METHODS OF USING DISTANCE LEARNING FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN IN TEACHING ENGLISH

ABSTRACT

Learning English on your own is practically useless: the learner can easily ruin his or her pronunciation, trying to memorize words on their own, without the help of a teacher. Without a systematic and effective feedback from the teacher no courses or training materials will not help to learn the language at the proper level. That is why, in recent years, the world's leading educational institutions have started or are planning to open studies in the field of distance learning of foreign languages, among which is such a sought-after language as English. The purpose of this article is to study the methods of using distance learning for schoolchildren in teaching English. The object of the study is distance learning in teaching.

Keywords: English, methodology, distance learning, efficiency, school.

Once upon a time, distance learning involved sending training materials through the mail, nowadays, thanks to the development of technology, this process takes place via the Internet, via e-mail or skype. This approach has many positive aspects, the main of which is the possibility for the student to study at a convenient time for him anywhere there is access to the network. The overall effectiveness of distance learning English depends on several components:

- the use of the latest and classic pedagogical technologies;

- the effectiveness and possibility of feedback;

- the effectiveness of the lessons and the interaction between the student and the teacher;

- the effectiveness of the techniques used and the professionalism of the teacher;

- personal motivation of the learning person [1].

Thus, the quality of the acquired knowledge and the overall success of distance learning always depend on the methodological quality of the materials used and the way the lessons are organized. After all, distance learning of English through the use of the Internet as a method of exercising the information rights of all participants in this process.

Students' informational rights and responsibilities do not, as a rule, conflict with each other. On the contrary, they complement each other in the realization of each other. English language learning and self-education are one continuous process of information saturation. The advantage of the information right over the obligation implies freedom of access to any learning materials, not controlled and not determined by the requirements of the educational system [2]. If information obligation prevails in the learning process, the personal information environment of a schoolchild narrows considerably and stops at such a level of development which corresponds to the minimum mandatory requirements. Further narrowing of the environment can lead to methodological and technological impoverishment of the learning process, due to the breaking of connections between the subjects and locking in a very limited information space. As a result, we can observe a significant decrease in the effectiveness of school classes.

Consequently, access to information should not be limited by any limits, each of the subjects of educational activities should be able to use its entire volume at any convenient time. But, the presentation of knowledge should be carried out in stages, in accordance with the standards of education, coordinated by the educational system and managed by teachers of English. If the classes are not held individually, but in small groups, it is necessary to ensure the interaction of group members in joint language projects, possibly with the participation of foreigners - native speakers. Usually distantly organize discussions, presentations, video seminars on certain topics. Even participation in international post-crossing - the exchange of postcards with strangers through the international program «Crossing» will have a positive impact [3].

Monitoring of progress in distance learning should be carried out systematically and should be taken into account when drawing up new lesson plans by the teacher. Monitoring can be done in the form of open and closed testing, real-time listening, writing reports and essays on various topics. It is recommended to use progressive learning system programs or available services from Google for storing results and reporting. For online classes, you will need a special web office, which is provided by various online services.

At the lesson of a foreign language distance learning, which can be called a tool in a differentiated approach to the students, allows you to create a basis for the formation of interest in improving the level of proficiency in the studied foreign language. It is worth noting the following methods of teaching English in English distance learning:

1. «Wiki». Due to the possibility of creating a single collective content (wiki page) the social service is excellent for group project work, during which students can develop the skills of writing and speaking.

2. Оnline lectures on «YouTube». Viewing such online lectures followed by discussion can be recommended as individual work for motivated students in high school as part of the differentiated approach to students in English class.

3. Practical video lessons with the «British сouncil website». It is reasonable to use tasks of this type at the stage of primary presentation of grammatical or lexical material.

4. Аudio podcast, video podcast. Podcasts are audio blogs or programs that are posted online as episodes that can be easily downloaded to an MP3 player and listened to at any convenient time. They are individual files or a regularly updated series of such files published at a single Internet address. Teachers can use the resources of audio blogs or podcast terminals, and for creating exercises they can use special tool programs that allow them to design assignments in online format or in hard copy [4].

