Students’ social-emotional development by means of foreign language learning

The article looks at the problem of learners’ social-emotional development in a foreign language class. Under “emotions” modern psychology means the process which in the form of strong feelings reflects the importance of internal and external situations in a person’s life activity. It is a key principle of humanistic foreign language teaching that instruction should focus on both thinking and feeling. According to A.N. Leontyev, any activity of a person has feelings and emotions as its basis. The paper also looks at different functions of emotions, such as regulation, support, compensation, communication. It is noted that students’ emotional state invariably influences the process of memorization of words, abstracts and whole texts, enhances students’ learning. Also, there is psychological evidence that even the situations which provoke negative emotional reactions, are imprinted upon one’s memory for a longer time than those provoking no emotions. Thus, the teaching-learning process in a foreign language class should be emotionally saturated. Modern foreign language teaching methodology attaches great importance to the construction of positive learning environment in the classroom. To a great extent it can be achieved through the appropriate selection of intonation patterns and vocabulary, as well as overall positive emotional mode of the teacher’s utterances, which enhances the students’ personal development. Social-emotional development is defined in the paper as a process of formation and perfection of socially valued qualities which allow the person to master different ways of emotional response to a wide range of objects and people, ability to realize own emotions and control them in various life situations; ability to establish and maintain emotional contact with other people. Effective language education in general and foreign language learning in particular involve emotional saturation of the teaching-learning process, students’ inexhaustible sense of achievement, excitement and satisfaction over successful activity and communication. Students come to understand what feelings and emotions are, learn how they happen, recognize their own emotions and those of other people, and also develop realization of how to manage them. Special attention is paid in the paper to the communicative tasks aiming at learners’ social-emotional development in a foreign language class.

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