Abstract:

Recent transformations in many areas of life in connection with the pandemic and the introduction of distance learning technologies pose new challenges for the modern Russian school, which should focus on qualitatively new forms of work and their content, on the development of author's curricula focused specifically on modern skills and abilities. To date, no unified methodological base has been developed and no experiments have been carried out that stimulate the appeal to the corpus of folklore texts as a unique means of forming communicative competence, which include both the systematization of thinking and the development of skills of interaction with each other in the context of distance learning of the English language. This fact determines the relevance and novelty of the work. The leading research method was a pedagogical experiment conducted at a school in Kazan, Russia.

The theoretical basis of the work was the monograph of the famous folklorist. Archer Taylor, in his seminal work "English Riddles from oral tradition", described the key metaphorical schemes for constructing the English folk riddle. The author has collected a fairly representative collection of folk riddles in central England, excluding Scottish and Irish riddles. It was this material that was used in English lessons as a means of developing pupils' communicative competence. Diagnostics of the level of development of communicative competence was carried out according to 3 criteria: cognitive-regulatory, emotional-motivational, activity-practical. The pedagogical experiment included 3 stages: ascertaining, formative, control. As a result of the experiment, significant conclusions were obtained. In general, the level of development of communication skills increased by 16% per month of training as part of the experiment. Thus, general level of English proficiency in the experimental group increased by 10% compared to the first half of the year.

Keywords:

Distance learning, English, communicative competence, folk riddle, pedagogical experiment.