Abstract:

The appeal to composition as a form of written work at foreign language lessons is due to the urgent need to prepare students to pass international language exams, including, in particular, the section "writing". Writing as an independent language competence implies the use of advanced writing skills. The latter stimulate the development of oral speech and act as an indicator of utterance fluency.

Improvement of writing skills is a special methodological task. Written exercises and assignments on the development of productive speech in a foreign language are often associated with the risk of routine, formalism and, as a consequence, loss of interest on the part of students to such types of work. Meanwhile, the importance of writing from the position of mastering grammatical structures and enriching the vocabulary is undeniably high.

In this regard the project method, which alleviates some of the similar difficulties, opens remarkable possibilities for teachers. The purpose of this article is to describe our experience of transforming a literary composition from a form of traditional written assignment into an object of project activity at foreign language lessons. Using the project method it is possible to solve not only the practical tasks of mastering a foreign language, but also motivate students to search for solutions to additional verbal and paraverbal tasks. The proposed initial structure of the project focuses on students who continue their foreign language learning. Collective participation in the creation of written work of any literary genre becomes both a condition and one of the training purposes at the same time.

The aim of the project itself is to write and "publish" a complete literary text. At the beginning of the work, students receive certain information about tasks, time frames, and the overall sequence of project stages. The main structural components of the work are story questionnaire, division into chapters, distribution of chapters among the groups of students, independent work on writing, reading aloud, discussion and concatenation of chapters, formal and final editing, choosing a title, and "publication". It is necessary to note that all the main types of speech activity are stimulated during the work on the project. For example, listening and reading skills are in demand at the introductory lecture stage and at the stage of listening to the written excerpts. At the stage of questionnaire fulfilment and during the process of independent work students face the task of reproductive and productive writing. Separate complexity of the work can be observed during disputes when discussing the work plan, the plot features of connecting the chapters, requiring foreign language speaking skills.

Thus, the complex of activities described above is an effective form of mastering new structures and repeating the well-known grammatical structures, stylistic figures of speech and enriching vocabulary. As a form of project activity, the literary composition provokes sincere interest among students, encouraging them to work with a foreign language and contributing to the development of their creative potential and independence.

The materials of the article may be taken in direct work with students and schoolchildren to develop their productive writing skills.

Keywords:

University education, composition, foreign language lesson, project activity.