LECTURE 1. Linguodidactics as a general theory of language teaching.

The

relationship of linguodidactics with other disciplines.

Term originating from the Greek noun ‘teaching’ and stemming from the German tradition of
theorizing classroom learning and teaching. It is a singular noun spelt in the plural form.
Didactics serves as a major theory in teacher education and curriculum development, especially
in the German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, as well as in the Russian Federation.
(Source: Seel 2012). In French, German, and Scandinavian educational contexts there is a
marked tendency to include educational practice as part of the concept of didactics where the
term is viewed as the theory and practice of teaching and learning. Didactics (from the Greek
didaktikos - instructive and didasko - a section of pedagogy that sets out a general theory of
learning).

For the first time this word appeared in the works of the German teacher Wolfgang Rathke
(Ratichia) (1571-1635) to denote the art of teaching. Likewise, as the 'universal art of learning all
to everything ”, interpreted didactics and Ya.A. Comenius. At the beginning of the 19th century,
the German teacher I.F. Herbart gave didactics the status of a holistic and consistent theory of
upbringing education. The main task of didactics remains unchanged since the time of Ratikhia -
the development of problems: what to teach and how to teach; modern science also intensively
investigates the problems: when, where, whom and why to teach.

In a simplified way, the concern of didactics can be described as follows: what should be taught
and learned (the content aspect); how do we teach and learn (the aspects of transmitting and
learning); and to what purpose or intention should something be taught and learned (the
goal/aims aspect). (Source: Kridel 2010).

The main categories of didactics are: teaching, learning, training, education, knowledge, abilities,
skills, as well as the purpose, content, organization, types, forms, methods, means, results
(products) of training. Recently, it has been proposed to assign the status of the main didactic
categories to the concepts of the didactic system and teaching technology.

From this we get a short and capacious definition: didactics is the science of teaching and
education, their goals, content, methods, means, organization, and the results achieved.

Teaching is the orderly activity of a teacher to realize the goal of learning (educational tasks),
providing information, education, awareness and practical application of knowledge.
Learning is a process (more precisely, a coprocess), during which, on the basis of cognition,
exercise and acquired experience, new forms of behavior and activity arise, and previously
acquired ones change.

Didactics as a science studies the laws operating in the field of its subject, analyzes the
dependencies that determine the course and results of the learning process, determines the
methods, organizational forms and means that ensure the implementation of the planned goals
and objectives. Due to this, it performs two functions:

- theoretical (mainly diagnostic);

- practical (normative, instrumental).

The task of didactics is to determine the content of education for new generations, to find the
most effective ways to equip them with useful knowledge, skills, and abilities, and to identify the
patterns of this process. Given the connection between teaching and education, didactics can be
defined as a scientific discipline about the theory of education, teaching and perception.

The subject of didactics at the present stage of its development is the process of education and
training, taken as a whole: the content of education carried out in curricula, programs, textbooks;
principles, methods and means of teaching; organizational forms of training.

Didactics covers the system of education in all subjects and at all levels of educational activity.
We can single out general and specific didactics.

General didactics reveals the general laws of education and training; specific (subject) didactics
deals with the study of the peculiarities of teaching a particular subject (for example, the Russian
language). General didactics studies the learning process, during which there is a systematic
assimilation of knowledge, mastering the techniques of their application in practice and the
development of the cognitive abilities of students.

Modern didactics shows that an effective criterion for the effectiveness of the educational
process is not only the amount of acquired knowledge, skills and abilities, but also a high level of
mental development of students, their ability to penetrate into the essence of the subject being
studied. It aims to investigate the interaction of teaching and learning that occurs in the learning
process, to find out under what conditions it ensures the movement of students' consciousness
from the emergence of a cognitive task to its solution, the transition from ignorance to
knowledge, from inability or imperfect skill to the formation of rational skills and precise skills.
application of knowledge in practice.
Linguodidactics is a general theory of language teaching. The term was introduced into scientific
use by Acad. N.M. Shansky in connection with the development of problems of describing the
language for educational purposes (Shansky, 1985). The description, which was considered
linguodidactic, included the study of the similarities and differences of languages, the analysis of
the content and structure of the language being studied, the compilation of language minima for
teaching purposes and a number of other problems arising at the junction of linguistics and
pedagogy.

Linguodidactics is a science that studies and forms common patterns of methods of mastering
foreign language knowledge, skills. Linguodidactics explores the general patterns of language
learning, develops methods and means of teaching a specific language in depending on didactic
goals, studies the influence of monolingualism (monolingualism) or bilingualism (bilingualism)
for language acquisition and solves a number of related problems.

The object of linguodidactics is a theoretical basis the process of teaching languages and its
research: concepts, principles, content of language education, organizational forms of education,
mechanisms of research and design of the learning process.

Science under the object of research interest understands the area of observation. For
linguodidactics such an object will be the practice of language teaching.

For linguodidactics, the subject is the system generalized ideas about learning processes and

language learning, its assimilation from the standpoint of modern views on the learning process
and the person in learning.

