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Foreign language learning/teaching has undergone major changes since the advent of digital media as a tool for language studies. New technologies offer efficient ways for retrieving information, facilitating communication and enabling distance learning. In many cases, ICT get integrated into didactics; language courses are based on blended learning, and online resources become an integral part of the learning process. These changes give rise to methodological questions how and when digital resources should be used and whether they could replace the conventional means. The paper presents an overview of an ongoing discussion related to the role of digital media in language learning/teaching, and learning vocabulary in particular. An experiment conducted at Kaunas University of Technology to determine whether computers help students to learn new words is described and the findings of the experimental study are analyzed. A follow-up survey disclosed the students’ preferences and needs when learning new vocabulary, reading texts or doing writing tasks. The respondents’ answers serve as a background for the methodological recommendations how to make language studies more efficient by an appropriate blending of digital and conventional media in the learning process.
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Authors: Kohn Bitchener, Neomy Storch / Publisher: Multilingual Matters, / 2016, ISBN: 9781783095032, Pages:156
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Authors: Zoltán Dörnyei, Alastair Henry, Christine Muir Publisher: Routledge, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-138-77732-3, Pages: 204
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Introduction. The article raises the problem of creative self-realization of students in mastering Russian as a foreign language. The aim is to elicit the conditions for creative self-realization, including speech creation, as well as to prove the statement that the formation of communicative competence of the individual should go hand in hand with the development of his/her creative and cognitive potential, in order to provide the axiological component of the Russian language as a culture-forming educational discipline. Materials and Methods. In order to solve this problem the authors use the methodology of the activity approach, according to which personal development takes place in activities, which are of developing character and are developing themselves. In this regard, the authors stress the methodological importance of creative speech exercises in writing and speaking, contributing to the development of pupils' coherent speech and creative attitude to language. Special attention is paid to the conditions for creative self-realization of young learners taking into account the peculiarities of mastering Russian in the primary school. Results. At the early school age self-realization correlates with speech creativity, which is determined by the cognitive sphere. The latter develops when children master the language not on the basis on imitation, but via development of language and speech abilities. These abilities allow pupils to "create" their speech nearly the same as they do in their native language without repeating phrases after the teacher or reproducing memorized texts. In order to develop these abilities in children, a teacher must first take into account psy-cholinguistic laws, which are interpreted in the article as a set of methodical regularities of learning a new language in primary school age. A special role in providing conditions for crea-tive self-realization of young learners is given to the introductory oral communication period, which aims at fostering equal opportunities for all children. The article identifies the distinguished features of this period. The organization of the Russian language oral communication period focuses on the interconnected development of speaking and listening skills through the development of phonological ability; the process of acquiring language devices and techniques has problem-based and creative character; reflexive-evaluative language acquisition and as well as reflexive observation of manifestations of Russian culture in comparison with the facts of the native culture. In order to develop pupils’ creative skills of learning language as a means of communication, it is important to use experimentally proved technology which ensures acquisition of language devices in the context of game activities along with game motivation of oral communication and non-verbal and educational actions of young learners. The technology also ensures the mastery of foreign language reading and writing based on communicative core and phonological abilities which contribute to spelling competence of pupils and the development of good handwriting; acquisition of communicative competence through communication; the acquisition of personal qualities and values; the formation of reflexive self-evaluation skills. The article also discusses the new status of the Russian language as a heritage language for the bilingual children of our compatriots abroad. The authors reinforce their view by historical insight into the culture of bilingualism. The result of the undertaken research is a complex of identified conditions, contributing to the realization of students’ creative independence. Conclusions. The conclusion of the article stresses the significance of the conceptual approach established by the authors for developing students' abilities favorable for their creative independence in the process of learning Russian as a foreign language.
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The article discusses some issues related to correctness (in the area of orthography,punctuation, inflections, vocabulary, phraseology, syntax and stylistics)of teaching guides including lesson for Polish. The presented characterizationsare a diagnostic assessment of the levels of publications, which can be of practicalutility for teachers. The analysis ends with solution proposals, which couldaddress the need for an improved correctness of such guidance materials.
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The article introduces the concept of intercultural competence in the contextof teaching the German language in Polish junior schools based on selectedhandbooks tasks which promote the development of certain aspects of this competence.The aim of the article is to reflect on the typology of such tasks and thepossibilities of their implementation in school education.
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In order to fulfil their basic professional functions on a ship, sailors must possess not only qualitative knowledge but also be able to solve complex professional-productive and scientific tasks independently, as well as to orient themselves freely in a foreign-speaking society. Taking into account the interdisciplinary approach to the theoretical preparation of future specialists for performing their functional duties at sea, where multinational crews mostly communicate in a foreign language, it is natural to turn to the actualization of knowledge in the discipline «Professional English», since all legal documents in the basis of marine professional activity are in a foreign language. Paying particular attention to the graduators from Ukrainian maritime higher educational establishments, the author investigates the role of their professional communication in a foreign language and peculiarities in forming competitive national specialists in a world maritime fleet. The integration of the acquired knowledge in different situations, their realization in concrete skills of future professional activity, and creative approach of cadets contributed to the emergence and growth of the desire to improve their knowledge, participation in dialogues, role plays, discussions, emergence and development of interest in the implementation of future professional activities in a foreign language. The updating of professional communication in a foreign language contributes to the formation of national specialists, competitive in the world maritime fleet, which is one of the stages in the realization of the geopolitical interests of the Ukrainian state.
