FOREIGN LANGUAGE TRAINING OF FUTURE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH – BEGINNING OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY): METHODOLOGICAL ASPECT

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify socio-economic, political-ideological, pedagogicaland organizational and methodological prerequisites that influenced the development of foreign language training of elementary school teachers in Ukraine in a certain period. Methods. On the basis of the analysisof archival data, historical-literary and other sources of the studied period, the peculiarities of teaching foreignlanguages of future elementary school teachers in the second half of the twentieth-early twentieth century aregeneralized and the prospects for the use of research results in modern educational institutions are determined.Results. The concentration of strategic elements in practical educational and professional programs deprivedthe ability to respond promptly regarding the introduction of methodological innovations of the worldpedagogical discourse. At a time when the Western educational systems actively attracted personality-orientedand pragmatic approaches to learning a foreign language, the educational process in Soviet institutions of higherpedagogical education focused on the structural and functional model. This significantly limited the possibilityof introducing a methodological diversity into the educational process, since foreign language activity was notonly limited, but also determined by its internal priority. Under such conditions, the formalization of educationwas actively developed, which was enhanced by the traditional for the then society the elimination of initiativeby the teacher. As a result, the study of foreign languages did not lay the necessary foundation for foreignlanguage competence, but provided for the quantitative accumulation of knowledge of linguistic elements.The system of foreign -language theoretical training of elementary school teachers during the formationof the Ukrainian education system was faced with a practical problem of implementing new methodologicalapproaches. First of all, it is worth noting the complexity of the transition of the scientific and pedagogicalcommunity to new standards of teaching. Also problematic was the need to change (sometimes quite cardinal)educational and methodological standards of pedagogical activity in the field of foreign language learning.All these aspects were exacerbated by the complex socio-economic state of education in general, which ledto the delaying the rapid transition of the specifics of the training of future elementary school teachers. Withthe stabilization of the situation in the educational sphere, active work on educational and methodologicalupdating of programs of training of future teachers has begun. Conclusions. The most significant factors thatcontributed to the updating of the theoretical paradigm of the learning process of foreign languages were:removal of ideological prejudices in the formation of professional standards of teacher training; the possibilityof attachment to the experience of other countries in the use of effective approaches to learning a foreignlanguage; adherence to the principles of humanization of education that gave priority of personality-orientedlearning; transition of the elementary school teacher training system from administrative to variant dimensionswith active involvement of flexible skills; Reorientation from the ability to know a foreign language tothe format to understand it and use it in a foreign language environment.