The thesis is devoted to the study of the theory and practice of teaching support of linguistically gifted students in the United States (the 80s of the 20th century – early 21st century) and outlines the prospects for the introduction of American experience in teaching this category of students in the Ukrainian pedagogical theory and practice.
The scientific studies of Ukrainian and American teachers related to the research of pedagogical support for the teaching of linguistically gifted students in the USA during the study period have been analyzed. American scholars have achieved remarkable success in the consideration of gifted individuals and the search for effective ways of teaching gifted students through the use of test methods in the study of the phenomenon of giftedness.
After performing a detailed analysis of the structure of linguistic giftedness, there is identified its main component – verbal giftedness, which is possessed by every intellectually gifted child, whose linguistic development includes the following components: the rich vocabulary and the ability to quickly replenish it, the tendency to a rapid pace of speaking, early use of long, complex sentences with correct grammar; the ability to constantly ask questions, the ability to understand and participate in adult communication, the ability to adapt their language to communicate with an audience of all ages.
Some theories and concepts of pedagogical support of linguistically gifted students, offered by American scholars, have been analyzed. The analysis of the pedagogical support of linguistically gifted students in the United States, as an integrated systematic and holistic process of comprehensive assistance to children with such special abilities by federal educational institutions, state departments and educators and psychologists from the middle of the 20th century, gives grounds to assert that such preconditions served as the basis for its further development.
Taking into account the influence of socioeconomic, sociocultural, psychological and pedagogical, and linguodidactic factors on the development of the theory and practice of teaching this category of gifted students in the United States as well as on the basis of the adoption of federal normative educational documents promoting positive changes in the development of training the linguistically gifted, the author suggests the periodization of its development, which includes three periods – the first period (1983–1993) – "Period of development", the second period (1993–2004) – "Period of inertia", the third period (2004 – till present) – "Period of acceleration".
It has been found that the identification of linguistically gifted children for participation in special programs began with the cooperation of their teachers, other organizers of the educational process, teachers of Humanities and psychologists who work with this category of students.
It is recognized that an important component of the pedagogical support of linguistically gifted students in the United States is the multiple criteria of diagnosis, which include: English language proficiency tests conducted in the first year of schooling; tests for identifying cognitive, psychomotor and behavioral abilities of students; verbal tests that measure the level of students’ mastery of four types of language skills: speaking, reading, listening and writing; non-verbal tests (tests to identify general abilities): Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test.
There have been identified a number of educational programs for linguistically gifted students of different age groups and representatives of the country’s language and cultural diversity, based on the principles of differentiation of learning, using the strategies for enriching and accelerating learning and modelling effective curricula.
The peculiarities of the organization of teaching gifted students-representatives of different languages and cultural diversity in the United States in the context of further development of their linguistic abilities are singled out.
The requirements for the teachers working with linguistically gifted students are analyzed and seven standards are identified to be followed by the teachers when organizing the learning process of the gifted. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the theory and practice of teaching support of linguistically gifted students in the United States and Ukraine, a number of recommendations have been formulated regarding the use of the American experience of pedagogical support of this category of gifted students in the Ukrainian pedagogical theory and practice.
