Associate Professor, PhD E.N. Tarasova
PhD E.A. Klopova
K.A. Korbut
Military Institute of Physical Culture, St. Petersburg

Keywords: study lecture, speciality language, non-philology students, scientific pedagogical discourse, discursive competency, perception, comprehension, taking notes of lectures, complex skills.

Introduction. In learning activities of foreign students studying in Russia, taking notes of information conveyed in oral form (particularly in study lectures) is of great importance and acts as a tool for acquiring specialized knowledge. As seen from teaching practice, these students have major difficulties in perceiving the material of a study lecture. Methods of formation of these skills and abilities have always been the subject matter for many scientists and methodologists: monographs were published [7], numerous articles are being published today too [8]. However, regardless of the existing concept of taking notes of lectures as one of the key types of learning activity, which is most difficult for foreign students, the methodological works' authors are not unanimous about the methods of forming the relevant skills and abilities.

The aspect of “speciality language” is exposed in practice of teaching Russian language to non-philology students throughout the whole period of study. It plays the leading role in the first year of study when academic activities occupy a dominant position, since the key objective of teaching Russian to these students is to ensure their involvement in the educational process. Academic communication implies lecture listening, reading course books, speeches, preparation of essays, term papers etc.

Educators agree that first year is the most difficult stage in the specialist training system. In this period students acquire background knowledge, which is the basis for their future specialization. Effective learning depends on how they master the style of academic conversation and their basic skill level in receptive, reproductive and productive types of speech activity.

Objective of the study was to state the problem of reviewing a study lecture to implement the scientific pedagogical discourse.

Results and discussion. Assimilation and taking notes of lectures are among the complex speech skills foreign students acquire stage by stage [7, p. 124]. A thorough study and systematic description of the lecture as an academic genre is required to create adequate learning objectives and a methodically appropriate system of formation and development of these skills.

The researchers note that development of “genre competency” plays the main role in teaching a speciality language, that, in turn, “requires inventory and detailed characteristics of linguistic properties, aggregates of verbal clichés and forms, basic pragmatic conventions corresponding to the communicative situation” [3, p. 158]. In scientific and methodical literature devoted to the research of professional discourse, lecture is defined as “a form of pedagogical discourse”, “a form of certain speech manifestations”, “oral form of academic speech”, “oral form of scientific discourse”, “genre of lecture”, “closed system with its own regularities” [6, p. 74,75, 76, 119,166].

V.I. Karasik reviews a lecture as a genre of pedagogical discourse: “Genres of pedagogical discourse can be listed either in the framework of a deductive model formed on the basis of particular attributes (e.g. objectives, types of participants, types of scenarios, ritualization degree etc.), or based on the existing naturally developed forms of communication, for which one can allocate prototype (canonical) units: lesson, lecture (emphasis added – E.T.), seminar, exam, parents’ meeting, debate, parent-child conversation, teacher-pupil conversation etc.” [4, p. 264].

The above material denotes the possibility and the need for the integrated approach to be applied to a university lecture as a subject of learning and linguomethodological description.

The issue can be studied from the perspective of difficulties experienced by foreign students during lectures. What is the mechanism of lecture perception in the context of the activity approach to education? What learning activities should the students perform in tight timing constraints to be able to note the main information? First, you hear the information, then you analyze (think over) and put it down. However, taking notes of a lecture is not a simple sum of listening skills, cogitative information processing and writing. The formation of this competence requires not only a high level of individual listening skills, cogitative assimilation of oral information, writing, but also developing complex skills related to the implementation of these processes though their interaction, which is the case when taking notes of lectures [7, p. 124]. It should be mentioned, that against numerous and various literature sources addressed to learners of Russian, teaching aids on listening and noting lectures are presented insufficiently.

It is obvious that teaching this type of learning activity should be a methodically appropriate organized system of work with oral academic text/discourse. Available teaching aids on Russian as a speciality language are based mainly on written texts.

