Guoquan Sha of Sichuan Economic Management College in Chengdu, China, wrote an interesting article at the end of 2010.
His main idea is that corpora has changed language learning and language applications over the past years. But aside from this remark, he mentions one of the most common tools available on the internet- Google.
Sha argues that Google has become a great platform or springboard tool for many university students in China that are learning languages. They utilize Google first as a method to solve their language learning or writing difficulties. He also mentions that in comparison with the British National Corpus, Google has different advantages. It provides spelling checks and has far more search results than this specific corpus.
This semester, I know we have discussed a variety of different technological aspects that should be considered in language learning. What about Google? How does this serve a function in light of language learning? Sha describes how it is used easily by students for working on translations or working with writing. How do you see this applicable in your own language teaching? Would you support using a tool like this in the language classroom? Do you find it comparable to other corpora out there?
Sha, G. (2010). Using Google as a super corpus to drive written language learning: a comparison with the British National Corpus. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 23(5), 377 — 393.
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ReplyDeleteThe best website for translations/dictionary is wordreference.com because it give you meanings of word in context of other structures.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if that fails I do fall back on Google.
As a learning device for language constructs I am cautious, however, as the internet is filled with a lot of re-spellings "kno' for 'know' 'u' your 'you' and 'y' for 'why'. This is even true for French and Spanish 'k' for 'qué/que' et cetera.
Additionally, the translation tools provided by google are more appropriately used for people who are proficient in both the source and target language of the translation.
I agree with Austin about being wary of re-spellings and text chat in an academic setting. And I've seen come crazy translations rendered from Google Translate! Especially when you try to translate things back into the original language (try it).
ReplyDeleteBut Google is awesome and so easy to use and it's FREE, which is a huge plus in most educational environments. The only downside is that I wouldn't want to use it unless the students are already proficient. My students that take Spanish just plug all of their questions in to Google Translate and get the English>Spanish or Spanish>English translation. It's not always completely correct, but they will pass the class without having learned a thing!
Google is a great way to access a plethora of language resources. Students hopefully realize they can't type their whole paper in their L1 and just press translate and have it come out exactly they way they meant it in the L2. But they will encounter autocorrect features (which may or may not make them aware of errors---is there research about that somewhere?). Then of course acceptable examples of the TL, or just an online grammar guide. If you're unsure of how to phrase something, just throw it in quotes and see if it's actually used that way on formal and informal websites--clearly students would have to be instructed on how to effectively do this. Using Google is familiar and if used constructively, can have positive language learning results.
I think that actually Google is an excellent tool and I use it myself and encourage my students to use google for langauge learning in my class. One of the best ways would be to use google is to check a vocabulary item, I do this often not by reading about it, but by looking at images in google. For example the other day in my class we had a question about olive skinned, did that mean like a tan white person, or a light african person? So I went into google and looked it up, apparently it can be both. So right away I used google to show my students what it was and the range of the color.
ReplyDeleteAs far as corpus, I do not really use google often, however, I do once in a while type an expression in to see if what generally comes up is what I think should. If I see a bunch of results coming out of left field, I know that I am misusing a phrase. In short I am all for google use in the classroom.
I agree with those above regarding the tendency of students to simply plug in large swaths of text into Google Translate. It can often produce some incomprehensible results. But for short phrases, I think it can be really helpful. I've noticed my students do whatever they can to avoid using an actual dictionary, in both physical or digital form. Yet, they are quite comfortable with Google. Anything that can assist in spelling is a plus.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone that google can be a good translator but often misleading. There are so many words that, if in the wrong context, can be translate wrong. Therefore, just putting one word into Google Translate can often provide the wrong definition. But, there are also many words that can be translated correctly by Google Translate. But I think Google can be used for many language purposes other than translating. As we learned in our last class, we can use Google for different corpus linguistic projects. I could see myself using google for different language activities. It is a great resource for the students to go to in order to figure out what a word means in context, or to even try to find articles that have a certain word or phrase in it. I would more than likely tell a student to go to the regular google search engine to find out what something means before I would tell them to go to google translate. Also, you can type in two different words (similar or different) and find out the different between the two words. I do find it comparable to other corpora. Sometimes I think that it might be better than a regular corpora because it has so much data that can be used for one single word or phrase.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts and thanks for all for your feedback and comments. It was interesting that I planned this blog post without even realizing we were discussing corpus based activities in class!
ReplyDeleteGoogle searches are convenient and easy to teach students how to utilize. For lower level learners it might be an easy place to start off.
When posting this I was not thinking google translation tools at all, but rather searching for words and seeing their meanings in context and also just what pops up after a search. Students can easily see how words are used in this manner.
I agree with the opinion that Google is a good tool to search data and experience different cultures while we are learning the target language. In my case, I ask my students who are learning Chinese to use the Google to learn the target language. They can type the unknown word and search how to use it in a sentence. But I don’t think it is a good idea to use Google to translate in improving writing or reading comprehension. My students usually use the Google translate to translate sentences from Chinese to English and vice versa. However, they find out that those sentences they got are totally nonsense within a sentence or a whole paraphrase. Therefore, I suggest that they can use dictionary rather than translating sentences from English to Chinese.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is perfect tool as supplementary inside and outside class rooms, especially, in learning and teaching vocabulary. It provides us with the most common used meaning in our daily life. Google is very helpful for translation of the phrasal verbs which is hard for the second language learners to understand the correct meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I like about Google is the explanation of the difference between two synonyms. For instance, the difference (between allow and permit). To sum up, Google is very good tool that gives us much accurate translation.
For the most part, Google has great benefits for those who seek information using this tool. The information is not always accurate, but it pretty much gives you a general idea of what you're looking for. When I was learning academic Spanish, I often used it to translate some word/phrases and it doesn't always give you the correct form, but it gives you ideas of other options you can use.
ReplyDeleteI like using this tool and recommend it to anyone who needs support or who would like to use it as a supplement. There are definitely other tools that are more effective and it can really be useful to use them combined. I still rely on Google because it has all types of information and it is a great time saving tool.
I found some similar problems with Google translate when I lived in Germany. Some of the sentences were incomprehensible, but at least gave me a place to start. I've also told my students to try Google language tools as a reference to help so that they have something of a resource when the dictionary books and electronic translators may not have the words they are looking for.
ReplyDeleteI like Google, but I won't use it in my ESL class for Beginners and Low Intermediates.It is definitely "springboard tool", but the student has to maintain some English and vocabulary to get into it. I belive the teacher has to run the portfolio of each ESL student to see the progress and after the ELL got the point he can start writing essey - it is right time to introduce the student to Google. It won't hart, because the student already accomplished a lot.
ReplyDeleteWriting with Google on the early stage of learining? This is a joke! The student can have fun playing around, learning new words and so, but. I know for sure it takes time to learn how to keep the balance for baby. Very before it can try first steps. And writing is far away from ABC.