The Role of Foreign (Second) Language Learning in the Development of Concept Understanding by Congenitally Blind Children

Author(s): Katarzyna Jaworska-Biskup / Language(s): English Issue: 05/2009

The idea of teaching foreign languages to students with special educational needs has gained a worldwide acclaim. The benefits of knowing a second or foreign language are many and extend beyond professional angle. For a disabled person the knowledge of a foreign language offers the possibility to gain a better job and life opportunities, facilitates the access to information and communication. In addition, the process of learning a second language serves a compensatory function and contributes to a development of concept understanding. This is the case with congenitally blind children.

Ewaluacja materiałów dydaktycznych w procesie nauczania i uczenia się języka ukraińskiego jako obcego w szkolnictwie wyższym

Author(s): Dagmara Nowacka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 07/2015

This article is an attempt to assess selected glottodidactic materials (textbooks) for learning the Ukrainian language, used in the teaching process at the level of higher education since the 1990s. In the first part of the article the types of glottodidactic materials are presented and their place and function in the processes of teaching and learning a foreign language is discussed. In the second part selected textbooks for learning the Ukrainian language are assessed, taking into account external criteria concerning, for instance, Curricula, and internal, related to the needs of a student or teacher.

Rozwijanie kompetencji medialnej w podejściu uczenia się przez całe życie

Author(s): Joanna Górecka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2015

The present paper rests on the assumption that elaborating the determinants of media competence facilitate the conceptualization of the individual communicative competence development in accordance with formal requirements for teaching/learning at advanced L2 levels.The paper presents the chosen conclusions of my action-research project, whose major aim was to elaborate the determinants of constructive learning actions involving the selection and proper interpretation of media resources in French. These skills, inherent to media competence and necessary for the learner autonomy development, were trained in discussion tasks aimed at improving communicative skills and accomplishing cognitive goals connected with knowledge construction.

Le fonctionnement du système verbal français dans la Grammaire critique du français, de Marc Wilmet, 5e édition, 2010

Author(s): Irène-Marie Kalinowska / Language(s): French Issue: 10/2015

Gustave Guillaume’s theory has influenced the works of a large number of linguists. His influence reached academic literature, in which the determination approach as well as the time representation in the language undisputably bear his print. Marc Wilmet has summarized that demanding system and offers a consistent presentation of it to the present-day public.In his work Grammaire critique du français (2010), he presents, amongst others, a theory of the French verbal system of which we analyse, in this article, the strengths as well as the applicability for teaching / educational purposes.

O nauczaniu języka francuskiego dla potrzeb zawodowych, czyli jak przygotować studentów europeistyki do odbycia stażu w Parlamencie Europejskim

Author(s): Katarzyna Kwiek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2015

The article describes the constantly changing needs of students learning a foreign language. In the past, teacherʼs job was to introduce general vocabulary or speaking in a foreign language, however today, because of the labour market, many students are forced to speak a specialised language even before completing their studies.What I mean are, for example, students of European Studies doing an internship in MEP ʼs offices in EU institutions, who should use a foreign language in specific professional situations. Therefore, their language classes should not limit themselves to learning only the general language, but also contain a module for vocabulary, structures that appear in the language of the European Union and give an opportunity to read examples of texts written using them.The article presents an idea of such module, goals that will be achieved using it and sample exercises that are included in it.

Enseignement des langues de spécialité en Pologne et en France. Regards croisés

Author(s): Magdalena Sowa,Sladjana Djordjevic,Greta Komur-Thilloy / Language(s): French Issue: 10/2015

Our presentation aims at analyzing Polish and French teaching contexts of trainings in languages for specific purposes. First, we will consider the modalities for trainings in languages for specific purposes at secondary school and high school levels in order to extract features specific for educational environment in each country.Then, we will compare the results of Polish and French teaching contexts analyses to identify common and divergent points of trainings in languages for professional (specific) purpose provided in Poland and France respectively.

Obszary wiedzy specjalistycznej i socjokulturowej w nauczaniu rosyjskiej komunikacji biznesowej

Author(s): Małgorzata Wideł-Ignaszczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2015

Contemporary specialist language teaching is a combination of linguistic, professional and socio-cultural areas of knowledge, applied in practice. The aims and contents of teaching are directed towards learners’ requirements and the development of the professional communicative competence. This article analyses the efficiency of teaching and learning specialist languages. The effectiveness in this field allows for a better specification not only linguistic but also professional and socio-cultural teaching material and choice of adequate and varied teaching aids.