Let us consider a study lecture in the context of correlation between oral and written speech. In the 1990s, it was noted in scientific literature that the written form is more typical way of realization of academic speech and derivation of oral academic speech from the written one. Absolutization of this finding led to the known distortion: “As long as we consider text as a written speech phenomenon, we will not be able to prepare our students for adequate communication in the field of academic activity, where they need to communicate not only in the written form, but also orally during classes of Russian as a foreign language” [5, p. 51].

Undoubtedly, oral presentation of lecture material is secondary and derivative. As a rule, a lecturer reproduces the information prepared in the written form. However, the nature of an extralinguistic situation – public oral speech intended to convey to students a certain amount of knowledge on the subject – inevitably necessitates using linguistic means common for a spoken language, an oral discourse. The differences between the oral and written forms of academic speech are sufficiently described in the linguistic studies, thus we will not dwell on them. Yet, we should pay special attention to the means of inter-phrase conjunction.

We adhere to the position that students require skills of analysis of semantic, communicative and structural integrity of any text in order to ensure effective receptive activity. Semantic integrity is achieved by the unity of subject, interconnection of raised issues, original approach to their discussion. Communicative integrity is manifested in the author’s choice of a certain functional and semantic type of speech. Finally, structural integrity means that each text is based on a certain model and has available special means of inter phrase connection. Students should learn to single out the means of inter phrase connection as corresponding text (discursive) signals and rely on them.

There are various classifications of formal language bonds in linguistic and methodical literature. Let us draw attention to those mostly related to the oral form of academic speech. For instance, let us proceed to the next item; and now, let us return to the subject; let us focus on the key point; I would (actually) say; as a matter of fact etc. We believe these means characterize not so much scientific text as pedagogical conditions for conveying academic information.

If to review a lecture within the framework of the discursive trend in modern linguistics, then, we believe, it should be designated as a genre of scientific pedagogical discourse. Comparative analysis of the scientific and pedagogical discourses reveals to us both distinctive and common features, converging them to each other. The researchers, defining the descriptive strategy of a pedagogical discourse as a sequence of intentions geared to inform a person, share world knowledge and ideas, note that this particular strategy brings pedagogical and scientific discourses closer to each other, whereas for a student pedagogical discourse objectives significantly coincide with the objectives of scientific communication [4, p. 256].

It is known that explanation is of interlocutory nature. Relying on expertise and experience of the recipient is the foundation for explicative strategy: “Correlation is a discourse deixis indicating familiar situations, features, phenomena. There is a set of linguistic ways of phenomena correlation e.g., “as we know”, “last time we talked about…”, “do you remember…” [4, p. 258]. Interlocutory explanation involves active use of question-answer unities during communication; the explicative process does not exclude return to the subject of speech and repetitions to show different aspects of the subject matter.

However, a teacher not only conveys knowledge to a student, but also controls the process of its assimilation.

The control strategy of a pedagogical discourse represents an intention targeted at obtaining the information on knowledge assimilation by the recipient. By supporting feedback communication a teacher apportions time for explanation of new material and revising, indicates learning steps in class. At the same time, he uses discursive formula to draw attention (addressing, courtesy formula, remarks, specific comments).

It is obvious that intentional organization of oral speech is much more complex. Comprehension of the intentions facilitates new information perception [2, p. 194-196]. Hence, scientists and methodologists point out at the necessity to familiarize foreign students with the modes of expression of various intentions, linguistic and speech implementations of cognitive strategies, emphasize the importance of forming the discursive competency in students: “… If the main independent activity of a student is reading, then in class the significant amount of knowledge is conveyed to a foreign student through oral form (lectures, seminars, colloquiums, term paper defence). Herewith, foreigners … are more capable of studying a complicated written text as they are not time limited, than to comprehend spontaneous, rapid, unadapted oral speech, thus, the problem of forming the discursive competence is especially acute” [6, p. 115].

Conclusion. Unfortunately, the scope of the article does not allow us to highlight the problem to the full. It is apparent that the collected material needs to be analyzed, synthesized and systematized to achieve the scientifically substantiated and methodically appropriate system of formation of lecture assimilation skills of foreign students based on a thorough study and systematic description of the lecture as a way of implementation of the scientific pedagogical discourse.

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