Theme: principles of teaching dialogical and monological speech

Monological speech

Teaching monologue speech is an extremely difficult matter. In this aspect question-and answer exercises are not the most adequate means of teaching. As for the dialogical form of communication, this is the most characteristic form for the manifestation of the communicative function of the language . At the initial stage, the dialogical form of communication involves the ability to greet the interlocutor and respond to the greeting, as native English speakers do. A monologue statement is considered as a component of the communication process at any type of communication: in pairs, group and mass. This means that any monologue statement is monologic in nature, always addressed to someone, even if this addressee is the speaker himself, although in structural and many other relations its types are very specific. What is the content basis for teaching monologue and dialogic speech, elementary content of speaking? Therefore, from all the richness of the content of speaking, it is necessary to choose such a set of its components that it is the content of teaching speaking. Until now, the content of speaking training is determined by the range of so-called conversational topics indicated in the program. But, as has been repeatedly noted in the literature and as practice has shown, the organization of material in traditional topics is not effective enough. Obviously, the theme is not the form in which the content of speaking is actually has. What is the appropriate form? After all, the communicative method involves building the learning process as a model of the communication process. Therefore, it is necessary to find the true form within which the content of speaking functions; it is this form that will be an adequate basis for the selection and organization of speech material. Of course, the selected content should be educational, informative, and age-appropriate for students. But there is another aspect that seems to integrate all the others. The correct definition of the content of teaching speaking (the selection of true subjects) determines the motivation of speech activity, which seems to be far from the language material. We need such a subject of speaking, i.e. a set semantic content, which could meet with a communicative need and, by objectifying it, become an internal motive for speaking. How do I find these “items”? As we know, the second signal system of a person keeps the entire world around him in speech reflection. Consequently, knowledge about all spheres, areas and sectors of reality is stored in the human mind. They are stored in the form of models formed as a result of direct and indirect experience of performing activities in certain areas, fields and spheres.

Teaching a monologue is an extremely difficult matter. Therefore, there are three main parameters of a monologue statement, which constitute the main difficulties and require special teaching aids.
1. The relatively continuous nature of an utterance that lasts for a certain time, without being interrupted by anyone (anything). This quality of a monologue statement is primarily a very specific psychological mood of the speaker, as well as the organization of his statement. The main mechanism here is the super-phrase affirmation mechanism. That is why a monologue statement is not the sum of answers to a series of questions.
2. Consistency is the quality of manifestation in the development of the idea of a key phrase in subsequent ones. The key phrase can be found anywhere in the monologue statement. For learning, it is important to know how the utterance unfolds, what patterns there are, what models underlie different types of monologue utterances.
3. Relative semantic completeness, communicative orientation, logical sequence. It is necessary that the consistency temporary, but semantic. (chronological listing of actions) of actions in a monologue statement.
