Improving self‑organisation of learning a foreign language in students with different types of subject regulation

Background. Students need self-organisation skills to succeed in their learning activity in general and in learning a foreign language in particular as mastering higher levels of a language requires performing a series of specific actions regularly. Choice of actions as well as their quality depends on student’s level of subject regulation.

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to determine the interconnection of self-organisation components indicators and the indicators of self-assessment of specific actions in learning a foreign language produced by students with different levels of autonomy. This will form the basis for developing recommendations for teachers on activation of students’ cognitive activity and self-organisation.

Materials and methods. “Questionnaire of Self-Organization of Activity” by E. Yu. Mandrikova was used to study self-organisation, questionnaire “Autonomy – Dependence” by G. S. Prygin was used to analyse students’ subject regulation and the authors’ questionnaire was applied to assess students’ self-organisation efficiency in learning a foreign language. The participants were 2^nd - 4^th year students (N=60) in SSU.

Results. The comparative analysis (Kruskal – Wallis test) enabled the authors to determine specific features of students’ self-organisation in each of the groups singled out according to the type of subject regulation. The correlation analysis showed that in the group of “autonomous” students there are more correlations between self-organisation components and the actions focused on achieving goals in learning a foreign language. In the group of “dependent” students self-organisation components mainly correlate with the actions on checking and structuring their language learning activity. In the group of “mixed” students there are more correlations between self-organisation indicators and the actions connected with cognitive activity which ensures students’ adaptation to performing activity including learning a language. Practical value of the research is that its results can be useful for teachers in teaching a foreign language and in providing students with psychological and pedagogical support.