A TEXTBOOK OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AS ONE OF THE KEY MEANS OF THE PROVISION OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION EFFECTIVENESS AT SCHOOL: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION STATES

Abstract

It is of common knowledge that designing textbooks is one of the most hotburning issues in education all over the world whereas the research on has already become more than topical. In the article, the peculiarities of the creation of foreign languages textbooks for the pupils of the comprehensive secondary institutions in the European Union are studied; the analysis of the infl uence of the principal legislative documents on the modern development of a textbook is conducted; in particularly, the criteria for the quality assessment of a textbook of the subject under consideration are defi ned. First of all, it was found that the adoption of «Common European Framework of Reference for Language: Learning, Teaching, Assessment» in 2001 and its updating in 2007 were crucial in the development of foreign language education in Europe including constructing of an academic book as they include the requirements for the lexical content of a textbook, material and instructions representation for a pupil. Besides, the most wide-spread approaches to the designing of the textbooks were represented by the author; the functions which must be performed by a foreign languages textbook of high quality are determined, and the examples of the exercises which are aimed at the pupils’ comprehension of grammatical material are provided. Finally, in the article, the cycle of independent learning created by British scholars was provided and specifi ed whereas the advantages and the disadvantages of the printed and the electronic textbooks as well as the possible ways for their effective usage at the lesson were defi ned. The article can be of special interest for educators and textbook authors.