Алла Кравчук, Єжи Ковалевський, Jestem stąd. Підручник з польської мови, Львів: ЛНУ імені Івана Франка 2013, ss. 126

Author(s): Anna Czapla / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2015

COMMUNICATIVE MINDSET OF MEDICAL STUDENTS AND ITS CORRECTION ON FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES

Author(s): Lesya Lymar / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The article deals with the empirical study of the medical students’ communicative mindset, its peculiarities and basic characteristics as well as its role in relation to the future interaction with patients; correction of the mindset on the foreign language classes, a subject from the special purposes cycle. The article analyses main viewpoints of the modern pedagogical scientists referring to the communicative mindsets, it reveals the importance of the physician’s communicative mindset for reaching positive treatment outcome. The author defines the necessity of positive communicative mindset and low communicative negativism for the productive interaction of a physician with a patient. The author describes the main characteristics of the communicative mindset of medical students, shows the structural components which must be corrected. The article contains the description of the instruments and diagnostic methods used for detecting the communicative mindset level in the surveyed medical students. According to the empirical study, conducted in 2008-2015 with the medical students, the author diagnosed low level of the communicative mindset of the medical students. Aimed at correction of the detected characteristics, the author provides her personal recommendations of introducing some components of the psychological-deontological training, aimed at correction of the students’ communicative mindset. The article contains description of the modules as well as theoretical grounding of the course; some types of drills are presented in the article. The article contains description of a practical English class with introduced psychological-deontological training drills, which were aimed at improving the characteristics of the future physicians; communicative mindset, the offered materials may be interesting for both high school teachers and administration personnel, and for the institutional psychologists

Strategii de predare a imperfectului românesc la ora de limba română ca limbă străină

Author(s): Monica Huţanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 54/2016

The traditional approach, present in most textbooks of Romanian as a foreign language, sees grammar as a set of rules to be memorised, practised mechanically and applied when needed. More often that not, this approach proves ineffective, the result being that learners may remember the rules, but they are not able to use the grammatical structure correctly and spontaneously in communication. In order to overcome the distance between declarative and procedural knowledge, teaching will have to use the principles, techniques and tasks of the communicative method. This paper deals with my experience of teaching grammar in a communicative framework, in particular the imperfect tense, to upper-intermediate Serbian students of Romanian language. While for speakers of Romance languages, the imperfect tense might prove only moderately difficult, for speakers of Serbian (and other Slavic languages), it poses a considerable challenge, resulting both from structural characteristics of L1 Serbian (which uses the grammatical category of verbal aspect instead of different tenses of the past), and from the variety of the contextual values of the imperfect in L2 Romanian. Therefore, I discuss the teaching of the imperfect tense by focusing on Diane Larsen-Freeman’s three-dimensional framework of form, meaning and use of any grammatical unit. I provide examples of types and features of input (materials, texts), and discuss a number of tasks that facilitate the intake and acquisition of the imperfect tense, thus ensuring its accurate, meaningful and appropriate use by the Serbian students.

Система подготовки учителей русского языка в Чешской Республике - современное состояние, задачи и перспективы направления

Author(s): Simona Koryčánková / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2016

Reflection of Russian studies and its current position in the context of other languages on the Faculty of Education. The issue of competencies and delimitation of professional skills of the future (not only) teachers of the Russian language. The social status of Russian language teachers. Interconnection of philological and didactic disciplines and their definition with respect to the language level of study. Didactics of Russian as a discipline of the past and the future. Russian Centre as a platform for multilingual cooperation in linguistic, literary, methodological, cultural and areal region.

Анализ текущих событий как составная часть университетской подготовки русистов: методические вопросы

Author(s): Michaela Pešková / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2016

The essay deals with the issue of whether to put the analysis of current events of the RF (in the world context) on the curriculum of university studies of Russian studies scholars (philologists and teachers). Based on experience with processing of the educational portal www.ruskerealie.zcu.cz, the author selects the key problematic aspects of that issue. They are the expediency of the information about current events inclusion (the language aspect, motivation of students compared to unfixed lectures and the subjectivity of the presentation of materials relating to the present situation), the selection of themes (meeting of the requirement of the topicality and representativeness), their interpretation (in the broad discourse and historical context) and the evaluation (criticism-neutrality-propagation), as well as the methodology (the cognitive factor compared to the emphasis on developing intercultural communicative competence). Each of the defined areas includes many dilemmas and open issues. Their solving contributes to the discussion about current (Czech) Russian studies and the work of Russian scholars and teachers.

