FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AT PRIMARY SCHOOL: UKRAINIAN AND FOREIGN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The article outlines main trends of teaching foreign languages (FL) at primary school in the period of the second half of the 20th century – beginning of 21st century. Numerous researches made it possible to consider learning FL in an early age a perspective and efficient strategy to implement in primary school. The author concludes that most methodologists and educators in the former USSR were unable to freely exchange ideas with their counterparts in Western countries. This situation caused development of different approaches to teaching FL at primary school which were challenged in the 1990s when Post-Soviet educators and methodologists got access to a wide range of foreign textbooks and learned about communicative approach to teaching FL. It took some time for these ideas to be critically considered and adapted to academic conditions and methodology of Post-Soviet countries. At the beginning of the 21st century communicative approach to FL learning was accepted as a general strategy. Its principles were reflected in the new curriculum and Concepts of foreign language learning; new series of school textbooks were developed. Nowadays it is deemed that process of FL learning must be supported by ideas of competence based approach. Its implementation is to encourage development of practically-orientated communicative skills which are an indispensable characteristic of a person living in multicultural and competitive world.