The central category of linguodidactics is the model of linguistic personality.

Linguodidactics as a science is designed to:

 comprehend and describe the linguo-cognitive structure of the language personality,

 substantiate the conditions and patterns of its development as desired result in the process
of teaching and learning a language,
 study the specifics as an object of assimilation / teaching (language, the linguistic picture
of the world of the native speaker of the target language), and interaction of all subjects
of this process, the nature of errors (linguistic, cultural) and their mechanism
elimination / warning.

Tasks solved by linguodidactics:

  development of theoretical foundations of concepts of language education -linguocentric
and anthropocentric;
 description and explanation of the essence of the language learning process and
conditions its effectiveness
 theoretical substantiation of methodological systems of teaching languages, the
components of which are the goals of subject education, principles of selection and
structuring of educational material, means, methods and techniques of teaching language,
forms and methods of current and midterm control;
 theoretical justification and understanding of improvement, organizational forms of
teaching languages, emerging new training systems and technologies.

Linguodidactics performs the following functions:

 scientific and theoretical (study of the process of teaching a language);

 constructive and modeling (improvement, transformation educational process);
 integrative (combining the scientific achievements of philosophers, linguists, educators,
psychologists, methodologists, theory specialists communication and informatics for the
purpose of reliable justification language learning process).

The logical structure of linguodidactics:

The basis of linguodidactics is language as a kind of material reality, theoretical and practical
activities of the teacher-linguist, dedicated to the study of language for educational purposes. The
idea of the didactic meaning of linguistic phenomena is one of the main ideas of linguodidactics.

Laws of linguodidactics.

1. The diachronic aspect of language learning makes sense because it promotes its study in a
synchronous cut for educational purposes. Diachrony, as you know, there is a function of
synchronization.

2. The law of interdependence of the private from the general in the textbook microlanguage
based on the fact that the particular in the language is manifested most fully only in its integral
structure. Moreover, its context affects the understanding of private phenomena of language,
their features and functions, and vice versa.

3. The interference of the native language in the educational speech of students is usually direct
proportional to the degree of relatedness / unreliability of the target language and the native
language of the students.
4. Linguistic form is a function of linguistic content. Success in educational process, as a rule, is
directly proportional to compliance the content of the language form, in terms of the language
content of education.

Basic concepts and categories used by linguodidactics:

philosophical concepts: form and content, general and singular, reason and consequence;
possibility and reality, quantity and quality, theory and practice, law and regularity, etc .;

general scientific concepts: structure, function, organization, process, concept, approach, aspect,
activity, principle, etc .;

general concepts of pedagogy: education, development, upbringing, pedagogical experiment,

pedagogical process, pedagogical monitoring, etc .;

specific concepts of linguodidactics: language teaching, learning language, Russian (and other
languages) as an academic subject, academic material, educational situation, principles, methods
and techniques of language teaching and etc.;

concepts borrowed from related sciences:

- psychology (perception, comprehension, assimilation, memory, thinking, mental development,

etc.);

- logic (induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, generalization, classification, systematization,

etc.);

- cybernetics (direct and feedback, dynamic system);

- psycholinguistics (theory of speech activity, speech generation, speech perception, speech

activity, speech mechanisms, etc.).

Linguodidactics is a science that replaced the traditional language teaching methodology in

modern educational space. For many years, this discipline was called “methodology language
teaching ", later" teaching methods native / non-native languages. "The term linguodidactics
appeared relatively recently, 15-20 years ago. Usually, the appearance of a new name is
associated with some social phenomena. However, there is no consensus among experts about
the content of this term and even about the need for its existence. Linguodidactics is defined as a
general theory of language teaching, whose main task is to develop a teaching methodology
foreign language. The authors define three points of view on how the concepts of linguodidactics
and language teaching methodology are correlated. According to the first point of view, these are
two different areas knowledge. Linguodidactics explores the "general patterns of learning
languages, formulates general laws regarding ways assimilation of foreign language knowledge,
skills and abilities ", while the method of teaching foreign languages is a private didactic and “is
looking for effective ways to teach specific language in certain educational conditions”. This
point of view has been recognized by most specialists. L. is interpreted as a general theory of
language teaching, which develops its methodological foundations, while the methodology
characterizes the very process of teaching a specific language in the specific conditions of its
teaching (private methodology) or reveals the patterns of teaching a language (a group of
languages) outside the specific conditions of its study (general technique). Agreeing with such a
distinction between the two terms, we can talk about the linguodidactic foundations of language
teaching, including the presentation of the theoretical foundations of such teaching (ideas about
the content, goals and objectives, principles, methods, means, the learning process, about
research methods in language, as well as about interaction of L. with the basic sciences for her)
and on the methodological foundations of language teaching (teaching aspects of language and
types of speech activity in specific teaching conditions, organization of the educational process,
requirements for the teaching profession). In terms of the second position, there are only
terminological differences in the names of the two disciplines.

