Formative Aim

The idea of formative instruction attracts more and more attention of educationalists. By formative instruction we mean switching from explanatory type of teaching to independent search of knowledge. Psychologists and didacticians consider it necessary to share with the learners the experience of creative, gnostic activity which constitutes formative aims of instruction. Investigations in this field will lead to a better understanding of this category but the underlying constituents of the creative activity, which form the content of formative instruction, seem to be the following: 1) logical perception of phenomena; 2) a well-organized mechanism of surmise; inference; 3) habits and skills to be used in new situations; 4) establishing of controversies and alternate solutions to the phenomena under study.

To ensure a better development of pupils in their learning a FL it is important that they be involved in such activities which develop their sensory perception, motor, intellectual, emotional and motivating spheres. It is acknowledged, that for a more intensive development of thinking, it is necessary that the teaching be conducted with a high degree of difficulty, at a quick tempo, with an adequate realization of the duties which the learners are to perform.

Improvement in the quality of teaching in the secondary school, realization of the programme of educating a socially minded individual largely depends on the levels of habits and skills to be inculcated in FL classes. The majority of methodologists agree on four groups of habits and skills:

1) Instructional-organizational; where the classroom activities are performed within the following framework: teacher-class, teacher-pupil, pupil-class, pupil-pupil.

Instructional-organizational habits and skills will also be acquired during independent learning, home reading, doing written homework, where the pupils get acquainted with methods of testing, and learn to exercise self-control.

2) Instructional-intellectual habits and skills are inculcated when the pupils work on sets of structures (IV-V forms), speech patterns (II, III forms), single and plural forms of nouns, degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs, tense forms, modal verbs, etc.

3) Instructional-informative habits and skills are developed when the pupils are suggested to read a tale, a story, a poem, etc. Teaching reading presupposes formation of habits of attentive, cognitive perusal; the accompanying tasks will help the learners to find answers to the questions, to consult a dictionary or reference grammar book, etc.

4) Instructional-communicative habits and skills are the leading ones, especially at primary stage of instruction. The oral approach to FL teaching offers favourable grounds for developing communicative habits and skills because all other skills that will be developed in the learners are based on them. Teaching speaking is based on the formation of habits of making up different types of sentences, rendering a story, making a report, agreeing or disagreeing, etc.

Creative activity as a process of thinking is still to be investigated by scientists and analyzed by methodologists and didacticians. But it is within the teacher's capacities to use the acquired habits and skills in new situations, to apply a systematic approach to teach grammar structures, and vocabulary.

It is evident, that the shortest way to achieve formative goals is by providing a balance of theory and practice in the spheres outlined above.

Consequently, the formation of organizational, intellectual, informative, and communicative habits and skills ensure further development of learners on condition of their active cognitive activity.