PECULIARITIES OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH SKILLS FORMATION AS A COMPONENT OF FUTURE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL METHODOLOGICAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT DURING CONTINUOUS TEACHING PRACTICE

Abstract

The article in question deals with the formation of scientific research skills as a part of future foreign language teachers’ professional development. The authors of the article focus on the possibilities of continuous school practice as an effective means of future teachers’ scientific research work. The article contains a detailed description of three stages of continuous practice, its aims and tasks as it was worked out by the authors of a New Core Curriculum “English Language Teaching Methodology. Bachelor’s Level”. It is stated in the article that the project of the British Council in Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine proved its effectiveness in future English teachers’ professional development due to the continuous students’ practice at school, which enabled them to combine theoretical knowledge of the English language teaching Methodology and its use in real conditions. The authors singled out several types of scientific research skills, attributable to future teachers as researchers and suggested the ways of their formation during all stages of school practice. It has been stated that students gain the first experience in scientific research by means of performing specially created professionally-oriented observation tasks which lead to upgrading their theoretical scientific knowledge on the basis of which the future teachers can identify problems in teaching English independently. The authors’ experimental research proved that continuous school practice stimulates future teachers (about 85%) for creating personal techniques and methods of teaching English and finding evidence of their effectiveness. The methodology of the research is based on a systematic approach in organizing, observing and evaluating students’ first attempts in scientific research work. Being engaged in teaching practice, carrying out their own serious scientific research on the problems they are interested in, the future teachers have convincingly proved the validity of the experimental results and the possibility of implementing their techniques in teaching English in a real context. Our research confirmed that the students’ scientific and experimental work during continuous school practice contributed to the development of their scientific research skills.