For the third point of view, this difference is essential the difference in theoretical knowledge
(linguodidactics) and practical (methodology). The third point of view on the relationship
between L. and methodology, apparently, was reflected in the name of the specialty 13.00.02 for
those defending dissertations for the degree of candidate and doctor of pedagogical sciences:
"Theory and methods of teaching and education (Russian as a foreign language)" ( Galskova,
2000; Dzhusupov, 1989; Moskovkin, 2002). Galskova N. D, the author of works on
linguodidactics distinguishes linguodidactics as a theory of teaching foreign languages and
methodology as an empirical experience. She thinks that the central category of linguodidactics
should be language as an object of assimilation, a means of communication, knowledge and
learning as well as a means of human interaction.

Contemporary concepts feeding linguodidactics.

Linguistics. Linguistics occupied the main place among scientific disciplines, nourishing the
methodology of teaching a language - foreign and native. Linguistic units in the process of
language learning the leading role was assigned. This is so in grammar translation method (from
the 40s of the XIX century), where the unit of study is word and word classes (grammar). The
same in straight lines methods (early XX century), only a unit is more complex unit is a phrase.
In audio-lingual and audio-visual methods (since the 50s of the XX century) – structure offers. It
should be noted that the methodology goes in its own history following the development of
linguistic science: from young grammatism to structuralism and transformational grammar and
further to functionalism. But in its current state, linguistics characterized by a wide variety of
items and units research. Her main subjects, besides language, are speech, speech activity,
speech subject, speech behavior, real processes of formation of a speech message and its
assimilation, the conditions in which they occur, and much more. And the method from private
didactics becomes linguodidactics, since this is a variety of subjects linguistic consideration is
included in the methodology. But special interest in linguodidactics in how speech exists subject
(homo loquens - a person speaking), i.e. to what is engaged in psycholinguistics.

Social problems discussed in linguodidactics: social order of society, needs, demand and
expectations society from teaching a language, a system of views on teaching.

Psychology. The influence of psychology on the state of linguodidactic theory. Psychology of

speech examines oral and written speech, external and inner speech, various aspects of speech
activity, speech subject; educational psychology refers to how knowledge, skills, skills are
formed, how the higher mental functions in the learning process; in general psychology
motivational sphere of activity of the speech subject (I.A. Zimnyaya), the problem of "speech
and thinking" (L.S.Vygotsky, A.R. Luria, A.N. Leontiev); social psychology examines speech
behavior different social groups, language standard, or norms, sociocultural aspects of
communicative competence, understanding as a sociocultural process; and, of course, cognitive
psychology, engaged in the psychology of cognitive processes, causes close attention to
linguodidactics.

Cultural linguistics and linguistic studies. At the junction of linguistics and disciplines of cultural
studies directions in the 60s, two areas of knowledge arose, which very actively "cooperate" with
linguodidactics. It cultural linguistics and linguistic studies. Cultural linguistics studies
relationship and interaction culture and language in its functioning, which creates originality of
the national linguistic picture of the world. Special of interest is the study of language as a
system in which find their embodiment of cultural values. Linguistic and regional studies have
developed in the depths of the methodology language teaching as an area of knowledge about the
realities of the country the target language and the ways of expressing them in the language,
lexical and phraseological. Her problematic is identifying linguistic means of national and
cultural use and methods teaching students linguistic and cultural material).
Didactics brought out the chain of cognitive activity of the subject learning: from perception to
imprinting (unconscious memorization), from imprinting to activating existing representations
and their imposition on the perceived experience, then there is an addition to the previous
experience and actually the development of new experience as new formations of personality in
the form judgments, skills, and experiences.

Linguodidactics or a language teaching methodology that studies existing training practice,

problems of how language is taught: goals, programs, learning content, learning subjects, their
needs and etc., technologies and teaching methods, generalizing them in the form of holistic
systems that are implemented in specific training courses. Linguodidactics appears also as a
science that accumulates ideas about teaching methods. She is relatively young area of
knowledge. The beginning of reflection on how it is happening language learning process, dates
back to Western Europe the first half of the 19th century. First textbooks in Russia foreign
(French) language appeared in the second half of the 19th century.

"Linguodidactics is a theory of language teaching, the integration of linguistics and didactics" [1,
23]. Linguodidactics is a theoretical part of the language teaching methodology, which arose as a
result of the integration of linguistics and methodology [3, 50].

REFERENCES:

1. Гальскова Н.Д., Гез Н.И. Теория обучения иностранным языкам. Лингводидактика и

методика: учеб.пособие для студ. лингв. ун-тов и фак. ин.яз. высш.пед.учеб. заведений /
Н.Д. Гальскова, Н.И. Гез.- 3-е изд., стер.- М.: Издательский центр «Академия», 2006.
2. Богин Г.И. Современная лингводидактика. – Калинин, 1980.
3. Шаклин В.М. Русская лингводидактика: Учебн. пособие. ‒ М.: РУДН, 2008. – 2009 с.