OVERCOMING COMMUNICATION BARRIERS WITH 6TH- GRADERS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17721/2663-0303.2021.7.01

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problem of overcoming communication barriers with 6th grade secondary school learners studying a foreign language and searching ways of its solution. The authors analyze the concept of communication barrier and offer their own interpretation of the phenomenon under investigation. The paper also highlights the psychological and pedagogical conditions that affect the process of overcoming an FL language communication barrier by younger adolescents. The article claims that the enhancement of learners’ interaction activity and diminishing the fear of communication can be achieved by implementing a gaming technique in an FL classroom. The authors provide a set of games for 6th graders aimed to overcome communication barriers in the process of oral interaction in a foreign language. The effectiveness of the proposed technique was experimentally proved. The research results demonstrate positive influence of using communication games on students’ emotional state, communicative involvement during foreign language classes, motivates the learning process and enriches their social and communication experience. The survey, conducted among the learners, showed that most of them (90%) experience anxiety and difficulties during communication, which confirmed the prevalence of communication barriers among students at this school age. At the same time, 83.3% of students like games as a type of activity in foreign language lessons, and 76.6% of the respondents admit that the atmosphere in the classroom improves significantly during the game. Observations have also shown that regular use of games in foreign language lessons has had a positive effect on students’ interpersonal relationships. Most students (86.6%) confirmed that in the process of a game they become more active in communication, do not focus on the fear of making a mistake and are more prone to spontaneous speech. 83.3% of respondents noted that during the game, they significantly reduce the level of anxiety in the process of FL communication.

Key words: communication barrier, foreign language communication, communication game, 6th grade students, secondary school

Author Biographies

Nataliia Sorokina, Taras Shevchenko national University of Kyiv

PhD, Associate Professor, Department for Teaching Methodology of Ukrainian and Foreign
Languages and Literatures, Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Her research interests lie within the areas of implementing Information Technologies in the teaching-learning process, professional communicative strategies, modern teaching strategies

Veronika Diachenko, Taras Shevchenko national University of Kyiv

Department for Teaching Methodology of Ukrainian and Foreign Languages and
Literatures, Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Downloads

Published

2021-10-10

How to Cite

Sorokina, N., & Diachenko, V. (2021). OVERCOMING COMMUNICATION BARRIERS WITH 6TH- GRADERS IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM. Ars Linguodidacticae, (7), 4–11. https://doi.org/10.17721/2663-0303.2021.7.01

Issue

No. 7 (2021)

Section

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN TERTIARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Наталія Сорокіна, Вероніка Дяченко

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Copyright policy according to the terms of the license: Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial" 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Authors who publish their articles in "Ars Linguodidacticae" (Open Access Journal) retain the following rights:

  1. The authors retain the copyright of their article and grant the Ars Linguodidacticae journal the right to first publish the manuscript of their article under the Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 4.0) Attribution License, which allows others to freely distribute the published work with mandatory reference to the author of the original work and first original publication in the Ars Linguodidacticae journal. An indication of the retention of the copyright of the work is provided on the title page of the article.
  2. The authors reserve the right to enter into separate contracts for the non-exclusive distribution of their article as published in Ars Linguodidacticae (e.g., placing the article in electronic libraries, archives and catalogs or publishing it as part of institute collections and monographs), provided that a full reference to the first original publication in Ars Linguodidacticae is given.
  3. The policy of the "Ars Linguodidacticae" journal allows and encourages authors to post a manuscript both before and during editorial processing, as this promotes productive scientific discussion and has a positive effect on the speed and dynamics of citing the article.

The editorial board reserves publishing rights to:

- the collated original articles and to the entire issue of the journal.

-  the design of the journal and original illustrative and supplementary materials.

- the reprint reprints of the Journal in printed and electronic form.

The copyright policy is carried out according to the terms of the license: Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial" 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

For more information, please read the full text of the CC BY-NC 4.0 Public License.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.