Monologic method has a long and rich tradition with rather emphasized amplitudes of decrease and increase in its didactic application and development. There is no social historical period in which monologue has not been present as a way of upbringing and education. In the first schools of wealthy societies of the Sumerians, of Babylon, Egypt, India and China, accent was put at the suggestive expression of precisely determined religious words and texts; as a consequence, it is in these narrations and the so called self-grown rhetoric that we can find the (pre)roots of monologic teaching method, since it is a perceived and shaped verbal presentation with its underlying purpose to persuade and attract the listeners, especially young ones. However, the essential grounds of monologic method have been found in classical antique philosophy and rhetoric, especially in the pedagogical work of the Sophists, i.e. sophistic efforts to put form before the contents of presentation, as well as in Plato’s ethical and theoretical-cognitive orientation and Aristotle’s “philosophy of rhetoric” deriving general principles of all types of rhetoric. Greek tradition was followed by Rome, before all through Cicero’s orientation towards bread and versatile education without which there can be no perfectus orator, as well as through Quintilianus twelve-volume text book on rhetoric in which the rhetorician and the pedagogue avoided strict, universal and generally accepted rules, considering that each verbal situation is a challenge of its own any speaker should manage freely, originally and creatively. The lessons on originality, arising out of personal features, on the importance of sincere and deep belief in what is talked about, on suggestiveness, simplicity, etc. as special qualities of verbal expression have been found in the rhetoric of the Old Testament Hebrew prophets, Buda, Confucius ,Jesus Christ and Eastern Christian and Western Christian preachers after them. The time marked by the stated philosophers and preachers can be considered the time of rise of monologic method in the process of upbringing and education of young people, regardless of the dispute that “was smouldering” between rhetoric-formalistic orientation and intellectualistic-content orientation in the theory and practice of oratory. Despite bright examples of preaching, in the period between century AD, the priests – teachers shifted the emphasis from the teaching content, which is explained and understood, to the form of speech, mostly relying on emotions and learning by heart, having also an influence on monologue in teaching (before all in the school which were at the time in the scope of cathedrals, monasteries and parishes), leading to its gaining of dogmatic and scholastic character. It was a long period of time, which can be characterized as a fall in the development in monological teaching method, marked by pedagogically and didactically inadequate application of the method. This is when rhetorical theory and practice and pedagogical theory and practice came to the point of break-up in their development. Namely, while rhetoric had the status of free skill (spiritual science), monologic method was reduced to a lesson in Christian “science” in the form of a lecture and catechism. Scholastics, which in the early Middle Ages had given a significant contribution to the development of formal-logical thinking and skills of judgement, classification and defining, was boiled down to in advance prepared questions and answers and mechanical learning, which was completely rejected by the thinkers of humanism and renaissance, who emphasized activity and development of child’s personality according to it. F. Rable and M. de Montaigne, the well-known representatives of humanism and renaissance, did not negate the importance of verbal activities of teachers and students; they rather tried to offer a whole range of pieces of advice and protect monologue in teaching from its (mis)use in the function of century, humanism and renaissance also managed to put rhetoric on a pedestal in schools, university, literature, political judicial field, as well within religion. In this period – the period of historical triumph of rhetoric – monologic method was developed, especially in rehabilitated fields – mathematics, history, geography, mechanics and astronomy. However, the development of the mentioned field in the theory and practice of rhetoric continued relatively independently in the centuries to come. Changes were introduced in rhetoric and pedagogy, having determined the direction of the development of monologic teaching method. Rhetoric, which used to take the most important place in education for 2500 years, directed its strengths to holding of preaches, dictating, writing letters, the skill of writing verses. While rhetoric was transformed intoa collection of theoretical principles and complicated rules, followed by affected style, pedagogic thought was intensively developing. The first comprehensive didactic study – The Great Didactics (Didacta Magna) by Jan Amos Komensky raised a number of questions related to theory and practice of upbringing and education in primary school teaching. These questions have not been answered yet. Within these questions there is a problem of monologic method, always implicitly involved in teaching, but never theoretically elaborated to the extent it had been done with some other methods of teaching work. In fact, educators dealing with didactics paid special attention to monologic method in their considerations and research only when underestimation of its value and criticism of the method started, mostly within broader criticism of class-lesson and subject matter system of teaching and frontal work within it. They were to greater extent oriented towards the development of different approaches to teaching, and within those they gave partial instructions to teachers and students for the application of monologic method, according to which they wanted to avoid “ill-founded trust in words”. This, however, was not sufficient to preserve monologic method in the century from the characterization of “retrograde” method belonging to an “old” school. This was accompanied by positivistic demands for scientific and teaching methods in humanities to get closer orreplaced by the methods of natural science, thus replacing deductive way with inductive way of gaining insights. Such a position of monologic method has not even been changed by spiritual-scientific pedagogy and its explanation that social phenomena do not have the regularity and uniformity of development and change like natural phenomena. The research on monologic method in primary education teaching is
