Didactic potential of the English-language country studies game in the formation of sociocultural competence (based on the work of British and American artists)

The article is devoted to the study of the possibilities of using gaming technologies to form sociocultural competence among middle school students. The work reveals the concepts of «sociocultural competence», «interactive technology», «game technology» reveals the component composition of sociocultural competence, substantiates the feasibility of using game methods in the educational process, and also considers the psychological and pedagogical features of students of the middle school. The authors diagnose the initial level of formation of sociocultural competence in students and develop a set of country studies games based on the lexical and grammatical material of the textbook «English in Focus (Spotlight)» for the 7th grade by Yu.E. Vaulin, J. Dooley, O.E. Podolyako and V. Evans with the introduction of country studies material (creativity of British and American artists) and aimed at its improvement. The authors conduct experimental work in English lessons at the middle school to develop socio-cultural competence with the introduction of a developed set of materials (board game) and analyze the results of experimental training, which makes it possible to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The proposed article is addressed to a wide range of readers and can be a valuable resource for teachers, methodologists and everyone who is interested in the use of gaming technologies in the educational process, as well as teachers who prepare students for subject (level) olympiads in English.