process should help you to learn English more effectively and let you speak English fluently;

2. To meet people who learn English in Advanced level in accordance to the principle “thinking in English” in our paper it is considered to be an effective method with a lot of benefits.

3. To give some practical instructions how to get fluent speaking English process on the basis of “thinking in English” principle and song technology.

Here we give you a simple scheme of a speech process. It describes the process you speak your native language and the scheme will be like this: Thinking in native language → Speaking.

But when we use our native language we produce different objects in our minds in the process of thinking. After that we easily make differentiations and assimilations to realize the real meaning of the words and sentences. Only after that we may be ready to understand real information of the sentences.

A lot of scientists say about the process of coding and recoding the essence and notions of words which may be easily imagined as the real picture in the brain. The process of producing speech usually takes about 600 milliseconds (sic-tenths of a second) for our speech may correspond to brain’s work! It’s not a great problem, and in real life we have an impression that we can think out a lot to produce words.

That supposition was made by Ned T. Sahin, a researcher of Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego. His unusual experiment was a great progress principle. The aim was to find out the ways how to enhance the work of brain and the process of thinking in foreign language. He pointed out that it would help people to master any foreign language for a short time.

The experiment states that it takes about half a second to transforming objects we are thinking about into words we produce. They usually denote the objects we say about. And there are three different kinds of processing are necessary for pronouncing words and sentences in real speech. It takes a small part of the brain which is called Broca's area.

According to that experiment Sahin has discovered that:

1. About 200 milliseconds (two-tenths of a second) after a process of gazing the words on a big screen, there appeared a spike in brain’s activity, suggesting recognition of the words on the screen.
2. At 320 milliseconds brain implements grammatical processes.
3. And at 450 milliseconds, researchers saw processing that indicated the way how the brain was "cuing up what to say and getting ready to say it."

The effect of this experiment in linguistics is great. For a long period of time many scientists thought that we produced a speech process or speaking just at the time of thinking. But that opinion is wrong and that’s why a lot of foreign language learners can’t improve their thinking process and can’t use the progressive method to speak fluent English.

They also say that any learner will never be able to use foreign language to think over the object or notion. We may put it in another way the process of coding and recoding the objects and words in native and foreign languages, when the person will always translate words from native language into English.

But that statement is wrong. We may think in English and with help of this principle we may understand not only differentiations of languages but their cultural differences and realize and memorize them.

The context approach states that only the work reflected in our brain will give a lot for the development of language personality. So it is quite interesting for the task of our paper as it proves the real necessity for the learners to think over everything they learn.

For a number of reasons English learners say that the translation stage is inevitable. People use a translation process as a regular basis for example movie subtitles, dictionaries, Google translation and so on. It is clear that the translation stage between languages can’t be avoided and you can be sure that you use two languages at once to speak fluent English.

Just imagine if the process of speaking English takes more than half a second to produce speech just after a thought appeared in your brain, what about the extra time you spend for translating the thought from your native language into English? It will add more time to effective communication. So to improve your English you must reduce the translation link and eradicate the process of thinking!

So, what you basically need to do is the following – you need to learn to verbalize the ABSTRACT CONCEPTS into English. The words can’t be verbalized without your special attempts to do so. It’s a good idea. It’s something that you must feel even before you produce actual thoughts in your language. It’s not easy to explain, but we’ll give an example so that can understand what exact meaning of using the notion of abstract concept.

You have to picture the following. You wake up in the morning and open your eyes. You feel unwell – you’ve a sore throat, your nose is running and you have a fever, too. Now try to focus on these feelings and it will be an abstract concept of a sick day appeared in your mind even before you have a though in the conscious like that “I have to inform that… First of all you have to think what you should do and some abstract concepts and images may appear in your brain.

Then it begins a short thinking process in the native language, and then you produce the actual speech process. Once we ask you to stop translate from your native language and English, your speech becomes more fluent and natural. It’s easier to suppose this than to do it, so here’s a good piece of advice concerning the method to achieve a good result in speaking, to change your state of mind when you’re able to think in English without your native language.

The speech process is so closely connected with conciseness, the work of brain where different signs, objects and thoughts appear that it is easy for you to use your native language when you have a steady and controlled speech going on. If you try to speak too fast you need a lot of time for concentration on the topic of your speech and you can mix different words.

So your perfect English speech process will follow this pattern – an abstract concept → thinking in English → speech. Well, in reality you can feel that the speech process needs some time because of the feedback between your mind and speech. However, it is necessary for you to understand integrity of the speech process so you can accept that it is possible to stop translating from your native language while speaking English.

Scientists have found out that a musical center is situated in the left hemisphere of a person’s brain, and a person’s speech is in the right. The activity of the left hemisphere of our brain is usually faster and it proves our theory that using songs as an effective technology of learning English and by the way it is pleasant and useful as it combines activity of both hemispheres and people catch foreign words, phrases grammar rules faster.

Thus, with the help of songs we may develop our consciousness. It's essential that song’s lyrics can be a pleasant listening exercise and language practice. You can improve your comprehension and pronunciation and, also you may learn a couple of new words and everyday grammar structures. I would like to attract you attention to a way how to combine music with the process of learning English.

The best way to explain how the process of listening, singing and then reading texts of songs all that can help us to learn English is the concentration on the process of singing as natural things we usually did in our childhood. We did not learn grammar when started talking. We learned Russian by listening and repeating phrases. We did not even realize that we learned some grammar structures. We just listened to people used phrases in different situations and then started using them as well The most people love singing their favorite songs, and non-native English speakers often seem to find it easy to remember the words of English songs. So, listening to songs is a good way to practice and improve your English listening skills, and if you listen carefully and sing with the singers you can improve your pronunciation. And, if you really like the songs or singers you won't feel you do any work at all.

The activity of the person’s brain is natural when there is no tension and stress but it can be blocked if it is difficult for a person to pronounce words and different diphthongs in English. Songs can help us to improve pronunciation as the process of listening songs may be pleasant and continuous and you may do it as long as you like. We can also practice pronunciation by listening to words and phrases and then try to imitate tune, tone and stress.

It is proved that the most people love singing their favorite songs, and non-native English speakers often seem to find it easy to remember the words for English songs. This may be explained in such a way:

Songs in English are popular in many countries as part of contemporary language and culture, and this fact can be additional motivation for learning English; Songs are written in short variant of information so it is easy to remember, and catch the meaning of sentences; Songs touch emotions and feelings that can help a person to remember the words easier.

English may be easily learned if you listen to the songs and try to find some missing (erased) words in it. It's easy to find a lot of ready-made exercises of that type. But if you're interested in a specific song you can't find exercises up to your taste. You can find lyrical songs and erase some of the words in it, or have a sort of dictation, while listening to songs you can write these words and then test yourself.

Bibliography:

1. In Milliseconds, Brain Zips From Thought To Speech http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113834285

2. Как начать думать на английском? http://elf-english.ru/2009/05/kak

3. Arutyunova, N.D. // Logical analyses of language. Mental abilities. / N.D. Arutyunova. M. Science. 1993. – p. 3.

4. Karasik, V.I. Language circle: personality: concept and discourse. /V.I. Karasik. Volgograd. Peremena.2002. – p. 139.