Профессор Ху Чжэньхуа – китайский ученый - педагог - тюрколог

Author(s): Shuying High,Rimma Masyrova Ramazanovna / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2013

In this article the authors reveal the identity of Professor Hu Zhenhua - the famous Chinese scholar - teacher - turkologist, the founder of the Chinese science about kyrgyz nation, the first Chinese science about dungan nation in the Central Asia, the supervisor of doctoral Institute of Languages and Literature at the Central University of Nationalities of China, highly skilled, enjoy special government subsidy of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

CONSTRUCTING VISUALLY-BASED DIGITAL CONVERSATIONS IN EFL WITH VOICETHREAD

Author(s): David Kent / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

VoiceThread holds potential to provide students who rarely speak in class a means to create visually-based digital conversations. In light of this, pedagogical affordances of the tool are considered, along with efficacy behind VoiceThread development within English as a Foreign Language contexts. Instructional strategies, supported by examples, are presented. A means for in-service teachers to evaluate language production and learning outcomes emerge, along with techniques essential for monitoring, producing, and guiding effective VoiceThread development through inclusion of specifically developed resources.

APPLICATION OF THE LOCALISATION PLATFORM CROWDIN IN TRANSLATOR EDUCATION

Author(s): Dominik Kudła / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This article is an attempt to briefly describe the potential of the online localisation platform Crowdin for the education of the future translators at universities and in private courses or workshops. This description is provided on the basis of the information gathered through the user experience of the author and uses the example of the Khan Academy project carried out on this platform. The article juxtaposes this online localisation platform with commercial CAT software which is commonly used for translation training.

SELECTING AND CREATING A WORD LIST FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Author(s): Deny A. Kwary,Juri Jurianto / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Since the introduction of the General Service List (GSL) in 1953, a number of studies have confirmed the significant role of a word list, particularly GSL, in helping ESL students learn English. Given the recent development in technology, several researchers have created word lists, each of them claims to provide a better coverage of a text and a significant role in helping students learn English. This article aims at analyzing the claims made by the existing word lists and proposing a method for selecting words and a creating a word list. The result of this study shows that there are differences in the coverage of the word lists due to the difference in the corpora and the source text analysed. This article also suggests that we should create our own word list, which is both personalized and comprehensive. This means that the word list is not just a list of words. The word list needs to be accompanied with the senses and the patterns of the words, in order to really help ESL students learn English.

PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES IN USING SECOND LIFE FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLISH

Author(s): Mariusz Kruk / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The purpose of this study was to investigate prospective teachers’ experiences in utilizing Second Life for learning English, differentiating between personal use of the said virtual world for learning the English language and its potential use for teaching English in the future. The results showed that the students perceived the use of Second Life to be beneficial for communication in English and they regarded it as a great source of the target language vocabulary. They also found it useful in practicing writing skills and learning new words and phrases. The use of the said world allowed the students to point out some disadvantages. Among other things, they included the incorrect use of English by some Second Life users, problems with finding people to talk with and rude behavior. In addition, the study participants did not regard Second Life as useful in developing oral skills or grammar. Finally, the findings revealed the prospective teachers’ willingness to use Second Life for teaching speaking and writing skills as well as the target language vocabulary. A selection of the students’ proposals of language activities to be used in a virtual world is also offered.

DUOLINGO: A MOBILE APPLICATION TO ASSIST SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING (App Review)

Author(s): Musa Nushi,Mohamad Hosein Eqbali / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

software review

A Preliminary Investigation Into the Effects of Targeted Corrective Feedback in Foreign Language Writing

Author(s): Paul Blewchamp / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

The benefits of corrective feedback on student writing have been the subject of some debate in recent years. Recent studies have suggested that error correction on student writing improves written accuracy in student writing over time. However, it still remains unclear as to the kind of error correction that best assists L2 students in particular settings to improve accuracy. This paper addresses this issue. It reports on a classroom study of forty-eight first -year university students who were divided into two groups. One group received indirect correction on errors and the other group received indirect correction in combination with teacher conferencing. Error ratios per fifty words on errors of the use of the simple past tense were calculated. Results suggest that teacher conferencing used in connection with indirect correction improved student accuracy in the use of the simple past tense. Results also suggest that students require further instruction on how to self-correct tense errors.

THE EFFECT OF DIGITAL VIDEO GAMES ON EFL STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE LEARNING MOTIVATION

Author(s): Mohsen Ebrahimzadeh,Sepideh Alavi / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The study examined the effect of a commercial digital video game on high school students’ language learning motivation. Participants were 241 male students randomly assigned to one of the following three treatments: Readers, who intensively read the game’s story; Players, who played the digital video game; and Watchers, who watched two classmates play the digital video game. A language learning motivation scale was given to the participants as a pre- and post-test. Also, field notes were taken. Results indicated a significant language learning motivation increase over time. Only the Watchers, however, showed significantly higher motivation than the Readers in the end. Thus, the use of commercial digital video games can help enhance high school students’ language learning motivation.