Associative symbols method in teacing english

Abstract

The article addresses issues of teaching English to primary school pupils. Recent researches assert that methods based on associations in regard to the development of creative thinking of young learners demonstrate their high efficiency. They are the method of graphic associations, method of sound (phonetic) associations, complex associative method. All of them help pupils to overcome a number of difficulties in language acquisition in a fundamentally new way, help children to absorb better even the basics of their native language (Ukrainian, in our case). A special attention in the article is paid to the new method of teaching English – Method of associative symbols which was developed by teachers of Lutsk schools. The author`s program for teaching 5-10year old children by the method of associative symbols has been developed, based on this program textbooks and workbooks (for kindergartens, the first, the second, the third and the fourth grades) have been created and approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The method of associative symbols highlights the language of movements, gestures, facial expressions, the language of our body, language of coded ideas and associations. This method improves the perception and reproduction of information, being built on the child's ability to imagine and fantasize. It allows to create an image of practically any lexical or grammatical unit by means of bright children’s imagination. The child learns foreign word much quicker if it is associated with a particular image or action. The method incorporates associative symbols into studying a foreign language through imitation.