LEARNING CULTURES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES WITH DIGITAL TOOLS

Nataliia Saienko

doi:10.23856/5712

Nataliia Saienko

Keywords: studying English, culture-related online course, audiovisual translation

Abstract

The main difficulties faced by newcomers to various countries as well as language learners who want to expand their international ties, are the lack of knowledge of the language and culture of a host country. However, today cultural components in modern foreign language courses are often represented in a chaotic and scant manner that contributes to the poor adaptation of some newcomers to cultural values of other countries. With all the diversity of languages and cultures the English language is considered the global language of communication, interaction, teaching, learning, and research. In the paper we describe an approach to selection of the elements of culture to be included in the programmes for learning English, analyze the potential of using the mother tongue in teaching a foreign language and offer a technology of learning languages and cultures with the use of such a modern digital tool as audiovisiual translation. As an alternative, we use a parallel translation into the learner’s mother tongue that appears to be an effective way to ensure the comprehensibility of the input. The method of voiced parallel translation, where students receive a bilingual script, as well as video and audio recordings of new words and texts for self-study outside of the classroom is described. This approach can be seen as a component of adaptive learning, which has a great potential for autonomy and personalization in language training.

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