Autodidactic approach: forming self-directed efl learning readiness

The article deals with the problem of preparing intending EFL teachers at teacher training universities for professionally-oriented selfdirected learning readiness in the field if foreign languages. For this purpose the brief outline of basic characteristics of such a readiness is given on the basis of analysis of scientific literature on the problem. The authors of the article share their positive experience in applying the autodidactic approach to teaching English to students of the English Department in the Institute of Foreign Languages of Ural State Pedagogical University. The research results prove that it is possible to effectively form students’ self-directed EFL learning readiness by means of increasing their methodological awareness in the field of teaching foreign languages and applying their knowledge and skills to the process of self-directed learning itself both within and beyond the classroom environment. The three stages of the approach are described in detail: learning, self-directed learning, and peer-teaching. The final stage is considered professionally-oriented since it allows students to act in the capacity of future teachers of English but, here, within the classroom environment. The approach is realized according to five consequent principles: intersubject coordination, tutoring, individually oriented assessment, heuristic and multitasking principles. The principles by their nature go back to the student-centered and activity approach, the integrative-differentiative approach and the contextual approach which serve as the methodological bases of the autodidactic approach developed