CITI - rpiva

New information and communication technologies offer a wider scope ofindividualizing teaching materials and lessons and teachers need to improve their skills toexploit these possibilities, thus constructing a positive, contemporary teaching/learningenvironment. The contemporary educationalists must integrate ICT into the regularclassrooms and enhance the skills of team-teaching and co-operation among teachers. Inaddition, adequate IT skills enable teachers to keep up with developments and provide thetools for life-long learning.RESULTSAs a result of the research the authors have established the following main verities:1. The teacher‘s role in the foreign language introduction into schools demands a differentcomprehension of ―the teacher‘s role‖. Especially, two components are highlighted: 1)maximum openness to the culture; 2) high level of social competency: capability to give upthe role of ―guru ‖, allow the pupils‘ express their own interests and competencies, yetskilfully coordinate this process in class. (Harmer, 2001, 156; Scrivener, 2005).2. Creativity, production and reflection by integrated foreign language and cultureintroduction into the EFL school lessons can be connected mainly to interactive activities – bythe whole class, in group, individually, but also involving of developing of production andreflection competencies. In case of production, it is possible to try, maybe even clumsy at thebeginning, to use the Smart-board, to film a video sequence involving the English language,culture: singing, constructing of compositions by help of computer, to construct materials fordissemination, even trespassing the limits of the subject curriculum by an amazing smartboardproject implementation. In case of reflection, you could suggest a wide analyticalspectre, beginning by an emotional analysis of a music lyrics, that anyone is able to succeedin, to organize the, so called, discovery expeditions, when the students use of their ownmaterials – CD records, articles written by fans, by help of other collected materials on theirfavourite pop musicians or bands, exchange information going even so far as a historicallyculturalcritical discussion, enriched by generous supplies of visual aids, on the culturephenomena both in Latvia and beyond. In this case, the teacher has to be very competent inthe English language, culture, styles of music, popular music, so that the lesson is conductedexpertly (Harmer, 2001; Scrivener, 2005).3. Teachers who are capable being maximum open to the popular culture stylistic diversity,who possess high level of social competency, and who are able to combine knowledge withskills in popular culture theory and practice. To empower the teachers to be ready for theirobjective implementation at school, it is necessary to devote more time during the studies tothese fields of expertise (Harmer, 2001; Scrivener, 2005).4. Projects - It is possible to involve ―live actions‖ and electronic media (Smart-board,CDs, radio, TV, the Internet etc.), by which students/pupils become participants of jointactivities. Thus pupils by means of media can directly contact with art galleries, libraries,musicians and record studios. Obviously, the project implementation demands a longerpreparation time from the teacher.By the analysis of the European Union educationalists‘ researches, we can ascertain that twopotential basic tendencies – tradition maintenance and innovations, which areundergoing tense balance and search for optimal proportions mark the didactic prospectsof the subject EFL at school in the EU as well as in Latvia.Although the offered opportunities provide a good commencement and the adolescent interestshould really increase, nevertheless, we have to face several problems – shortness ofprofessional educators for teaching of EFL, inadequate pupils and students‘ preliminaryEnglish language education, as well as a poor material technical basis for highly qualitativeprogramme implementation.176