The Principle of Activity (Activeness)

There is a Chinese Proverb saying:

«I can remember 20% - of what I hear,

I can remember 40% - of what I hear and see;

I can remember 80% - of what I participate in».

People learn a language most effectively through activity when solving problems, creating things themselves or when talking about personal experiences. Participation and flexible exploratory (creative) thinking should be encouraged. In accordance with the communicative -cognitive approach to FLT pupils must be actively involved with all their cognitive mechanisms such as memory (long - term memory and short - term memory), thinking and operations of thinking (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, etc) perception and others.

The principle of Activity (Activeness) requires activity of both, on the pant of the T and the learners: choral, individual work, work in small groups (problem - solving, project work, etc). But the T should bear in mind that students are different: extraverts and introverts display their activity differently.

In FLT - the principle of activeness is realized in the following ways:

1. From the very beginning pupils are taught living speech, not just sounds and words. Using living Speech, answering questions in a foreign language is actively using the language while pronouncing sounds and words is just passively following directions to reproduce things, not to create them.

2. Pupils are taught to think in a foreign language. Thinking is an active process.

3. In the early Stages of FLT the new material is introduced and activated orally. For this different types of oral exercises are used.

4. Throughout the FLT course! practice precedes theory.

5. A wide use of choral, individual work, work in pairs, work in small groups of three and four etc... that provide interaction.

6. Correction of mistakes should be sparing and not interfering. It is not necessary to correct every mistake.

7. Activeness is largely dependent upon interest.

Activeness is not self-sufficient. We must not neglect less active forms of work but rather effective (for example, imitative reproductions).

A Сhinese legend says: "Give a man a fish and he will eat it all day long; show him how to fish and he will eat all the year round".

As far as possible learners should be exposed to communication. From the 1st lesson teachers should teach their pupils how to communicate in English, not just how to pronounce this or that sound, how to do grammatical exercises or choose a, b, с d, the correct answer. To do this the T should give plenty of time to production activities which may have the following characteristics:

1) gaps of different kinds

information opinion reasoning

communication

gaps gaps gaps

2) variety of means of classroom organization, learner roles etc.

3) enjoyment; it is most likely that learners will be motivated if they find the activity stimulating and interesting.

4) integrated skills.

5) involvement in the actual process of the lesson.

6) creativity - giving the learners an opportunity to use the knowledge and skills in an individual and personal way.

7) atmosphere - creating a positive learning climate so that learners feel that they can participate and lake risks.

Linguistic games and role-plays should be widely used in the process of FLT especially with little children: Games is their second world.

It is recommended to practice linguistic games and role-plays for the development of habits and skills.

Games excite pupils' interest and they help the Teachers to enrich pupils' vocabulary by memorizing words and expressions in the process of playing.

Methodologists recommend to introduce linguistic games, rhymes, twin - twisters at the end of the lesson, otherwise the pupils will not desire to return to the ordinary lesson again:

1) Inky, pinky, ponky. My daddy bought a donkey. The donkey died, daddy cried; Inky, pinky, ponky.

2) There was a young lady of Niger who smiled as she rode on a tiger. They returned from the ride with the lady inside and the smile on the face of the tiger.

3) Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

An activity or process involving a particular skill or quality and designed to achieve a result is called an exercise.

It is characterized by the following:

1. an exercise always has an objective;

2. it is always aimed at smth;

3. it presupposes numerous repetitions.

4. Any ex. is based on the formation of stereotypes; they must

5. provide the formation of habits;

6. the character of ex is different depending on what habits they form.

7. the minimum of ex necessary for the formation of habits and skills depends on certain conditions of teaching (learning). Ушинский: «Системность упражнений - есть первая основа успеха». The importance of a system of ex-s consists in the fact that it provides organization of the process of teaching and organization of the process of learning.

8. ex-s fulfill different functions depending on the objectives of FLT.

The idea of system of ex-s in FLT in our country was first advocated in the early 40-s - by (Грузинская) Gruzinskaya.