School of fine arts лMARCH╗ successfully trains

It is hardly possible to deny the role of spoken English nowadays. Even superficial analyses of modern technologies, their directions, perspectives and rates, say nothing of economy, jurisprudence, ecology etc., permit not only to establish the significance of this international means of communication confidently, but to forecast some increasing tendencies of its importance in near future.
School of fine arts лMarch╗ began its activity in 1993. The main idea of our school process is complex and aesthetic pre-school education. The complex education includes English in the capacity of one component of the whole process. Besides English the school schedule comprises:
principles of music,
choreography,
painting,
ecology and
history of art.
These are the names of the school subjects, but often itТs very difficult to differentiate all the subjects from each other. Our teaching practice implies not only intercommunication, but interdependency of the subjects and some times even their absolute blending, when it is not an easy task to define whether it is music or English, choreography or ecology. English speech is present at all the lessons down to the subjects that seem to be dissimilar to linguistics, for example music or choreography. Our teachers use English in every appropriate situation whether it is performing exercises at the lessons of choreography, describing a picture at the history of art or characterizing a play at the music lessons, not to mention the lessons of English conversation themselves.
It should be noted that the process of education in our school is based on game situations. ItТs not a secret that game is the most popular kind of activity for children. Therefore, we do not advise the parents to demand from their children to tell what kind of material have they studied at the lessons; in this case, to brisk up the remembrance it is necessary for the child to recall the game situation with all the needed information for the parents. Studies for 4-7 year old children is first of all a game and excessive persistence and pressure on the part of the parents would result in loss of interest to the educational process, especially if the child waits for peculiar examination. And so, itТs important to keep within limits and perhaps, itТs better to became observers watching how the kid playing or walking naturally elicits from the memory English poems, songs, words and phrases, does sums.
Teaching children under school age the complex of subjects accepted in our school ensures qualitative and well grounding for schools providing general education. Our school leavers are notable for:
using a good deal of foreign words and grammar constructions,
availability of needed knowledge, skills and board outlook,
discipline, self-discipline,
responsibility for the actions and deeds,
interest to study and active vital position.
All the good points are the motive power for acceleration of childrenТs intellectual progress. Knowledge of foreign languages is a showing of cultural and intellectual personal level. Studying English expects of the pupils to brisk up the remembrance, to attract attention, in addition the study is connected with the necessity of correct forming the thoughts. So, learning English they begin to comprehend the mother tongue. Obviously, that concerning for childrenТs progress in this direction today would be a great help for them in secondary school in future.
According to (2)(pp.28,32,123) the theory of teaching the foreign language from earliest years demonstrates its value in practice. In such a case the mastery of English comes its natural way, it occurs in sensitive period, when children are quick to learn the language. Like in the mother tongue the child firstly contacts with objects around him, then makes phrases (monologue or dialog) to express his thoughts. One more very important thing is a 4-7 year old child meeting new words or notions can learn two meanings at once, both English and Russian. In addition, children of this age have pliable vocal organs, what permits to work successfully on articulation and pronunciation. This period is fruitful for working on phonetics (both English and Russian) so, teachers can pay attention to the specific English sounds, some of which are absolutely different from the customary Russian ones.
The school of fine arts лMARCH╗ training children sequentially works on:
forming needed vocabulary which includes:
a) names of toys, parts of the body, garments, articles of domestic utility, toilet articles, natural phenomenon,
b) signs and characteristics of objects,
c) names of the actions which can be done around the child or can be performed by the child himself.
teaching the child to:
d) understand English conversational speech within the limits of subject-matter according to the school program,
e) correctly pronounce the sounds of the foreign language.
f) to make monologue and dialogue, according to the program and situation.
give the children access to the English songs and poems, that are a part of world folk heritage.
Everything aforementioned points at the fact that the educational process aims at teaching the children conversational English. At the lessons the children are taught to understand the speech of the teacher, educational multimedia computer products or video and audio tape materials. Besides, children use their own vocabulary, conversational constructions and etiquette phrases.
Every language consists of conversational and graphic (spelling) aspects. So, the question of the parents why wouldnТt our school teach the elder groups to read and write is quite natural. But at the age of 5-6 children just begin to read in Russian and we are convinced of no need to load the children with studying the letters of Roman alphabet. Since some letters of the alphabet can be identical with Russian letters, but they are different in pronunciation. The child directing toward the knowledge of Russian graphic system can read even simple English words erroneously only because there are lots of spelling rules and phonetic points that require special training and working out in details.
So, speaking about the natural way of studying English we are sure it is enough for children under school age to have deal with just the conversational English language. Studying the alphabet and spelling is one of the tasks of secondary schools. The school of arts leavers have lots of advantages over the same age children at secondary schools. ItТs far easy for them to find the graphic conformities to well-known words and notions, so, they are quick in uptake, and they havenТt so many difficulties connected with studying English. (1)(p.45) asserts that making the preschool educational process based on conversational principles is natural, optimum and the only possible way for children to study the language. As far as the children grow they should be taught to read and write on the verbally learnt material.
Some of the parents standing up for forcing the education ask why doesnТt their child speak English fluently?
ItТs impossible to expect of 7 year old child to speak the language with ease even with success training only because itТs impossible to establish the fact of his fluent speaking the mother tongue on account of the age and psychological features.
