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16forms, and can be found in a variety of test types, including multiple-choice, true-false, matching, and fill-in-the-blank. Other cues have to do with the position or length of the correct answer. Inexperienced test writers have a tendency to hide the correct alternative in the B or C position of a multiple-choice alternative set, perhaps thinking that the correct choice will stand out in the A or D position and be too obvious. Test wiseness does seem to be due, in part, to sensitivity to certain cues in the items. Some of the cues are obvious to those who are familiar with the grammatical conventions of the language.
It should be clear that answer changing is not a random event. Lynch and Smith ( 1975) found a significant correlation between the difficulty of an item and the number of students who changed the answer to that item. They suggested that other items on the test may have helped the students reconsider their answers for the more difficult items. It seems possible that changes produce higher scores because later items help students recall information they did not remember the first time through.
The cues based on the logical relationships between alternatives are probably of a different sort, and may depend on the test takers' general intellectual ability or other characteristics. With that possibility in mind, it is interesting that studies have achieved positive results in teaching sophisticated cue use. Although it is hard to cleanly separate cues from strategy, it does seem that the cue approach to teaching test wiseness is more effective. It seems that changing answers is a good test strategy when, after some reflection or a review of previous responses, the student thinks changing is a wise idea.
Six reasons for changing answers were identified. These included the following in order of frequency: rethought and conceptualized a better answer (26%), reread and understood the question better (19%), learned from a later item (8%), made clerical corrections (8%), remembered more information (7%), and used clues (6%).
The effect of failure on test taking
Failure is a negative feeling that makes you have pessimistic ideas and attitude towards life, be melancholic and disappointed. According to psychologists, failure makes you experience:
1. the fear from refusal
2. feeling that everyone is better than you are
3. the feeling that you are a total disaster
4. deep self-critical attitude.
5. feeling that life is only black and grey
6. self-refusal
All this makes you give up trying to succeed. These are general effects in all individuals, but the way they are experienced by each is different and this depends on internal factors, which have a strong impact here. Very rarely failure can cause positive attitudes/reactions. It can lead one to read more after failing the exam, to prepare better, to organize better the time of study etc). It is a pity that only a small number of students experience these reactions, because everybody should think of a failure as a possibility to start from the beginning and to correct the wrong doings of the past. The way of experiencing different positive or negative feelings before, during or after testing, even though it is mostly a matter of personal character, is seen/analyzed better when we take into account the triangle "Teacher-Student- Parent". Every problem that the studnets might have is deeply rooted in one of these components. In order to achieve his/her goals the teacher should not limit himself/herself only to the process of teaching. He/she should be active and participate in every problem that the students have (even family problems). If the student feels successful, probably he should feel like that during all his life. But if he feels that he is underestimated or that others have a negative attitude towards him he will think of himself as being a total disaster/failure for the rest of his life. In conclusion, in every healthy-minded student everyone should be part and contribute to the general success of them, by not leaving place for any possible failure. Conclusions
The construct of test wiseness presents a complex situation. High-scoring students report using some strategies to good effect. A presumed mechanism accounts for at least part of the test wiseness effect: a student's sensitivity to the various cues to the correct answer left by unpracticed item writers. Test-wise students apparently use cues to gain an advantage. To some extent, then, the strategies take advantage of certain errors in item construction and measurement. In addition, the test-wise student, when taking an exam, seeks to use a large body of accepted techniques of time use, skipping, and so on. Test-wise students also seem to take risks and make guesses. In addition, test wise students may be applying broader conceptual and reasoning skills in the test situation. Both the sensitivity to cues and the test taking techniques appear to be teachable.
Literature
1. Adkinds, Dorothy C. Test Construction: Development and Interpretation of Achievement Tests, Charles E. Merrill Publishing: Columbus, OH, 1974. p. 37
2. Evans, William. "Test Wiseness: an Examination of Cue-Using Strategies." Journal of Experimental Education 52.3 (1984): 141-144.
3. Ramachandran, V. S. ed. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior. Volume: 4, 1994. p. 144.
GRAMMATICAL PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY ALBANIAN LEARNERS
OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Zamira (Metaj) Alimemaj
Phd., Department of Foreign Languages, University of Vlora, Albania
ABSTRACT
Globalization is accompanied by significant cultural and linguistic complications. One of the most important aspect is bilingualism. Complex cultural and linguistic problems connected with the globalization make necessary a change of attitude in
conformity with the integration and globalization processes. The present paper deals with the consequences of the general process revealed by the Albanian language. English is becoming a common phenomenon among the Albanians. More than half of the Albanians already are bilingual, and the first place among the foreign languages belongs to English. This is because of the fact that, from the geopolitical point of view, Albania is making every effort to participate to the integration processes. Because of the influence of the anglicisms in Albanian, in the wider perspective, it is needed to improve the teaching of the Standard Albanian, and at the same time to improve the foreign language teaching.
