Method of teaching students foreign language communicative activities based on dictogloss

Introduction. The development of foreign language communicative activities, including production (speaking and writing), perception (reading and listening), interaction and mediation, is an updated goal of teaching foreign languages. The effective development of these activities depends on the method used and teaching techniques. Dictogloss is one of the innovative teaching methods that allows for integrated teaching of four language skills and aspects of the language. The aim of the study is to develop and test the method for teaching English-major students foreign language communicative activity based on dictogloss. Materials and methods. Participants of the research were 2nd year students (N=96), majoring in English as a Foreign Language at Moscow Pedagogical State University (Russian Federation). To test the effectiveness of the method for the participants of the experimental group the stages of dictogloss, which aimed at integrated learning of products, perception, aspects of language, interaction, mediation and the subject content of training, were developed. The students of the control group were taught English according to the traditional method. The objects of control were four types of foreign language communicative activities: production, perception, interaction and mediation. Data analysis was carried out using Student's t-test. Research results. It was revealed that dictogloss proved its effectiveness in developing students' skills in listening (t = 3.51; p = 0.0001), writing (t = 3.73; p = 0.0001), speaking (monologue (t = 2.83; p = 0.003) and dialogue (t = 3.06; p = 0.001), interaction and mediation. At the same time the study did not show the effectiveness of the proposed method on the development of students’ reading skills (t = 1.42; p = 0.07), which can be explained by the fact that students of the language faculty had a high level of command of the target language by the beginning of the pedagogical experiment. Conclusion. The novelty of the study is in the development of the stages of the dictogloss procedure, aimed at developing the types of students’ foreign language communicative activities. The results obtained can be used in the development of methods for teaching secondary school and university students foreign languages using the dictogloss procedure.