Psychological Peculiarities of the Development of Junior Students’ Voluntary Attention in the Process of Teaching English at Secondary School

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study micro-age properties of stability and concentration of the 1 grade students’ voluntary attention at secondary school, to determine the levels of their development, interrelation of attention with junior schoolchildren’s thinking, as well as psychological and pedagogical conditions for activating junior students’ voluntary attention to increase the efficiency in learning English.

Methods of the research. The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: empirical method, psychological and pedagogical experiment, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization.

The results of the research. The following new thesis has been elaborated: interconnections between the identified properties of voluntary attention (stability and concentration) thinking and junior students’ academic success in learning English determine their positive interactions in the process of speech development; it is also proved that properties of voluntary attention influence students’ individual psychological peculiarities (anxiety, communication, self-assessment, temperament properties) and vice vesa – individual characteristic features of students may have their impact on the main properties (stability and concentration) of voluntary attention. Use of visual aids at the English language classes directly influence the mechanisms of formation of junior students’ voluntary attention as well as their individual psychological peculiarities therefore contributing to development of young learners’ speech and communicative skills. A new conceptual model of development of young learners’ voluntary attention has been created, which takes into account its typical individual characteristic features (the degree of concentration on a particular task, the level of distribution of attention in the process of describing objects using collage visual aids). A new technology on the basis of English language exercises directed towards psychotherapeutic influence on the development of children’s basic properties of voluntary attention in their connection with thinking was created. Criteria, indicators and a set of methods, including author’s psychological training activity, are presented to diagnose development of main properties of 6–8-year-old students’ voluntary attention. It was proved that effectively used visual aids in the educational process have a great impact on the development of young learners’ monologue speech, reduce the level of their anxiety, improve communicative skills, motivate schoolchildren to be active, develop their interests and finally increase their self-esteem.

Conclusions. Criterion-oriented diagnostics in the research helps identify the actual data within these age categories that characterizes five different levels of development of stability and concentration of voluntary attention in comparison with the level that characterizes optimally realized age potential of this category of young learners. In the experimental research a large amount of factual data is obtained and systematized, having characterized individual and individual-typical peculiarities of stability and concentration as the properties of voluntary attention in typical learning conditions, which can be taken into account when organizing psychological and pedagogical service at primary school. Purposeful and systematic formation of 6-8-year-old schoolchildren’s self-control actions may be realized if teacher is aimed towards not only the development of voluntary attention, but also implements the technology of forming mental actions, applies the individual pedagogical approach in teaching junior students, using diagnostic data in its dynamics on the basis of early correction of applied learning technology.