Key words: influence, grammar, global, language, anglicism.
Introduction
We should enter and be part of this set of civilizations firstly with our cultural and national identity. In this perspective, language is part of this identity, and of our existence as a nation. In addition, also it must be remembered that a nation cannot exist without its language, and a language cannot survive without its nation as well. Nevertheless, we should take into consideration the fact that with the passing of time, things change and the language evolves, but of course it never perishes.
Considering this, if we refer to some evidences, we understand that the English language is becoming the second language in Albania.
Some problems related to grammar
In morphology we can mention the case of using proper nouns without case endings, as they appear in English language. So, instead of saying: "Bill-i tha..." it is written as it is used in English language: "Bill tha..". Instead of "Sipas Bush-it." we find it like: "Sipas Bush."
The number of lexical borrowings is rapidly increasing in Albanian. Some of the recent borrowings used very often in Albanian are: akses, draft, auditim, biznesmen, masmedia, impact, implementim, marketing, sensitive, lidership, minimarket, killer, input, monitoroj, partneritet, opsion, poster, staf, star, shou, sponsor, tender, spot, parking, test, terminal etc.
The use of incorrect comparative and superlative forms of the adjectives and adverbs is another common mistake of these learners. For example: 'this is more easier / more easy than./ the most funniest', 'drive more faster' instead of 'this is easier than. / the funniest', 'drive faster'. Influenced by Albanian language (comparative - me i lehte / me lehte, superlative me i lehti), students use the adverb 'more / most' before one- and two-syllable adjectives, besides the use of the comparative or superlative morpheme -er or -est. In the same vein, the learners use comparative structures as 'I prefer tea than coffee' instead of 'I prefer tea to coffee'.
The form of adverbs is also confused with those of adjectives. As in Albanian the same form can be used as an adjective (eshte i keq - is bad) and as an adverb (e trajton keq -treats him badly), the learners use an adjective form 'She treated him so bad' for an adverb one 'She treated him so badly'. Incorrect use of elliptic structures: 'A: Did you visit your friend yesterday? B: Yes, I visited' instead of 'Yes, I did'; that is because in such Albanian sentences it is used the verb itself, not the auxiliary verb. Based on these findings, it should be noted that most of the Albanian learners' mistakes are caused by the influence of their native language, whereas some of them are caused by overgeneralization, simplification, avoidance and overproduction.
A number of English words are used in Albanian language with the same orthography as they are used in English, for example: internet, email, weekend, fast-food, top-show, thriller, live, task-force, hit, top, voice etc.
Problems related to the letters.
Pronunciation is not an optional extra for the language learner, any more than grammar, vocabulary or any other aspect of language is. If a learner's general aim is to talk intelligibly to others in another language, a reasonable pronunciation is important. While learning the pronunciation of a foreign language, the learner often confronts different phonetic and phonological problems that obviously hinder his/her learning and ultimately prevent him/her from acquiring expected general proficiency in the oral and auditory skills of the target language. This phenomenon is also evident in the learning of pronunciation of English as a foreign language (EFL) by the Albanian speaking learner. Phonological differences between foreign languages and English include differences in articulation, rhythm, and intonation. With respect to articulation, we determine which vowels and consonants do not exist in the first language and which ones are simply pronounced differently. Examining the vowels of English and Standard Albanian, we learn that English lacks the Albanian vowel phoneme [y] as in the Albanian word "ylli"
Both as a learner and a teacher-researcher of EFL, I have had practical experience of and the opportunity to observe the difficulties that the Albanian speaking learner usually faces in learning English pronunciation. English is a non-phonetic language since there exists no one-to-one correspondence between the graphemes (the letters of the alphabet) and the sounds actually pronounced and perceived. Albanian is a phonetic language so the Albanian speaking EFL learners, especially the elementary ones try so hard to learn by heart the pronunciations of the words by looking at their spellings, so that sometimes they learn mispronunciations of many of them. for example: in the words "knee", "know" they pronounce even the first phoneme [k] which should not be pronounced; they say [know] instead of [now]. From the phonetic and phonological standpoint, the Albanian speaking EFL learners usually face difficulties in, firstly, 'speech production' encompassing which articulator(s) to use how to pronounce which speech sound and how to pattern speech sounds to convey meaning and, secondly, in 'speech perception' including how to receive which speech sound(s) to perceive meaning. The difficulties certainly have seriously negative impact on their acquiring the speaking and listening skills of EFL. Problems related to vowels and consonants The English language has twelve monophthongs or pure vowels. They are classified into two main groups: long vowels (five long ones) and short vowels (seven ones). The Albanian language has got seven vowels: [i, u, a, e, e, o, y]. They have got the same length. The Albanian speaking EFL learners, usually, find the long monophthongs of the English language difficult and problematic, for example, in the words "sheep" [J i: p] and "ship" [J i p], the Albanian learners confuse the long [i:] with the short [i] and this results in misunderstanding. The Albanian learners, also, find it difficult to make the difference between the open vowels and the close ones; for exam-
ple they confuse the English [«] with [e] which results in confusing singular with plural in the irregular nouns, for example "man" [m«n] and "men" [men]. The English contrastive monophthongs sometimes cause substantial problems in the learners' articulation as well as perception of utterances because the difference between them is not that much exercised in the Albanian language. This is because, differently from the English language, vowel length in the Albanian language is neither a phonetic aspect, nor a phonological one. To emphasize an issue or express different attitudes and emotional effects, Albanian vowels are sometimes lengthened to some degree. Standard Albanian has got 27 consonants. The main division of the Albanian consonants is: voiced consonants and voiceless ones. Like the English language they are divided into: stops (sounds which are made by interfering with the airstream passing through the mouth by closing the oral passage), fricatives which are quite similar to the English consonants, affricates ( which are formed by closing the air passage as for a stop and releasing it through a narrow space as for a fricative). In Albanian the apical affricates "c" and "x" (like English "ts" and "dz", recpectively) are not very frequent, but unlike their English counterparts, they may appear at the beginning of syllables as well as at the end.
