E. I. Nikitina’s practical methodology for speech development: traditions and innovations (to the centenary anniversary of the scientist’s birth)

The article provides a general idea of the formation and evolutionary dynamics of E. I. Nikitina’s methodological system created to develop schoolchildren’s speech. This approach is embodied in the teaching materials and study guides by the scientist-practitioner. The research convincingly proves that the scientist built and methodologically supported a holistic, multi-aspect system for the speech development of schoolchildren from the 1st to the 10th forms. E. I. Nikitina herself called it a practical methodology for speech development. As the main results of the study, this paper gives evidence that the textbooks by E. I. Nikitina, on the one hand, continue the Russian educational traditions of schoolchildren’s speech development. On the other hand, they facilitate those innovations that characterise the modern methodological system of teaching the Russian language. The article shows that E. I. Nikitina’s practical methodology for speech development is particularly notable for the systematic exploitation of the educational potential of Russian language lessons based on working with text. Moreover, her approach provides methodological support for forming students’ communicative competence; it promotes schoolchildren’s speech development in conjunction with the development of their thinking. The methodology is oriented to creative speech development in schoolchildren; it systematically implements problem-based learning techniques which are relevant in the modern educational paradigm, as well as facilitates critical thinking, reflective techniques, and so on.