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Abstract: The theoretical framework in the master’s thesis entitled “The Use of False Friends among Slovene Students of English” covers concepts that are fundamental to false friends and translation studies in general. The theoretical part discusses the authors’ perspectives on definitions and classifications which include various examples of equivalence, cognates and false friends. It then highlights some examples and ideas regarding teaching and learning false friends in the classroom. It is argued that focus on false friends is a useful tool for teachers who incorporate the concept of false friends in their classes. The empirical part of this thesis presents the results of the research which examines the use and knowledge of Slovene-English false friends among Slovene students of English. The research was conducted through a questionnaire which had 26 questions and was distributed online with the help of the tool 1ka. The study included 244 Slovene learners of English. 118 participants were primary school learners from 6th to 9th grade and 126 participants were secondary school learners from years 1 to 4. The results show that Slovene students of English are aware of a significant number of false friends included in the survey, although there are still plenty of Slovene-English false friend pairs that remain unfamiliar. The questionnaire results indicate that more than half of the participants have not heard the expression “false friends” as a linguistic concept at the time of the testing. In general, secondary school learners were more successful in the use of Slovene-English false friends pairings than primary school learners. At the same time, the results do not show that learners with higher grades in English are more familiar with false friends than those with lower grades.
Keywords: false friends, equivalence, cognates, language learning, teaching English as a second language
Published in DKUM: 17.08.2023; Views: 507; Downloads: 50
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Abstract: In master's thesis entitled The Use of Past Simple and Present Perfect Tense and Common Errors of Students in 9th Grade theoretical part thoroughly presents English as a global language, language acquisition and language learning, teaching English as a foreign language, grammar and its correlation to education, deductive and inductive approach, the two tenses – Past Simple and Present Perfect and the most common errors in learning English grammar. The empirical part is based on a research where 100 9th graders from 6 different schools answered questions from a questionnaire regarding English tenses. With the help of questionnaire which had 9 tasks in total, we were able to examine and research to what extent do the Slovenian 9th graders know and successfully use Past Simple and Present Perfect. The questionnaire was created accordingly to the syllabus. The learners were the most successful when dealing with the theoretical part of the questionnaire. Even though they had some problem when choosing the correct tense when dealing with practical tasks, they had a higher success rate when dealing with the tasks that were theoretical. The learners from 9th grade achieved overall positive success rate in all tasks which means that they successfully know, recognize and properly use Past Simple and Present Perfect Tense.
Keywords: English tenses, Teaching English as a foreign language, Language learning, English grammar, English as a global language
Published in DKUM: 07.10.2021; Views: 5694; Downloads: 64
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Abstract: Our thesis begins by discussing the concept of culture. Next, it considers the importance of incorporating culture into foreign language teaching and developing intercultural communicative competence. We have discovered that culture is an inevitable part of our everyday lives. It shapes our identities and helps in explaining our actions. Therefore, being unaware of the characteristics of other cultures may result in misunderstandings. As teachers, we must be aware of the importance of culture and should be able to familiarize our learners with its elements. By incorporating elements of culture into lessons, our learners will not only become competent English speakers, but will also know how to appropriately and effectively adjust to a variety of situations, and how to maintain and establish personal relationships. In the empirical section of the thesis, we have studied primary and secondary school English teachers’ views on teaching culture. The results showed that the teachers are aware of the importance of culture teaching since all the participants include various cultural elements into their English lessons. In addition, we have analysed the eight most frequently used English textbooks the teachers use in Slovenia in terms of the cultural elements they contain. We have decided to analyse textbooks as the main resource for teaching culture since textbooks are an indispensable and also a mandatory resource for every English teacher. The analysis showed that the textbooks contain a variety of cultural elements and are taught with the help of multiple strategies.
Keywords: culture, teaching culture, English as a foreign language, intercultural competence, textbooks
Published in DKUM: 07.09.2020; Views: 1673; Downloads: 148
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Abstract: In the thesis we write about English as a global language and the process of teaching it using a special in-company method. Learning a language differs from person to person, and even more from adults to children. When it comes to teaching English as a foreign language, we can use different approaches and methods, from conventional to alternative ones. There are many ways for people to learn a foreign language – it can be by themselves using different books, audio-visual material or apps, or by taking classes with an English teacher. Browsing through numerous job ads for English teacher vacancies one can easily notice there is a preference of native speaking teachers. Why are native speakers, that potentially do not even have any teaching certificates, more valued than non-native teachers with pedagogical background? Spain is one of the countries where English is not vastly spoken; a situation which in the past few years have been slightly changing for the better as more and more people sign up for English courses to learn English for different purposes (most common are work, travelling or themselves). One of the companies that offer English courses all over Spain is Vaughan Systems where teaching evolves around an autonomous method developed by an American, Richard Vaughan. In the thesis we introduce the method and Vaughan teachers’ opinion on it regarding their workload, pedagogical background and textbook assessment and comparing the results based on the teachers’ native speaker status and the time they have been working for the company.
Keywords: English teaching, language learning, adults, non-native speaking teachers, native speaking teachers, Vaughan, Spain
Published in DKUM: 11.02.2019; Views: 1677; Downloads: 84
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Abstract: There is a growing need for the development of at least some academic vocabulary in students of EFL (studying English for teaching and non-teaching purposes), if one of the main aims of EFL study is to produce competent users of English. Students are expected to read and understand advanced professional texts, not simply to successfully complete their degrees but to become a part of educated society, and to be able to meet the demands placed upon their knowledge in a prefessional environment. The reading and understanding of professional texts can be a highly demanding activity because of the number of academic and professional terms such texts include. This paper exemplifies the usefulness of a gap-fill exercise, as one among a range of options for developing and testing academic vocabulary in a professional context. The exercise was compiled with AWL gapmaker based on a professional review text, which includes academic items of vocabulary. The gap-fill exercise was used with two groups of EFL students in the same year of study and installed at two difficulty levels for two reasons: to test students' existing knowledge of academic vocabulary, and to enrich it through the analysis of words in context/co-text relation using a concordancing program. The paper compares the answers of both groups to determine the most problematic entries (incorrect answers), and to provide the possible reasons for them. Further, contextual clues are taken into consideration as a helpful source for determining correct entries, and tested with the concordancing program. Besides the emphasis on the usefulness of such gap-fill exercises combined with corpus for the development and enrichment of academic vocabulary, the paper also emphasizes the importance of guiding students in how to search for different grammatical and other contextual clues to make correct inferences, and how to use concordances to support or reject the claims.
Keywords: English, foreign languages, scientific language, scientific vocabulary, academic vocabulary, corpus linguistics, academic teaching, didactics
Published in DKUM: 18.05.2017; Views: 1942; Downloads: 395
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