Formation of rhetorical skills in school: mental features and active teaching methods

The presence of more than twenty directions in Russian rhetoric is based on a different understanding of the effectiveness of communication. Common is the understanding of the effectiveness as an overall criterion of rhetoricalness – nonrhetoricalness speech communication. This article considers the formation of rhetorical skills in the American and Kazakh schools on the example of the study of literature in a non-native language ‒ didactic prose of Leo Tolstoy. The article analyzes the active methods for the formation of rhetorical competence of the student in the American school, for the schools of Kazakhstan with non-Russian language of education, forecasts of active tasks on the same didactic prose of Tolstoy are offered. These scenarios of designing lessons are explained by the identification of commonality and differences in the formation of rhetorical competence. The solution of such issues is made in the article: an attempt to understand whether the recommendations for the formation of rhetorical skills in the American and Kazakh schools with non-Russian language of education are common, is there a connection with mental differences. To answer this question types of speech activity, argumentation technique, critical thinking, empathy, receptive and productive activity in the classroom (reflection) were analyzed. Comparison of teaching non-native literature in American and Kazakh schools with non-Russian language of education is based on the application of such experience in social life and the formation of students’ motivation to study. The establishment of commonality and differences in the formation of effective communication skills allowed to understand the role of mental characteristics of students, the impact of national psychology of students in Kazakhstan on the cognitive and metacognitive scaffolding. The use of the same types of speech activity ‒ listening, speaking, reading, writing ‒ showed the dominance of speaking in the school in Kazakhstan.