ISSN 2409-7616

Polunina L.N.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ METALINGUISTIC COMPETENCE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: A BILINGUAL APPROACH

DOI: http://doi.org/10.15350/2409-7616.2021.4.45

UDC 372.881.111.1

Polunina L.N.1 (Tula, Russian Federation) – E-mail: poluninaln@mail.ru

1Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University

Abstract. Globalization entailed two main trends developing now in world’s socio-cultural environment: the intensification of cross-cultural mobility and the dominance of English as global language that plays a crucial role in ensuring successful communication between members of different cultures. Due to the growing popular demand for teaching English as an additional language across the globe, modern linguodidactics further improves teaching methodology considering a changing sociolinguistic situation. Over the past few decades, researchers have developed several productive concepts within a bilingual approach including the concept of interaction of the first and target languages in learning process. The aim of the present paper is to define the structure of metalinguistic competence and the methods of its development as well as to reveal its influence on the progress in English language acquisition. The study is based on the sociolinguistic theory of translanguaging, theoretical ideas of cognitive science, communicative and sociocultural approaches to foreign language teaching and current research of bilingualism. In the context of the research problem metalinguistic competence is considered as a dynamic unity of the knowledge about the structure of the target language; the ability to use this knowledge for target language learning; and awareness defined as the ability to abstract away from the speech content to consciously reflect on the language itself and operate it. The structure of metalinguistic competence is related to the structural levels of a language system and combines phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical awareness. The research proposes an algorithm of metalinguistic competence development based on the contrastive analysis of language phenomena for identifying their convergence or difference, and the differentiation of language phenomena considering the type of knowledge (declarative or procedural) that facilitates their interiorization. This scheme allows determining the volume and content of language input depending on age, level of proficiency in target language, short-term and long-term tasks as well as promoting students’ conscious performance within an integrated environment of two languages.

Keywords: foreign language teaching, bilingual approach, metalinguistic competence, linguistic transference.

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For citation:

Polunina L.N. The development of students’ metalinguistic competence in foreign language classroom: a bilingual approach. CITISE, 2021, no. 4, pp.494-503. DOI: http://doi.org/10.15350/2409-7616.2021.4.45