Creating Meaningful Foreign Language Environment by Means of Content-based Starters

Abstract

The issues of creating foreign language environment in the English class by means of content-based warm-ups at its initial stage have been revealed in the research. Having analyzed the investigations on the issues under discussion, the role of the class starters and their contribution to the general second language teaching strategy and cadets' inducement to learn a foreign language in particular, have been defined. The expectation hypothesis suggests that content-based starters will exert a beneficial influence on cadets and help improve their academic results. Four cadets' groups of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Humanities who acquire 035 Philology specialty were involved in the experiment in order to test the hypothesis. The methodology of the experiment includes qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. Special focus has been made on the professional training of the future border guards whose responsibilities presuppose the ability to interview the foreigners at the international border crossing points as well as questioning irregular migrants beyond them. The result of the experiment demonstrated the validity of our expectation: the scores of the experimental groups were 5,64 higher in comparison with the control groups' results.