A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

This paper briefly outlines the process of a foreign language (FL) acquisition within the framework of the communicative and cognitive approach. Developing learners' communicative and cognitive competence is identified as a current target of learning a FL. The premise is advanced that to achieve the set target the teaching process has to be grounded on the basic principles which are elicited and clarified. The key aspect that is also explored in the study is a spiral way of cognition, which signifies that in the course of learning a FL learners move from perception of the material under study to speech production through such stages as reproduction, apperception, knowledge incubation and creative reproduction. The idea is justified that passing through these stages students develop communicative and cognitive abilities and acquire relevant knowledge, habits and skills that constitute alien communicative and cognitive competence.