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There are many reasons to start learning French. With the involvement of our professionals in missions in Mali, it has also become desirable to improve their language skills before their departure. We interviewed those who attended the language courses at the Language Centre of the University of Defence. They confirm that the knowledge of English is not always sufficient. This interview can be inspiring for those who are going to fulfil their duties in the missions in the African continent. We also present statistical data related to the number of French-speaking Czech soldiers and some tips how to maintain the level of French after completing a course.
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The current article analyses thirty blog texts (of 26 girls and 4 boys) written from January 2012 to May 2014. In the first part of the article, high schoolers’ blogs are briefly reviewed; in the second part, English words used in these blogs are studied, causes of their use are analysed, and concrete examples are given.During the research it was found out that the overall average number of words in blog texts totalled 304 words. More than half of the young bloggers were not anonymous and an even greater part of them shared their email addresses or links to social networks or personal internet web pages. All the blog texts analysed were written in Lithuanian letters (there were no texts written without diacritics). This shows that the authors adjust their writing, do not withdraw themselves from the standard language, and feel responsible for the publicly available text.In texts written in Lithuanian, bloggers tend to use many English words. The causes why authors insert English words can be varied. First, it is fashionable to use English words. Quite often, the use of such words is determined by authors’ interests and common activities. Not only individual English words but also phrases and famous sayings from movies, TV, games, etc. were observed. Most of English words found in blogs are those naming concepts of computer technologies. The blogs read revealed that the youth tends to write entire topic titles in English. Even though one can only speculate on the causes of such a choice, it is evident that this is done consciously and probably mostly in order to attract as many readers as possible and to look more modern and fashionable.
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Batumi, under the rule of Ottoman Empire, passed in to Tsarist Russia’s administration as a result of 1877-78 war between the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia. Requirements of Turkish-speaking population in Batumi to a formal Turkish language learning opportunity was one of the issues discussed in formal negotiations between the two countries following the war. However, they could not agree on a tangible result in this regard. 40 years later, the local government of Batumi requested Turkish teachers from the Ottoman Empire. This was gladly approved by the Ottoman Empire and Hikmet Jevdetzade (1893-1945) was sent to Batumi from Istanbul in 1918. In 1924, Jevdetzade opened Batumi Secondary Turkish School in Batumi and began teaching Turkish language. At the end of 1920’s Jevdetzade moved to St. Petersburg due to family reasons and continued working on the Turkish education there. Jevdetzade’s life and Turkish teaching activities in Batumi first, then in St. Petersburg were not included sufficiently in Russian, Georgian and even in Turkish sources. Lack of knowledge in this field has made Jevdetzade’s place speculative in Turcology field. In this study, the information and documents about Jevdetzade’s life and Turkish teaching activities were obtained from his relatives, son Temuri and grandchild Nino, who are still living in Batumi. In the light of acquired information, alternative “readings” on Jevdetzade’s place in the Georgian and Russian Turcologies are suggested in this article.
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Correlation studies (Li, 2010; Chang & Shen, 2010) between the clusters of survey items as originally suggested for The Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory ‒ BALLI (EFL version; Horwitz, 1988) and Strategy Inventory for Language Learning ‒ SILL 7.0 (Oxford, 1990) report generally weak and moderate positive correlation coefficients. The above survey instruments were administered to fifty freshman students of Bosnian linguistic and cultural background at International University of Sarajevo. Correlation tests partly confirmed results reported by Li (2010) and Chang and Shen (2010) but with more similar correlation coefficients with respect to the later authors. The results partly reflect universal features of the foreign language learner and indicate that the theory of reciprocity between the two research constructs should be focused on findings about other forms of human intelligence.
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Methodology of teaching foreign languages is a frequent topic of scientific papers. A large number of books describe different approaches to teaching foreign languages, among others, and Serbian as a foreign or a second language. This work puts emphasis on the methodological approach to introduction of characteristics of a national identity through language learning. Furthermore, the work gives solutions and recommendations for quality teaching Serbian as a second language in a multicultural environment. Finally, the work deals with the issues how to select sources and resources for teaching properly.
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One of the most striking changes in the critical scene in recent years is the decline in the importance of lyric poetry. Poetry was once central to literary experience and the consideration of the nature of lyric or of poetic language was once central to critical theory: for the Russian formalists and theorists such as Roman Jakobson who linked Russian formalism and French structuralism. This is no longer the case today; when literature is important for theory, it comes in the guise of narrative. Why should this be? The obvious answer might be that not enough people read poetry, but such empirical matters never stopped theory before. Who reads Lacan except theorists? The simple answer might be that in an age of critical demystification, poetry seems embarrassing
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Language” was conducted at the International Primary School in Sarajevo, where we met children who often speak two and occasionally three languages. How they acquire and master the language in interesting, and in particular, how they acquire the beginning level reading and writing skills of the Bosnian language. This study attempted to determine whether bilingual students were more proficient or less proficient than monolingual students at developing reading and writing skills in the Bosnian language.
