Implementation of the Concept of the New Ukrainian School, where communicative competence is one of the key in the formation of a person, is a strategic task of the modern educational system. The free possession and desire to communicate in native and foreign languages as actual needs of modern Ukrainian society are provided by quality education. Therefore, consideration is given to the studying of genesis of education in historical aspect. In particular, the problem of the development of school language education in Ukraine in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, when fundamentalization of its content was carried out, the first attempts of communicative direction were made and prospective forms and methods of work were implemented, need to be carefully studied. Of course, among the positive ones there were also negative trends: the ideologial content of school language education, declining the role of the native language in the education of the individual, etc.
The object of the study is school language education in Ukraine. The subject of the study is the development of school language education in Ukraine (1959-2013). The purpose of the study is to identify trends in the development of school language education in Ukraine in the second half of 20th - early 21st century and to outline ways of taking into account the ideas of constructive experience in case of designing strategic guidelines for improving modern education.
The scientific novelty of the results of the research is that for the first time in historical-pedagogical science: the scientific-pedagogical problem of the development of school language education in Ukraine in 1959-2013 has been considered, comprehensively investigated and its key trends have been identified: (positive: updating of legal framework of the development of language education; justification as guiding the principles of democratization and humanization of education; the gradual fundamentalization of the content of language education and methodology of language teaching; systematic work on providing skilled personnel potential; constant search for ways to optimize the process of quality language learning); (negative: ideologization and regulation of the content of school language education; prolonged Russification of the Ukrainian school; unsatisfactory material and technical base of schools; formal implementation of prospective forms of work (language contests, social projects); lack of substantiality of innovations); the periodization of the development of school language education in Ukraine from 1959 to 2013 has been justified: the 1st period (1959-1990) is ideologically directed: the 1st subperiod (1959-1983) – productive-search; the 2nd subperiod (1984-1990 years) – reforming-creative. The 2nd period (1991-2013) – nationally directed: the 1st subperiod (1991-2001) – renewable and transformational; the 2nd subperiod (2002-2013) – modernization and integration; the factors influencing the trajectory of development of the Ukrainian school language education have been identified: external (socio-political, socio-economic, socio-cultural, ideological, ethnic) and internal (scientific-pedagogical, paradigmatic, educational and reforming, organizational); prospective forms have been outlined (outdoor lessons, integrative courses, linguistic circles, mini- and mono-performances, films in original language), methods (problematic, productive-creative, tests, stylistic experiment, editing, audio-visual, suggestive); techniques (constructive, transformative, commented writting, mnemotechnics, fast reading) of learning language; the opportunities for implementing positive ideas of the development of language education in the modern Ukrainian school have been described (the re-establishing of the practice of conducting lessons from non-language subjects in a foreign language, correspondence with native speakers of another language, the publication of a school newspaper, interviews with famous people, participation in social projects, application of associative methods, codograms). In the course of the study, the essence of the concepts of «school language education», «development of school language education», «tendencies of the development of school language education in Ukraine» were clarified.
Key words: language education, school language education, development of school language education, trends of development, periodization, Ukrainian and foreign languages.
