Her method of studying English has been around for more than half a century. But she is still considered one of the most successful and effective. Natalia Bonk is a teacher, linguist and woman with an amazing fate. We will get acquainted with the main events of her life and a description of her work.
Biography
The biography of Natalia Bonk began in Moscow in the distant 1924. She was born into a Jewish family with her maiden name Krol. Little Natalya was an only child, she was in good health. Her grandfather was a wealthy man - a merchant of the first guild, a merchant of bread. However, the revolutionary time and collectivization made the girl’s parents hide this fact.
At the age of five, she was sent to a special group at the Patriarch's Ponds to study German. The teachers were native German women. Natalya Bonk went to school at the age of 8. And they took her immediately to the second grade, as the girl knew how to read and write. School number 25 was considered exemplary, it was attended by the children of party leaders. Natalia's classmates were Svetlana Alliluyeva and Svetlana Molotova. And Vasily Stalin went to the pioneer leaders.
War years
When the war began, Natalia Bonk was 17 years old. By her own admission in an interview, people did not believe that the war would drag on for five years. And they hoped that everything would end in no more than two months. It was really scary when the Germans began to bomb Moscow.
Father Natalia at this time had already been sent along with colleagues in an unknown direction. For a long time there was no news from him. Then a family acquaintance came and informed about the accident (plane crash) and the death of the head of the Krol family. However, in 1942, Natalya's mother went to the Palashevsky market for groceries. After reading the newspaper in which the fish was wrapped, she found out that her husband had not died, but was awarded a medal (later also an order) of the Red Army for his active participation in the construction of aviation equipment for the front. A few months later a letter came from my father. He did not report the location. After the victory, he returned safely home.
However, there were still losses. The Krol family had friends of the Moses. Their only son was Eugene. Natalia was in love with a young man. But already in the first days of the war he, among other volunteers, went to the front and was shot down near Voronezh. This loss, Natalia was very hard.
Education
Back in the war years, Natalia Bonk entered the Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. “Everything happened by chance, ” - so she will later say. Natalya successfully bought grocery cards, decided to take a walk on foot and saw an announcement about the enrollment of students at the institute. There was no need to take exams for admission. It was an experimental course for applicants with zero knowledge. A year later, Natalya Bonk spoke excellent English.
Carier start
Soviet education included a compulsory employment program for graduates. Natalya Bonk at the time of deciding whether to enroll her in graduate school was offered to work as a teacher in courses at the Foreign Trade Academy under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The girl agreed. Her students were the chairman of the ExportLes association M. M. Kostolevsky and a party worker, father of the famous poetess A.V. Akhmadulin.
Preparing for classes, Natalya Bonk herself came up with exercises, wrote them in a separate album for drawing, and used them in practice. When one of the teachers visited her lesson and found out about it, the young student was offered to lead the methodological development for teaching English. There was no speech about the textbook then. Together with Bonk, Galina Kotiy worked. After the work was completed and partially practiced, the young methodologists turned to the publishing house to create a textbook. Materials were accepted with reservation. It was necessary to wait until the publication of books by more famous authors took place. Only in 1960, the first textbook of Natalia Bonk saw the light of day. It turned out to be rather thick, which was undesirable at that time. The Austrian company Globus was responsible for its publication. Layout took place on thin paper, and for the final printing we used dense, high-quality. There was a lot of unhappy criticism about the release of the English language textbook by Natalia Bonk. The quantity and effectiveness of exercises were called into question, the explanation of the rules was perceived as complex, incomprehensible.
Soon, Galina Kotiy was invited to work as a secretary in the English sales office. Therefore, Bonk began to refine the methodology already with Lyudmila Pamukhina. The continuation of the textbook was a well-known two-volume. Its quantity was limited in Soviet times. And they tried to acquire the book by any means. Newspapers even appeared ads on the exchange of antiques for a textbook.
Author's technique
The main goal of Natalia Bonk in developing the methodology was to simplify the phonetic and grammatical rules so that a novice student can quickly learn the basics of the language. As recommendations, the author always advised asking the right questions to herself. One of the main things was why a person learns a foreign language. If for a tourist trip, then do not go deeper, waste time and study the English textbook Natalia Bonk. It is more suitable for using the language in the profession. Moreover, you need to engage constantly, a lot of reading foreign texts. It can be newspapers, magazines, but better books about love. To get rid of the accent, according to the author, it is possible (and most correctly) when communicating with competent native speakers.
Textbooks
A rare textbook is able to withstand the test of time. To date, Natalia Bonk is the author of a number of books and methods for teaching English. The most popular were textbooks written in collaboration with N. A. Lukyanova and L. G. Pamukhina. They have already survived several editions and are still used in the school curriculum along with other complexes.
Important in a scientific sense has become a series of textbooks by Natalia Bonk “English. Step by Step ”in three parts. It was written in collaboration with daughter Irina Bonk. The complex is based on a new teaching principle. Exercises, reading texts were specially built on the models of modern spoken English. The textbook is aimed at schoolchildren and students, as well as independent study of the English language.
A family
Father Natalia Bonk's name was Alexander Efimovich Krol. Even before the 1917 revolution, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg with a gold medal. Later he became the director and chief engineer of the paint and varnish factory of the aviation industry. Mother - Rosalia Mikhailovna Boyarskaya was a singer and pianist. She worked at the Moscow Philharmonic. Parents lived a long and, despite the war and famine, a happy life.
Little is known about Natalia Bonk's personal life. She got married already in the post-war years. Anatoly Bonk (died in 1997) returned from the war as an invalid: his left lung was pierced. In marriage, they had two children. The first child died in infancy. The baby had a congenital heart disease. In 1951, a daughter was born to Bonkov, who was named Irina. She followed in the footsteps of her mother. She graduated from Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov and became a linguistic teacher. Irina died in 2005. According to Natalya Alexandrovna, the death of her children broke her. Therefore, she began to work even harder and more to occupy her thoughts with something.
Today
Today Natalia Bonk is 93 years old. But she is still in the active ranks of teachers. Her work experience is more than 70 years. On a professional line, she traveled to many European countries. Especially vivid and warm impressions are associated with Cuba, where the woman also taught English.
Today a photo of Natalia Bonk can be seen at the Department of Foreign Languages of the M. Gorky Literary Institute. She leads English courses, continues methodological work, watches the BBC and gives interviews to various publications.
