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НАУКА И СОВРЕМЕННОСТЬ - 2015
ENHANCING STUDENTS' SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
© Шевченко О.М.*
Национальный технический университет Украины «Киевский политехнический институт», Украина, г. Киев
This paper gives a brief overview of some methods for self-study of a foreign language. The learner should be capable of organising the study, and that he or she has access to varied resources suitable for self-directed study. The paper also focuses on four basic skills the learners have to acquire during the process of self-directed learning of a foreign language. They are productive skills (speaking and writing) and receptive skills (listening and reading).
Key words: Self-directed learning, to enhance skills, foreign language level of competence, productive skills, receptive skills.
Introduction. Every student is different and might learn most effectively in a slightly different way from other students of the same group. For example, you may have found that your own best way of memorizing new vocabulary or a phrase is to write it down and memorize it visually, whereas another student might be more effective by recording it on tape and then listening repeatedly. The principle is that you know what works best for you [2].
Self-directed learning helps students improve their foreign language level of competence, gives students more flexibility to concentrate on tasks which are right for them, to put time and energy into the things they decide are best for them as individuals. When studying alone, students may choose for themselves:
- how much time to devote to the work;
- when and where to do the work;
- how much or how little work to do;
- what to concentrate on and what to leave out;
- the level of effort and commitment to make.
Every student who is engaged in self-directed learning of a foreign language will need to take the responsibility for:
- organising himself; planning what he is going to do (giving himself a sort of timetable, fitting in with all his other demands);
- tracking his own progress; logging what he has done and what he has learned (e.g. making sure he made progress across all 4 skills; recognizing things he now knows or can do. It might be essential to keep a sort of 'self-directed learning' personal diary);
- setting his own targets and deadlines (deciding what he needs to achieve and by when);
* Старший преподаватель кафедры Английского языка № 3 факультета Лингвистики, МБА (Магистр Бизнес Администрирования).
- deciding when he needs help, and what kind of help it is (arranging to consult the teacher, using reference materials, getting advice, etc.).
Students who study a foreign language on their own must have a clear idea about three things:
1) what does it mean to be making effective progress in learning a foreign language;
2) the styles of work and the type of tasks that work best for him individually.
Let us consider each of these points in more detail:
What does it mean to be making effective progress in learning a foreign language?
Learning a foreign language is essentially improving your skills in each of four main areas (listening, speaking, reading and writing): the more intensively you practise, the more frequently you do it - the better you get.
The general aims of self-directed learning of a foreign language may include the following objectives:
- using the language which is more complex;
- using the language in a wider range of topics and situations;
- doing language tasks which are more complicated;
- coping with longer and more sophisticated texts;
- becoming more effective in using dictionaries, references, etc.
- getting more confident when working with less help (e.g. dictionaries, translation tools, the teacher);
- learning more about the target country, its people and culture;
- understanding specialized texts, processing and synthesizing information received from different sources.
Foreign language acquisition is generally based on 'four skills': listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are known as 'receptive' skills while speaking and writing are known as 'productive' skills [1]. In the process of self-directed learning of a foreign language the learners will also need to develop their skills in each of these areas.
The styles of work and the type of tasks students know work best for them.
From their previous work students will be aware of the tasks and activities which can be effective ways of improving their language skills, of increasing their understanding of structures and grammar, of widening their knowledge of vocabulary, and so on. However, they still have to use such conventional methods as:
- listening to a passage and jotting down the information;
- giving their reactions in writing to a piece of text read before;
- answering some pre-set questions based on a listening/reading task;
- composing some writing in a foreign language based on a "model" they have been given, but changing it to make it more personal;
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- learning bits of dialogue by heart and having to act them out, or having to record things;
- practising reading bits of text aloud;
- memorizing phrases and vocabulary so as to use them in their next essay, etc.
When you are 'self-learning' the choice is yours. Quite often what you actually decide to do will not be the 'worksheet 'the teacher has given to you, or the exercise from the textbook. We suggest some additional ideas for a student to make his self-learning of a foreign language more efficient.
Enhancing your listening skills.
Listen to the text recording. Imagine you have a friend who missed this particular text. Prepare a 'script' of what you will tell your friend about the contents of this text. This task will make you practise the Past Tense, perhaps, and you will also work on all the other skills of reading, writing, and speaking as a result. Listening to the text will remind you of some key vocabulary, phrases and structures.
Enhancing your writing skills.
Take a particular paragraph from the text you have already worked on and translate it in writing. Save it for a week and then translate it back into the source language. You can check your translation for accuracy.
Enhancing your reading skills.
Take the text and write out some 20 key vocabulary items which give the main sense to the text. You can use a dictionary if needed. Then learn them by heart. One week later you can write a short passage using those 20 vocabulary items thus retelling the original text. Finally, you can go back to the original text and compare it with your own new version.
Reading is an essential source of:
- new vocabulary;
- new idioms and phrases;
- examples of particular grammatical structures;
- speciality related information.
Enhancing your speaking skills.
On the basis of some text set yourself the target of a five-minute talk to your imaginary friend. Such an 'audience' is an effective method in language learning. Talk to your imaginary friend out loud, ask questions, explain things. Try to use active vocabulary of the text including particular words and phrases which you learned by hear.
Conclusion. Today the knowledge of a foreign language is especially essential as it provide access to information which is increasingly available. In this connection the issue of self-directed learning of a foreign language seems especially important as it gives vast possibilities to those who wish to enhance their level of competence in a foreign language. The learners can achieve their goal through proper organization of their individual studies and by using the right methods.
References:
1. Jeffrey K. Riegel. ADFL Bulletin. - 1994. - Vol. 25, № 3. - 57-64 p.
2. Arthur D.Mosher. ADFL Bulletin. - 2001. - Vol. 32, № 3. - 122-129 p.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT MACHINE TRANSLATION METHODS
© Шевченко О.М.*
Национальный технический университет Украины
«Киевский политехнический институт», Украина, г. Киев
This paper gives a brief analysis of some major machine translation methods designed to speed up the rate of multilingual text translation. Machine translation is achieved by computer software transforming text from one language to another. At present two different approaches in machine translation (MT) are used: rule-based machine translation (RBMT) and statistical machine translation (SMT). Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. However, current MT quality still remains imperfect as the natural languages are complex and work on different levels.
Key words: machine translation (MT), rule-based machine translation (RBMT), statistical machine translation (SMT), machine translation technologies.
Introduction. Machine translation (MT) is an automatic translation from one language to another with the help of computerized systems. This process is sometimes described as an automated translation performed by a computer.
The modern world offers huge volumes of multilingual content and we are often faced with the problem of how to translate it as quick as possible. Also today, a large amount of information from all areas of life is available to the users of the Internet. However, the content of many interesting sites is presented only in a foreign language. To quickly overcome the language barrier different machine translation systems are being widely used today [3].
At present, automated translation may effectively solve the problem of growing number of translations and at the same time increase productivity of translation. How does the program manage to coherently translate text from one language to another? What are the current approaches in machine translation (MT)?
At present there exist two fundamentally different machine translation technologies. One is based on the rules (rule-based machine translation or RBMT), and another - on the statistics (statistical machine translation or SMT).
* Старший преподаватель кафедры Английского языка N° 3 факультета Лингвистики, МБА (Магистр Бизнес Администрирования).
