ONLINE DICTIONARIES IN LEARNING THE GERMAN LANGUAGE - STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS
ONLINE DICTIONARIES IN LEARNING THE GERMAN LANGUAGE - STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS

Summary/Abstract: Intensive development of new media poses new challenges in learning and teaching foreign languages. A number of tools and online materials that support the development of language skills are available for university teachers and students. The emergence of online dictionaries significantly changed the translation process, which is for today's students faster, easier, and daily available on mobile devices such as phones, laptops, tablets. The main objective of this paper is to explore students' opinions about the use of online dictionaries for learning the German language. The research sample consists of students from the Faculty of Philosophy in Nis who study German as a second foreign language. A structured interview was used as an instrument for data collection; processing and data analysis was done by descriptive statistics. The results obtained confirm the initial hypothesis that the students use online dictionaries in learning the German language. The largest number of students used online dictionaries for translation of texts necessary for the preparation of examinations or tests, while a much smaller number of respondents use online dictionaries for the purpose of translating technical texts or materials that are not related to study purposes. The survey data show that students are informed about the benefits of using online dictionaries, such as speed, availability, better understanding, remembering new words for longer periods, as well as about the limitations relating to the lack of reliability, accuracy and precision. Conclusion is that online dictionaries are integral and indispensable part of learning foreign languages and that their use in the future most certainly will be on the rise. In this context, as the recommendation, the greater use of online vocabularies in foreign language teaching at universities is stated, which is in line with the requirements for the modernization of higher education.

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