Bilingual education as a means of improving future natural sciences teachers quality of education

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of introduction of the elements of bilingual education in professional training of future natural sciences teachers. It has been found out that Ukraine has some historical experience of introducing bilingual education in general secondary education institutions. It has been revealed that the main drawback, in this perspective, is the training of future teachers who would be able to provide the opportunity for school students to study natural sciences subjects in two languages. The content of the elective course "Science teachers training in US universities" which is taught in English, as one of the means of ensuring a "parity model" of bilingual education for future natural sciences teachers and a "displacing model" has been revealed. Learning of this course involves a dual purpose - the formation of students’ knowledge of the concept of natural sciences teachers training in the United States (structure, features of the content, forms and methods of natural sciences teachers training under conditions of continuous pedagogical education) and adaptation of this knowledge to the educational process in Ukraine; formation of intercultural interaction skills. The peculiarity of the training technology is that teaching is carried out in English depending on the level of students’ foreign language competence formation and educational tasks complexity. It has been established that the teaching methods which include the use of different doses of assistance during the performance of cognitive tasks and differentiating of their complexity level are effective while teaching this course. The use of such teaching methods allows to provide each student with the optimal conditions for the maximum satisfaction of his cognitive needs and formation of communicative skills. These methods involve a gradual transition from collective forms of work to partially independent and fully independent and performing of the tasks, the complexity of which is growing. The effectiveness of the content of the course "Science teachers training in US universities" according to such a criterion as didactic quality has been experimentally proved. The quality of its study by the criterion of formation of methods of mental activity and development of types of speech activity has been confirmed.