Thus, the designated services of interactive communication can act as an effective means of teaching English, because they have the following characteristics:

- autonomy (the ability to organize one's learning process according to one's abilities and needs);

- multifunctionality (the ability to develop several kinds of speech activity);

- interactivity (the ability to interact with Internet users for learning purposes).

These resources, used as the main tools for creating an interactive educational environment, an integral part of distance learning, allow us to solve a set of tasks of foreign language education:

- increasing motivation by creating situations of success for the individual learner;

- shifting the emphasis to productive interaction and cooperation - both with peers and with the teacher;

- increasing independence and, as a consequence, increasing the level of personal and meta-disciplinary universal actions in mastering the subject «English» and the effectiveness of the educational process as a whole;

- individualization of the educational process.

Distance English classes always include work with audio recordings. The method of working with audio books provides the following steps:

- the student should concentrate on understanding the meaning of the audio book in general, without trying to understand the whole text verbatim;

- the main attention should be paid to the correct pronunciation of English words;

- do not try to listen to the whole book. It is better to divide lessons with audiobooks in five-minute segments and listen to each of them for 2-4 times, until a full understanding and translation;

- regular exercise will expand the vocabulary. However, it is worth checking the memorized words with an electronic or paper dictionary to rule out misremembered spelling [5].

As the student progresses through each lesson:

- improves skills in reading, listening, and writing (speaking);

- practicing vocabulary on each topic (within the vocabulary minimum of the 2nd certification level, each topic is assigned a list of words for active mastery);

- gets acquainted with the information of country character;

- gets necessary information on social adaptation in the country of the studied language and intercultural communication.

One of the key tasks of the project is to ensure the development and improvement of students' reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills, as well as the development of communicative competencies. It is the teacher's responsibility to activate the student's potential, his knowledge base and personality, to make him an independent unit of the learning system and guide him to new heights of knowledge. The modern trend in the teaching of foreign languages is the transition to a person-centered system of education, in the composition of which, as a subsystem, should be the student.

All these requirements, like no other direction, corresponds to distance learning in English, which uses the technology of the Internet, because it fully realizes the right to free access to information for each of the participants in the educational process.

Distance learning, having absorbed all the latest developments in the education system, opens up great prospects for school education as well. But, nevertheless, the importance of distance learning of foreign languages in the system of general secondary education becomes serious enough only in case of its interrelation with other educational means, such as printed materials and multimedia equipment.

Teachers of foreign languages, particularly English, as information carriers, must not only impart their own knowledge to students and activate each of the components of the learning system, but also reproduce the content of training courses in such a way that each of them can perceive, understand and systematize the knowledge acquired. They must decompose the original system of information into its component parts, define the relationships between them, and recreate all of this in the minds of the students. In addition, this should be done in such a way that there is no loss of prior knowledge and skills.

Given the above arguments, we conclude that distance learning can be seen as one of the sought-after and effective technologies in school learning in general, and in the teaching of English in particular. This technology will allow personalized learning both for students with learning difficulties and for gifted children outside of school hours.

References:

1. Abrioux D.A. (2006). Strategic issues in single- and dual-mode distance education: The organizational blending of two Canadian distance universities. Vancouver, BC: Commonwealth of Learning. – 17.
2. Chang S.L., Ley K. (2006). A learning strategy to compensate for cognitive overload in online learning: Learner use of printed online materials. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 5(1), 104–117.
3. Barab S.A., Thomas M.K. (2001). Online learning: From information dissemination to fostering collaboration. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 12(1), 105–143.
4. Celentin P. (2007). Online education: Analysis of interaction and knowledge building patterns among foreign language teachers. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 39–58.
5. Belawati T., Zuhairi A. (2017). The practice of a quality assurance system in open and distance learning: a case study at Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(1), 23-27.