DIDACTIC ESSENCE OF EDUCATIONAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE ENVIRONMENT AS A MEANS OF COMPETENCE-ORIENTED TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN GENERAL SECONDARY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

The author defines and describes the didactic essence of educational foreign language communicative environment, substantiates its components and potential opportunities to serve as a means of organizing competence-oriented teaching in the content of foreign languages school textbooks. He considers this phenomenon as a balanced set of methods, forms and means of teaching aids, contributing to the active mastering of foreign language communication by students in various types of speech activity in accordance with the spheres, topics and language material defined by the current curriculum. The researcher explains this category at the level of activity of two subjects of the educational process: the student and the teacher. He interprets it as a kind of educational space that ensures students’ holistic assimilation of educational content and allows them to show their abilities, motivates their foreign language activities. Besides, educational foreign language communicative environment enhances students’ interest in studying the subject, gives them the opportunity to learn the culture of the people who communicate in a studied foreign language. It also contributes to their education, development and upbringing. At the same time, the educational foreign language communicative environment gives the teacher the opportunity to implement successfully the predictable tasks, allows him to show his own professional experience.According to the results of the research, the author offers a model of educational foreign language communicative environment, presented on the content of school textbooks created by him/her.