motivated by the constant negative criticism of theme method (in both scientific and professional literature), leading to certain terminological dilemmas (e.g. undifferentiating between verbal and verbalistic teaching, boiling monologic method down to lecturing activity of a teacher) andlong lasting inadequate or insufficiently adequate application of the method in teaching, without any attempt to systematically change the causes of such implementation. Devaluating of the didactic values of monologic method has resulted in the “live word” of a teacher being unfavourably positioned inrelation to other activities of teaching and learning in teaching. The paper analyzes a part of the results of a research oriented to reaffirmation of monologic method in accordance to contemporary teaching needs and achievements of pedagogy as well as other sciences (rhetoric, logics, linguistics, psychology, communicology, ethics, etc.). The emphasis of the interdisciplinary research is not to reveal new teaching methods; it is rather to offer a new didactic grounding of the existing teaching method, referring to finding and didactic shaping of the standards enabling efficient implementation of monologic method in contemporary teaching. At the same time, the research does not affirm monologic method according to criticism or disproving of other methods. It is based on the current didactic standpoint that a variety of methods and teaching methodological procedures are necessary in teaching, with monologic method being understood as only one of a number of structural elements intersecting with other teaching process elements within didactics and teaching methodology. - In our search for an answer to the question – is itpossible to find a pattern according to which teachers could opt for the processing of contents according to monologic teaching methods – we have come to a conclusion on.
The above characteristics of monological speech are characteristic of it in real life, in real communication. When teaching conditions impose some restrictions on this type of speech activity, therefore, in kindergarten they talk about educational monologic speech, which has the characteristics of a natural, but minimized form. The main purpose of teaching speaking is to develop the ability of children to carry out verbal speech communication in a variety of socially determined situations. As a linguistic component of the content of teaching monologic speech, scientists call speech samples of different levels from a simple sentence to a coherent monological utterance -text. In the methodological literature there is no consensus on the level nature of monological statements. Researchers talk about three levels of monologue speech - one sentence, connected speech and free speech. The proposed classification is based on quantitative principles (volume of utterance, lexical and grammatical diversity.) And qualitative characteristics (depth of disclosure, consistency, completeness, value judgments.). Researchers offer the following levels of monologic utterance (the classification is based on criteria - the number and quality of illustrative supports, the quantity and quality of semantic milestones - main thoughts in a monologic utterance, the quantity and quality of derived language material):
- the level of one sentence, the final product of which is an elementary monologue A sentence can be considered a monologue if it contains a complete thought. The semantic milestones of an elementary monological utterance are contained in the words, the main members of the sentence.
- the level of the minimum monologue utterance, the final product of which is a monologue utterance of a certain functional-semantic type - description, narration (story), reasoning (one semantic milestone in the sentence and derived language material, necessary and sufficient to clarify the idea inherent in the main sentence) .
- the level of detailed monological utterance, a text-level message (several semantic milestones and derived language material). Brandes M.P. He said that in real communication a person uses the so-called contaminated speech, which is not a thematic combination of different speech forms, but their internal crossbreeding, but in educational conditions it seems advisable to talk about the educational description, narration and reasoning. According to E.I. Motina, the description is a way of presentation, which is a characteristic of objects, phenomena or parts in a static state. It is characterized by a simple stringing of sentences in the order of their logical sequence. Usually the description is objective, devoid of emotionality. Description has its own structure (conception, central part, ending). According to O.A. Nechaeva, narration is a functional-semantic type of speech that expresses a message about developing actions or conditions and has specific semantic means for the implementation of this function. The narrative has its own structure (introduction, main part, conclusion). In the narrative, a change in the time plan is observed, expressive-emotional means are used. O.A. Nechaeva believes that reasoning is a type of speech that is characterized by special relationships between its judgments, models of inference, and a specific linguistic structure, which depends not only on the logical basis of reasoning, but also on the semantic meaning of the opening judgment. Reasoning is the most difficult type of monologue utterance, its structure includes three parts - the initial thesis (information whose falsity or truth is to be proved), the argumentative part and the conclusion. In the discussion, it is necessary to use synonymous language tools that develop thought in a new way.