Abstract:

The article substantiates the relevance of developing interdisciplinary connections on the basis of native region study while teaching a foreign language to pre-service teachers at university. This is ensured by the great potential of a foreign language as a subject for increasing awareness of one's national identity. The purpose of the research is to prove that native region study enhances students’ personal, metasubject and subject learning outcomes.
The theoretical and methodological analysis of scientific literature revealed the importance of relying on the principles of holistic, systematic and communicative approaches in the system of foreign language professional pedagogical training in which the national regional component of the educational content offers a variety of ways and means of such principles orchestration. In this framework interdisciplinary connections implemented through project work were hypothesized to provide the methodological feasibility of the research.
The effectiveness of native region study based on subject integration in project work was confirmed by the data of the conducted empirical research, which showed the demand for interacting with the social environment of the region, the need to teach a foreign language through domestic and foreign cultures’ juxtaposition. Within the project work the students were to get acquainted with various aspects of the city and region life as a potential material for study: they expanded knowledge about national and regional peculiarities, cultural objects of the city, mastered foreign language lexical material for the presentation of this information in English. The assessed product of the activity was the excursion held by the students in English which showed their improved outcomes: personal (heightened by 18% motivation for learning, increased by 25% pride in the culture of their native land), metasubject (improved by 12% teamwork skills), subject (profound knowledge of the vocabulary and grown by 52% ability to use it in speech). The measurement tools included questionnaire and expert assessment of the project product.

Keywords:

National regional component of education, native region study, teaching a foreign language, interdisciplinary connections, subject integration, project work, pedagogical education.