According to (2)(p. 135) this age is characterized by:
a) natural heterohornity (utterance and understanding lead over writing),
b) insufficiently formed ability to speak and think,
c) particular to the age natural misuse of lexical and grammatical forms,
d) scanty level of development of forming and formulation the thoughts. The thought hasnТt been subordinated to the logical order of statements.
Fluent speech is possible only if there is knack of analyze, synthesize, compare and confront. The necessary prerequisites for it begin to form in secondary schooling and improve in the higher forms (see pp.136-143). One of the tasks of our teachers is to give the children done in good time and highest possible information and lexical base.
parents can also have a question, how could the child practice in grammar if he is not taught to write and read even studying in elder groups at the school of fine arts.
Studying here the conversational English language the child not only enlarges the vocabulary and trains English phonetics but learns thoroughly lots of grammar constructions. English in contrast to Russian has strict word order and every type of sentence has its own grammar structure. For example, English лI see a bird in the blue sky╗ has more than tree Russian equivalents. In Russian sentence itТs possible to move the words to have some shades of meanings. In English everything is fixed.
The 1st place is for Subject,
the 2nd place is for Predicate,
the 3rd place is for direct and indirect object,
the 4th place is for Adverbial modifier of manner.
There is a standard word order in different types of questions. лWhat do you like to eat?╗ (special question) can be translated into Russian by tree ways. лDo you want to eat these apples╗ (general question) has also several modes of translation.
Everything points to the fact that children study different grammar material learning the correct grammar structures by hart with the help of playing and spoken English.
Many poems and songs the children can translate with ease are also the samples of grammar constructions. So, we try to pay particular attention to them.
One more parentsТ question can be formed in the following way: лWhy it is necessary to return to the previous material and review the information what has been studied some ago; why itТs impossible to study new material lesson by lesson?╗
ItТs easy to answer the question having analyzed a simple situation: if a child is given an explanation of a new notion and then doesnТt refresh the notion for a long time, he would simply forget it. If not to train a song or a poem with him, he would forget the material absolutely. As to English, the process of loosing the material is more intensive than in the mother tongue. So, training the material constantly helps to replace foreign words, phrases, grammar constructions from the short-term memory into the permanent memory and to fix all the needed information there.
ItТs difficult to overstate the role of English folklore in our school. An experienced teacher knows that music, singing and dancing play a great role in studying foreign languages. Working with folklore material makes the lessons vivid and relives the monotony of ordinary studies, helps children to perceive the language and makes them effective on the stage. Thanks to folklore the children are aquatinted with traditions and culture of the country, the pupils become closer to each other, get first playersТ skills.
LetТs examine the succession of the conversational language education in our school.
At the lessons we use three-dimensional subjectsЧtoys, plaster casts of fruits. Making real game situations and sketches the teacher tries to give the children of 3- 5 needed information by means of sense of smell, touch, hearing and organs of sight. At the age of 5 we begin to use more actively two-dimensional parameters like pictures, illustrations, computer or TV screens.
In initial stage of teaching English we note that children successfully use simple non-extended sentences with nominative function, when the child names a real subject lying within the eye-sight: лA rabbit.╗, лA mouse.╗, лA bear.╗ etc., or names an action лI jump.╗, лI run.╗, лI go.╗ etc., or describes the properties of well-known subjects, for example colors.
Next stage is making a simple extended sentence. These are phrases like лA red Rhino.╗, лA blue Tortoise.╗, лI see a red Rhino.╗, лI like to eat grapes.╗.
The two stages certainly have to do with the first level of foreign language education (1)(pp.22-24). The sample constructions can be considered as clichщ, but the conversational base creates conditions for working on monologue constructions including complex sentences with causative-consecutive coordination, for instance, лI like strawberry, because it is tasty.╗.
The sequence лfrom simple to complex╗ by natural way leads us to modeling communicative situations, carrying on dialogues, giving talks.
A dialogue needs to be characterized by quick reaction to interlocutorТs utterance (spontaneity) and requires active use of rather extensive лverbal inventory╗ (2).
When it is possible for children to operate with known information they successfully study special school subjects such as mathematics and painting. It should be observed tat the special subjects enjoy wide popularity among the children.
So, correctly selected лverbal inventory╗ permits the children to join actively the English film review, hold a conversation with computer in a process of working with multy-media educational programs, and even to fix and remember the pronunciation of new words finding the equivalents in the mother tongue. The children listen tape-records of known English songs and poems singing and reciting them with pleasure out of the school.
It should be noted all the groups in the school of fine arts лMarch╗ are formed for the teacher to use both group and individual types of work. Bring into concord it with at most domestic surrounding means to pave the way for perfect results.
Obviously, teaching foreign languages is serious, long, laborious and complicated process. It calls for:
a) strict sequence and consistency,
b) keeping reasonable limits,
c) high level of methodicalness,
d) taking into account individual features of the child
Five- year experience of the school лMarch╗ teaching practice and high level of technical and methodical equipment are extremely important components of the educational process. Surely, itТs significant to take into account the firm intentions of the parents in attaining the results, family situation and many other permanent factors. Because all the factors like vectorial quantity is characterized by absolute magnitude and orientation, and their composing forms the result of education.
Sergei Pogorely.

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