Project «The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship» for developing pre-service English teachers’ competence in spoken language production

Abstract

The aim of the article is to create a subsystem of exercises and tasks for the project «The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship» to build pre-service English teachers’ competence in spoken language production during the third year of the first cycle of higher education in the context of the course «English speaking and writing practice».

To achieve this goal, the paper uses the following methods: theoretical analysis of scientific articles on the application of project-based learning in foreign language teaching and on the role of interpersonal relationships; instructional design of a subsystem of exercises and tasks; and selection of relevant authentic material that can meet the educational demands of the project.

As a result, a subsystem of 27 exercises and tasks for the project «The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship» has been developed. It comprises four stages: preparatory, executive, presentation, and reflective. The preparatory stage enables students to critically explore their existing views on the topic through authentic videos, case study analysis, and the selection of their research domain (friendly, romantic, or professional relationships) for subsequent stages. The executive stage engages students with a list of sources in the subject sampler, which requires them to express their stance on the content. Specifically, this stage involves analytical reading, listening, essay writing, and production of mini-monologues. The presentation stage involves development of students’ skills to synthesise the material into a checklist, analyse the structure of a model monologue, create a supporting presentation, plan a public monologue, and deliver it. The reflective stage enables learners to reflect on both their own products and those of their colleagues.

The article concludes that the developed subsystem of exercises and tasks utilises the principle of gradually fading scaffolding throughout the process of developing competence in spoken language production; the opportunity to choose a personally relevant research domain supports students’ intrinsic motivation during the project. Further research may empirically validate the effectiveness of the subsystem in real educational conditions.