«One, Two - Trees...»: Counting-out Rhymes in the Teaching of Ukrainian Language to Foreign Students

Abstract

Abstract. The article is devoted to the research of linguodidactic potential of counting-out rhymes in classes of Ukrainian as a foreign language.

Now there are many works in Ukrainian methodology of teaching language to foreign students concerning  the formation of a set of texts for studying purposes. The authors of selected scientific articles suggest including folklore texts (fairy tales, songs, legends, proverbs and sayings, tongue twisters) in the teaching of the Ukrainian language.

The aim of our article is to explore the place and role of the counting-out rhyme as a supplementary text for foreign students of beginner level.

For this purpose, we describe the definition of the term «counting-out rhyme», define the linguistic and methodological criteria for selecting texts and how they should be presented to foreign audiences.

Results of the research. The counting-out rhyme is a genre of children's playful folklore, a small-form poetic text with a clear rhyme-rhythmic structure.

For to study Ukrainian as a foreign language at the beginning stage not all the texts of counting-out rhymes are suitable, but only those that folklorist G. Vinogradov called «chislovka» or «proper chislovka". This type of counting-out rhymes have cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers as a part of their structure.

We consider that the main criteria for selecting and presenting texts of this genre as educational units should be: 1) a simple structure, clear and understandable content of the text; 2) the common vocabulary of counting-out rhymes, which corresponds as much as possible to communicative topics and grammatical material of the beginner level of Ukrainian language learning;  3) the texts of the counting rhymes should be chosen with the aim of practising certain speech skills and abilities; 4) limited amount of the material.

In classes with foreign students, we primarily use counting-out rhymes to introduce the category of numerals and to teach counting. Children's folklore play texts act as very important supplementary linguistic material. Rational, accurate counting (mostly from one to ten) and the rhythm and rhythmics of the short poetic text help a foreign student to learn to count in Ukrainian quickly and easily.

In addition, the expressive reading of counting-out rhymes helps to improve the phonetic aspect of foreign language speech - clear pronunciation of separate sounds, intonation, accents, training of rhythm, speed of speech.

Working with the texts of counting-out rhymes in UFL classes also actualises word meanings within the boundaries of communicative topics of the first year of language learning, enriches vocabulary, and optimises the rapid memorisation of typical lexical-grammatical constructions with their subsequent inclusion in the active vocabulary.

Moreover, tasks with counting-out rhymes engage an element of a game in the learning process, making the lesson more exciting and interesting.

Conclusions. The results of the analysis show that the counting-out rhymes have linguodidactic potential and can be used as supplementary teaching material in UFL classes (beginner level).