Joint preparation of students for the foreign language exam on the basis of the author's textbook

Authors:
Dashkina Alexandra I.
Abstract:

The article deals with the use of the author's manual on the analysis of quotations as a supplement to the basic course on oral practice. The manual contains the same topics as the main textbook. It can be used by students in preparation for the oral exam; in which analyzing quotes is one of the tasks. The first section of the manual describes all the stages of the quotation analysis. It also includes a sample multi-step analysis of a quote which can be used by students with other quotes. Each of the other sections contains five quotations corresponding to the topics of the basic textbook. One of the quotes from each section contains questions and quests, examples of films, videos and literary works illustrating the topic. The manual includes opposite points of view in order to stimulate a discussion. It also provides additional vocabulary for each section and biographical information about the authors of the utterances. The manual can be used both for self-education in the process of independent work, and for language practice in pairs and small groups. It was tested in two groups of linguistic majors. In the first group the students did all the assignments by answering the questions from the book in front of the teacher and the other students. In the other group the students were divided into pairs or small groups, which included students with different levels of foreign language mastery, who were supposed to analyze the quotations together. In the group in which students performed the assignments in the process of collaboration the average examination score was higher than in the group working with the teacher. The results of the testing the book in the groups of students demonstrate that the collaborative quotation analysis is more effective than performing the assignments in turns in front of the teacher and the other students due to the additional language practice that students receive whilst discussing the quotations.