DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ LEXICAL COMPETENCE AT UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE LESSONS

The article deals with the issue of primary school students' lexical competence as a component of more general – language competence. It aims to reveal different approaches to mastering the bases of lexicology in the 2nd-4th grades. On the basis of observation and talking to primary school students it has been revealed that their vocabulary is rich with dialect words used in direct meaning; they almost never use phraseological units. When making sentences and stories, they use a lot of improper words, tautology. The development of lexical competence is considered as a step-by-step mastering of lexical concepts in the language system, maturity of lexical skills, ability to use them when speaking. The following methods of teaching lexical units are suggested: explanation, heuristic conversation, language observation, work with a textbook; as well as interactive, gaming and practical tasks. A fragment of a lesson has been suggested in the paper using didactic games, for example, ―Ukrainian Chaplet‖. The experience of working at primary school has made it possible to emphasize the following lexical and semantic exercises contributing to the formation of children's national consciousness: listening comprehension of texts about Ukraine, exercise ―Enriching one's vocabulary‖, ―Speak oratorically‖, working with texts, interactive communicative exercises, etc. A teacher can also use such methods of enriching children's vocabulary: interpretation of a lexical meaning of a word by means of a dictionary; finding lexical and grammatical meaning of a word; making sentences using key words, finding synonyms, antonyms, text revision. One of the main tasks of a teacher is to prevent lexical mistakes in written and oral language of primary school students. The teaching methods and exercises will help to form primary school students' communication skills and contribute to the development of their speaking.