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The paper sets out to present the cultural challenges of teaching ethics in an entry-level course to two groups of Romanian undergraduate engineering students in the 2nd and 3rd year of study at a renowned Romanian technical university. The objective is to show that the Romanian students’ prior ethical values and norms might impede the students’ ability to adapt to foreign business organisational ethical requirements. The paper will also explore the necessity of teaching such a course to engineering students (future employees) in order to familiarise them to the concept of ethics and to the cultural differences existing in terms of ethics between Romania and Western countries.
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The processes of globalization, economic cooperation with foreign countries and job opportunities have increased the need for English for Special Purposes (ESP). However, the ESP curriculum is not in accordance with the demand. The curriculum in use before the school year 2013/2014 was outdated, containing little explanations. Although the new curriculum is slightly improved, it still does not comply with the language demands of various professions. The ESP curriculum analysis has revealed that the topics for ESP syllabus are not developed and detailed enough. The reform of high school education has brought a new profession in our educational system – business administrator, with a new subject – business English. The students study ESP with the elements related to other vocational courses. The goal is to increase students’ self-esteem when communicating in English language. The new curriculum has enabled the use of authentic teaching material related to the profession, so the teaching process is not simply regarded as vocabulary learning. Creating new professions and reforming the existing ones enables the students to participate in the labor market offering them a great number of possibilities.
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The present study aims to determine to what extent learners of Turkish as a foreign language use participles in their writing practices. To attain this goal, a holistic single-case qualitative research design method was adopted with the participation of 30 B2 level learners from two universities in Turkey. The data were collected through demographic information form, sentence completion test (SCT) and written compositions which were analyzed through content analysis technique. Findings revealed that while most of the participants (86.67 %) used participles meaningfully correct, some (10.13 %) used them in wrong forms and few of them (3.20 %) used some other affixes. In terms of genders, it was found that female participants (90.71 %) used participles more accurately than males (83.12 %) in SCT. Analysis of compositions revealed that while most of the participants (83.30 %) used at least one or more participles, some (16.70%) did not use any participle in their compositions. It was also found that while most of the participants (84.40 %) used meaningfully accurate participles, some (15.60 %) did not use participles accurately. It was found that female participants (62.82 %) used participles more accurately than male participants (37.18 %).
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of parent-centered collaborative learning in English language teaching and to sort out the strategies and techniques that might help and contribute students’ language learning process. This qualitative case study examines how parental involvement can play a crucial role in the improvement of EFL learners’ academic and social background in English classes. This study was carried out in a primary school with 5 students from fourth grades English classes and their parents, 7 teachers including 1 native English teacher, 4 Turkish English teachers, the head of the language department and a student counselor at a primary school in Istanbul, Turkey. In order to obtain qualitative data, semi-structured interviews, observations, records of students’ projects/homework assignments. The findings of the study revealed that parents are powerful partners in one’s language development and learning process by contributing academic attainment in terms of sociolinguistic perspectives.
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It is an established tradition that in Finnish universities where the Finnish language is taught as the main subject, the Estonian language belongs to the curriculum as a closely related language; the lecturers have mostly been Estonians. At the University of Oulu, founded in 1958, the teaching of the Finnish language as the main subject began in 1966, the position of the lecturer of the Estonian language was established on 1 September 1967. In Oulu, a decision was made to invite the lecturer from Estonia; at other Finnish universities, the lecturers were Estonians who had settled in Finland before or during World War II. The Soviet Union allowed the Estonian lecturers to work in Finland only for one or two, later for three or four academic years. Despite bureaucratic and ideological obstacles, other Finnish universities also began to invite lecturers from Estonia. After the liberation of Estonia from the Soviet occupation, the new lecturer of the Estonian language was elected in 1992 by the regular contest. In total, 15 people have worked as lecturers of Estonian in Oulu from 1967–2016 – eight of them from the University of Tartu and four from Tallinn Pedagogical Institute. The original curriculum included an introduction to Estonian, an intermediate course, a conversational course and a course of Estonian literature. In 1987, the Estonian language and culture became a subsidiary subject in Oulu, it was possible to take basic studies, from 1997 intermediate studies. Well-known Estonian intellectuals were invited to Oulu as visiting lecturers; teaching was also supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. Te Estonian lecturers in Oulu have actively participated in international research and Estonian-Finnish cultural exchange and contributed to the positive image of Estonia in Finland and of Finland in Estonia. The teaching of the Estonian language and culture at the University of Oulu as a subsidiary subject (like in several Finnish universities earlier) was stopped because of a shortage of finances. From the autumn semester of subjects, teaches the introduction to Estonian and intermediate Estonian. Slowly, the teaching of the Estonian language and culture at the University of Oulu is broadening again.
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