Teaching foreign language in elementary school: modern approach

Abstract

The aim of this article (Teaching Foreign Language in Elementary School. Modern Approach) is to analyze the notion of teaching methodology and introduce an innovative approach to teaching English in elementary school. The paper has two major purposes: (1) to present the theoretical research connected to Foreign Language Component in Ukrainian secondary education, teaching methods and various approaches in teaching a foreign language; (2) to provide an overview of an innovative approach with the concentration on communicative and interactive components, the characteristics added.

In our opinion, the content of teaching methods should have an optimal balance of components of effective learning – theoretical, practical and interactive, where much attention is paid to the last one which allows enhancing motivation for education.

The paper is composed of three parts. Part 1 focuses on the theoretical research related to analyzing the content of Foreign Language Component in public and private Ukrainian educational institutions. Part 2 provides an overview of different approaches to teaching a foreign language. Moreover, the content of direct and indirect methods is discussed. Part 3 demonstrates an innovative approach to teaching English to elementary school children with a detailed description of components (materials, scheduling, lesson planning, interactive learning techniques, outer resources, etc).

It was concluded that the innovative approach of teaching English, which was presented in this paper, will have significant achievements on the matter of students' freedom of communication, language psychological comfort and understanding of linguistic culture. The approach has already been implemented into teacher’s work in a private educational institution. The further study would be connected to the effectiveness of approach implementing, including the use of it with a larger number of children.