The influence of methods and means of teaching foreign languages on the students’learning outcomes and their academic motivation: review from Kazakhstani teachers’ perspective

Nowadays, with the development of international cooperation and socio-economic relations of the Republic of Kazakhstan with foreign countries, the need for highly-qualified specialists in various fields with the knowledge of foreign languages has increased. Therefore, educational institutions are paying more attention to the quality of training of foreign language teachers. The aim of this article was to study the impact of the grammar- translation and the communicative methods of teaching foreign languages in combination with authentic materials on the formation of students’ language skills and their academic motivation. A survey was conducted among 30 teachers of foreign languages from five universities of Kazakhstan training future foreign language teachers. The following aspects were considered, namely, (a) teachers’ opinion on the interdependence of teaching methods and students’ academic motivation, (b) teachers’ experiences of using authentic teaching materials, and (c) teachers’ perception of the combination of these two methods along with authentic materials. It was concluded that both teaching methods have strong and weak sides. Therefore, it is necessary to use these two methods in complex with authentic materials in order to have a concurrent impact on the development of all four language skills of students and achieve the necessary results.