Another problem encountered by the Albanian learners is the pronunciation of the phoneme [w]. Neither the letter "w"nor the phoneme [w] exist in the alphabet of the Albanian language. It is rather difficult for the Albanian learners to distinguish the pronunciation of [w] from [u], they pronounce them almost in the same way. The Albanian linguists "are faced with the problem to find a solution for a new letter to be added to the Albanian alphabet."[1]
Problems related to the syllable division Languages differ in the way they divide the stream of speech into syllables and in the structure or makeup of their syllables. Languages react in various ways when two or more of their speech sounds come together. Assimilation takes place if one of the sounds changes to become similar to its adjacent sound. Elision may occur when two or more sounds come together. Languages vary in the way they link together or separate words and phrases. Syllables in English are of two types: opened syllables which end in a long vowel or diphthong and closed syllables which end in consonants. The closed syllable is the most common spelling unit in English; it accounts for just under 50 percentof the syllables in running text. When the vowel of a syllable is short, the syllable will be
closed off by one or more consonants. Therefore, if a closed syllable is connected to another syllable that begins with a consonant, two consonant letters will come between the syllables (com-mon, but-ter). If a syllable is open, it will end with a long vowel sound spelled with one vowel letter; there will be no consonant to close it and protect the vowel (to-tal, rival, bi-ble, mo-tor). Therefore, when syllables are combined, there will be no doubled consonant between an open syllable and one that follows. A few single-syllable words in English are also open syllables. They include me, she, he and no, so, go. A special kind of syllables in English is that syllable which is formed with sonorants, for example: peo-ple [pi:-pl]. In Albanian language the syllables are mainly open syllables, i.e. the border is after the vowel, for example: fsha-ti, qy-te-ti etc. Conclusions
The above analysis, interpretation and exemplification have clearly revealed that the Albanian speaking EFL learner encounters diverse phonetic and phonological problems resulting from three basic causes. (a) the differences between the mother tongue and the target language, (b) mother tongue interference and (c) the faulty and inadequate teaching of EFL pronunciation. Therefore, we have to address and reduce these causes with a view to lessening the phonetic and phonological difficulties, on the one hand, and ensuring the smooth and optimal learning of EFL pronunciation on the other. The problems caused by the differences between the phonetic and phonological elements of the learner's mother tongue and those of the target language, MTI and/or the faulty and inadequate teaching of EFL pronunciation can be reduced and solved to a substantial extent by appropriately treating them in the teaching process that directly deals with varied linguistic aspects including the phonetic and phonological ones.
Bibliography
1. Lloshi, Xh. StudiaAlbanica, Facing the globalization: the case of the Albanian language, 2/2005, p.52,
2. Roach, P. English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
3. The orthography of Standard Albanian, 1973, p.70
4. Dauer, Accurate English, Rhythm,,1993, p.83
5. Alan, C. Gimson's Pronunciation of English, Oxford 2001
6. Shqipja Standarde dhe Shoqeria Shqiptare sot, Tirane, 2003
7. Morfologjia e gjuhes shqipe.
ДОЛГ В РУССКИХ И АНГЛИЙСКИХ ПАРЕМИЯХ
Карачина Ольга Евгеньевна
канд. филол. наук, доцент Международного гуманитарно-лингвистического института, г. Москва DEBT IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH PROVERBS
Karachina Olga, Candidate of Science, associate professor of International Institute for Humanities and Linguistics, Moscow АННОТАЦИЯ
Данная статья рассматривает специфику осмысления концепта «долг» в русских и английских паремиях. Применяемая методика анализа концептуального содержания в виде фреймов позволяет выделить сходные и культурно-обусловленные черты концепта, закреплённые в русскоязычном и англоязычном сознании.
