Cognitive style and its role in individual cognitive sphere in teaching foreign language

The article is aimed to examine cognitive style and to clarify its role and place in the system of individual cognitive activity in the process of teaching a foreign language. The term ''cognitive style'' came into being as a result of juncture of two psychological branches: personality psychology and cognitive psychology. Initially the term was used to describe both individual differences of information processing and personality types based on characteristic modes of their cognitive spheres. The definition of the term ''cognitive style'' is closely connected with the term ''individual style''. Individual style functions as a fundamental component that characterizes the system of operations the person is predisposed to due to personal individual characteristics. Cognitive style is a subsystem of the individual activity style. It includes the gnostical components - the ways of information perceiving and processing -that appear in specific mode of cognitive processes, and influences all levels of mental hierarchy, including personal peculiarities. The undertaken analysis has revealed that cognitive style should be referred to as one of the basic personality characteristics. On the one hand, it occurs in the result of complex combination of biological and sociocultural factors that influence both intellectual and psychological processes. On the other, cognitive style influences individual style of activity and at the same time depends on it. Being an ''intermediary'' between psychic and personal levels of ''integral individuality'', cognitive styles function as the ways to build a picture of the world, including linguistic. We define cognitive style as a general notion that characterizes a cognitive personal sphere and consists of individual preferences in information processing such as perceiving, analyzing, structuring, organizing and evaluating. Since the language is an integral part of cognition and personal mental activity, the approach to teaching foreign languages based on cognitive styles can contribute considerably to implementing the principles of individualization and differentiation within a common educational system. It will facilitate motivational and cognitive spheres of learners and help to promote learning a foreign language as a means of intercultural communication.

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