INTEGRATED WRITING TASKS AS A MEANS OF INCREASING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE LEARNING PROCESS

The article discusses the specifics of integrated writing tasks and their didactic potential in teaching a foreign language. It presents a review of various approaches to the tasks under consideration, describes their typology depending on the proposed supports, and outlines a set of certain skills and abilities needed to successfully complete these tasks. Special attention is paid to the cognitive processes involved in completing integrated writing tasks. In particular, the authors dwell upon the problem of clip thinking, which accounts for the difficulties in processing a large amount of information and generating statements based on the data analyzed. The empirical part of the paper centers on the results of the experiment carried out among high school students and aimed at teaching integrated writing skills. A distinctive feature of the paper is the approach to the integrated writing tasks perceived through the prism of the concepts of “mediation” and “mediation skills”. The novelty of the work also lies in the fact that the integrated tasks are seen as a tool to intensify the authenticity of the learning process, which implies implementing the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities not only in the academic environment, but also in everyday practices. The overall results reveal that integrated writing skills need to be trained within the school curriculum on a more regular basis.