Методические указания по английскому языку для студентов 5-го курса исторического факультета. Коныгина Г.И. - 4 стр.

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structure that is going to be taught actively in the coming lessons and so “pre-expose”
the pupils to it. For example, the future tense might be pre-exposed by choosing “Now
we shall listen to a story” instead of “Let’s listen”. Systematic variation is then a
valuable pedagogic tool.
     There still exists a belief that (1) pupils cannot really understand a sentence they
hear unless they are able to break it up into separate words and explain the function of
each of the words, and (2) pupils at early stages should be able to say everything they
hear in the lesson, and not hear anything that they are not able to say. This point of view
implies that pupils at an elementary level would not understand “Would you mind
opening the door?” and therefore they should not hear it since this type of structure
occurs later in the textbook under the headings “Conditional” and “Gerund”. Clearly,
however, the phrase “Would you mind opening the door?” can be understood in the
simplest communicative sense on the basis of the key words “open” and “door”. The
pupil may hear the “Would you mind” as a meaningless noise which will only be
understood, i.e. broken up into its separate parts, later when the pupil has more
experience of the language. If it is accepted that pupils may well understand more than
they can say, it means that the teacher’s choice of classroom phrases can exceed the
pupils’ productive abilities.
     Though we emphasize the importance of making the maximum use of the foreign
language in the classroom situation for the benefit of the learners, it is not a dogmatic
plea. When outlining new working methods or explaining meanings of words and
grammatical features of the language, for example, teachers should feel free to use the
mother tongue. Naturally, an attempt can first be made in the foreign language,
followed by a native language translation. This method has the advantage of allowing
for differentiation; that is, the better pupils have an opportunity to listen and try to
understand while the weaker ones can rely more on the native language translation. The
switching from language to language need not be a disturbing factor, especially if the
teacher prefaces each change, e.g.” I’d like to say something in English now “ or
“Let’s use Russian now”.