Fiction Novels And Short Stories Research Papers (original) (raw)

Today audiobooks are recognized as effective didactic tools by foreign researchers and methodologists. However, they are still an unexplored phenomenon in Ukraine. We aim to develop an effective methodological procedure with appropriate listening activities, which can be incorporated into foreign language teaching practice at Ukrainian pedagogical universities. Therefore, the issue of audiobook selection for listening skills development of pre-service English teachers is investigated here. On the basis of recent research into text selection for enhancing students’ listening skills and discourse analysis of contemporary short stories in audiobook format, we have determined criteria for fiction which should be used for intensive and extensive listening practice. They include the following: professional performance and recording, highly artistic works, representativeness, relevance of content, the degree of accessibility and simplicity, contemporary topics, diversity (for intensive listening); professional performance and recording, correspondence of the genre and the content of a short story to students’ interests, the degree of accessibility and simplicity (for extensive listening). Since audiobooks are recognized as the art of today, we insist that the basic criterion for the selection of authentic short stories is their professional narration and recording. Such audiobooks give the best opportunity to enjoy listening to fiction, promoting the
development of aesthetic needs. Based on the discourse analysis of contemporary short stories, we highlight the main features that have a signifi cant impact on the result of listening. They are the following: poetic language, socio-cultural lexis, dialect, slang, terms and professionalisms, social and regional accents, English varieties, psychological
and mystic plots, intertextuality, highly informative plots, exogenous context,
«open» endings, humor, sarcasm, irony, atypical narrative form, atypical composition and architectonics. The analysis of the selected audiobooks suggests that the indicators of their objective complexity vary, therefore, it is necessary to assess the degree of their accessibility and simplicity for a particular group of students in advance, which will help to select an appropriate short story, predict its potential difficulties and organize effective listening practice.
Key words: audiobooks, extensive listening, fiction, intensive listening, listening competence, pre-service teachers, selection criteria, short stories.