In modern pedagogy, as a result of the transition to training according to federal educational standards, active attention is paid to the personal qualities of students, the formation of competencies that will help them adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions. This issue is relevant at the current stage of training the younger generation and contributes to solving the main requirement of the new standards (FGOS) “teach to learn”. This article discusses the possibilities of web quest technologies to increase the cognitive activity of students. The pedagogical conditions for using web quest technologies in English classes are highlighted, the stages of creating web quest technologies are defined.

The article discusses the possibility of using students’ own questions to enhance their cognitive activity and increase their intellectual independence. Based on modern logic and methodology, the authors argue that the ability to independently raise and improve questions is a necessary condition for both thinking and learning activities. At the same time, the modern school not only does not teach to raise questions, but also excludes situations where students could do this. The article gives an overview of the modern world experience of integrating students’ own questions into the educational process. The authors describe the methods they developed for organizing students’ questions, aimed at understanding and writing texts on the content of academic subjects.

The article discusses the results of studying the cognitive activity of students of the lyceum. The psychological factors involved in the interaction of attention stability and speed of thinking, as well as types of temperaments of students (melancholic type of temperament, sanguine type of temperament, phlegmatic type of temperament, choleric type of temperament) are analyzed. The characteristics considered are of interest to psychologists, doctors, teachers and other specialists involved in the educational process.