Implementation of the principles of sociosemiotics in teaching students foreign languages

Abstract

In the article the prospects of introducing the foundations of social semiotics into the educational process are specified and the perspectives of implementing pedagogical concepts of social semiotics in the process of teaching foreign languages are considered. The authors analyzed the standpoints of foreign scholars concerning the contribution of the students’ semiotic work into the educational process, determined the peculiarities of perception of authentic and educational texts as social communication acts and established the ways of revising the approaches to formation of a language individual. It is stressed, that to fulfil the tasks of social semiotic pedagogy it is expedient to implement the text-based approach into the process of teaching foreign languages. The students’ awareness about the semiotic potential of a text along with their understanding of the importance of the proper choice of linguistic and grammar means for the cumulative meaning of a text and the capacity of its impact on readers should be of crucial importance. For this reason, text analysis and other types of text activities are extensively used in the process of teaching Ukrainian and foreign languages. The authors established that integration of foundations of social semiotics into the process of teaching languages should envisage transforming the principles of the methodology of language teaching, altering approaches to teaching thereof, designing new programmes and criteria for selecting teaching resources. Introducing the foundations of social semiotics into the process of teaching foreign languages should provide greater opportunities to renovate and reconsider the content of teaching syllabi and curricular on foreign languages, and therefore, approaches to teaching languages.