6.1.1. Exercise as an item of teaching

The famous Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky in his book ‘Thinking and Speech’ (1934) gives a definition of an item as ‘such a product of analysis, which, in contrast to its elements, possesses all major features characteristic of the whole and which is a further indivisible part of this whole’.

I.L. Bim considers an exercise to be an item of teaching a foreign language. She maintains that an exercise is related not only to training but also to any form of interaction between the teacher and pupils based on the teaching material. In case of self-dependent work, it is a form of interaction between a pupil and a pupil. An exercise as a form of interaction has the following structure: 1) setting a task; 2) prompting the ways of task fulfilment with or without reference points and its fulfilment (modus operandi); 3) control or self-control. Such understanding of an exercise allows I.L. Bim to call it the basic teaching item in foreign language teaching.

However, this point of view is not unanimous. Sometimes methodologists and TEFL practitioners understand the item of teaching as a grammatical structure (A.P. Starkov), a speech pattern (A.D. Arakin) or a language model (I.M. Berman). A grammatical structure is a scheme expressing the relationships between the components of a speech unit (a sentence, or a phrase) not less than a syntagm. A speech pattern is the typical unit of speech, by analogy with which other speech units of the same structure can be produced. A speech pattern is the speech realisation of a language model in a definite communicative situation. Thus, a speech pattern is a definite variant, while a language model (S + P + O + AM) is an invariant. The language model becomes a speech pattern only in a definite communicative situation or context. The speech pattern is always logically and prosodically shaped and defined. That’s why the speech pattern differs from the language model in:

1. situationally specific and contextually defined lexical meaning;

2. logical stress (which is defined by a communicative task and content of the utterance), rhythm and intonation contour (defined by the type of a sentence – a statement, question, etc.);

3. the definite morphological shaping of the sentence parts in accordance with the language norms.

Prof. Minyar-Beloruchev stresses in this connection, ‘All the attempts to relate structural models or speech patterns to the items of teaching are theoretically incorrect. That is so because it is the transfer of the items of one system (the system of language) into the other system (the system of teaching). The exercise is the item of teaching a foreign language, for it is an indivisible unit of the process of teaching’. This unit is understood as specifically organised and purposefully interconnected learning operations of students, which are limited in the language material.

6.1.2. Teaching curve

The effectiveness of teaching achieved in the result of exercise performance is determined by the following major factors:

• the teacher’s correct distributing the sequence of exercises in time;

• understanding the main principle or major scheme of actions performance;

• the learner’s awareness of the results of the performed action;

• the influence of previously assimilated knowledge and formed skills at a given moment of teaching;

• rational correlation of reproducing and producing.

The process of teaching as a whole is characterised by both progressive qualitative and quantitative changes in knowledge adopted, habits formed and skills developed and their use in various situations. This process is graphically reflected as the teaching curve, or the curve of exercises. Acad. Petrovsky distinguishes between two types of the teaching curves: curves with negative acceleration and curves with positive acceleration.

1. Curves with negative acceleration are characterised by fast habit formation at the initial stage and its gradual slowing down until it reaches some limited level of development.

2. Curves with positive acceleration are characterised by the gradual speeding up of habit formation throughout the process of teaching.

In the process of habit formation there sometimes occurs a period of relative stability of advancement. During this period a learner ‘stands still’, i.e. he is neither progressing nor regressing. Such a situation in the teaching process is called a plateau. This phenomenon indicates the fact that either the content or the techniques of teaching, or maybe the manner of seatwork, or probably all these taken together have exhausted themselves. M.S. Shekhter stresses that habit formation, i.e. automation of operations and their free usage at the same time cannot be reached in the situation of a plateau. The teacher should use some new, different approach or a new system of exercises to provide the learners with a new operational orientation basis for effective habit formation.

At the same time, a new operational orientation basis serves the purpose of habit transfer. The transfer of a habit is performed on the basis of generalisation and is the inner mechanism of teaching. It presupposes the teacher’s purposeful work not only at organising the sequence of exercises but also at selecting language input to be trained.

The general structure of the learner’s knowledge, habits and skills changes in the process of teaching. They become increasingly generalised, contracted, less controlled by consciousness while performed. This change in the structure of the learner’s activity is due to the change in the teaching techniques provided in exercises. The change occurs: a) in the subjective aspect of the activity, i.e. in the way of performing operations, b) in the controlling aspect, i.e. in the ways of control and c) in the evaluative aspect, i.e. in the way of regulating activities.

1. As for the way of operation performance, the previously isolated operations gradually intermingle into a more complex action. In the process, redundant, unnecessary elements of the operations are dropped out. This results in the acceleration of tempo and the perfection of quality of operation performance.

2. At the same time, the control shifts from external visual (or aural) to inner muscle, kinaesthetic one, the so-called inner muscle feeling.

3. Simultaneously, the character of central regulation of operations changes. Attention gets freed from the reception of operation technique and shifts mainly to a situation and the result of operations.

Thus, we may say that the change of the operation itself in the process of teaching reflects qualitative progressive change of the whole activity in general. That is why the teacher should always focus his attention on all the three aspects of the teaching activity while students are performing operations.