Педагогические
науки/ 2. Проблемы подготовки специалистов
к.п.н.
Отрощенко Л.С.
ДВНЗ
«Українська академія банківської справи НБУ» Україна
Teaching German as a second foreign language in the Ukrainian
Academy of Banking of the NBU
Multilingual
acquisition has become a common process within increasing economic, political
and cultural links among European and world countries. In education, the
focus of the researches on multilingualism is how to develop curriculum in a
multilingual teaching environment, how to teach languages in multilingual
context and how content and language integrated learning atmosphere can be
built [2, p. 16].
Students
of the Ukrainian academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine, whose
speciality is International economy, in case when English is their first
foreign language, have an opportunity to learn German or French as their second
foreign language. The content of the German course is spread over 4 terms (112
hours). Lessons take place once per week. At the end of the course students
pass exam.
The aim
of this article is to look into acquisition of German, having the status of the most
widely-spoken language in the European Union, at the Ukrainian academy of
Banking and to analyze what influence knowledge of English has for both learners and teachers. Many contemporary learning theories suggest that learning (in terms of
language learning) has to be related to the existing knowledge of the learner [4, p. 14].
Foreign
language teachers realize that many difficulties in learning a second language are a function of the extent to which the second language differs from the first one. Differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary
can cause learning difficulties. The first thing that needs to be said is German and English are very similar, as both (along with Dutch, Flemish,
Afrikaans, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic) belong to the Germanic family of Indo-European languages. The similarities can easily be seen in the
following aspects:
·
vocabulary (Halle/ hall, neu/ new,
Hand/ hand, lang/ long, jung/
young, Winter/ winter, Garten/ garden, Ende/ end and so on);
·
subject-verb-object order (Ich
trinke Kaffee/ I drink coffee);
·
declension of verbs (singen, sang,
gesungen / sing, sang, sung);
·
some
modal verbs (müssen/must,
können/ can);
·
the use of articles (ein, eine/ a, an der, die, das/ the);
·
comparatives and superlatives (lang, länger, am längsten/ long, longer, the longest);
·
suffixes (hilflos/ helpless) and so on.
It
should be pointed out that future international economists start studying
German as the second foreign language on the third course. Previously acquired knowledge of English can greatly enhance students’ progress in
learning German and can serve as a great motivation factor for them. Since interest in learning a foreign language is
often dependent on geo-political and socio-economic factors, growing
socio-political and socio-economic connections between Germany and Ukraine,
possibility to get education in Germany influence the popularity of German
among the students of the Ukrainian academy of Banking of the NBU. Many
students want to get their Master degree in Germany. They therefore would like
to learn German so well that they can be accepted by a German university.
We
completely agree with N. Chomsky, who points out that the truth of the matter is that about 99 percent of
teaching is making the students feel interested in the material. Then the other
1 percent has to do with your methods.
That’s not just true of languages. It’s true of every
subject.
At the
very beginning of learning German students are taught to introduce themselves
and they come across such words as Name,
Adresse, Straße, kommen, leben, Universität,
Musik, Hobby, Telefonnummer and so on. In most cases, they
are able to understand these German words either
immediately, or after some time when
they realize that a slight change in spelling does not mean a different meaning.
Similar words in German and English can also be found
in various lexical fields such as family (Vater/father, Großmutter/ grandmother, Sohn/ son, Bruder/ brother), weather (Sonne/ sun, Mond/ moon, scheinen/ shine, Wind/ wind), calendar and time (Januar/January,
Winter/winter, Freitag/Friday, Jahr/year, Monat/month, Minute/minute,
Morgen/morning), body parts (Knie/knee,
Arm/arm, Finger/finger), food and drinks (Suppe/soup,
Brot/bread, Salz/salt, Milch/milk, Bier/beer,
Wein/ wine), sports (Fußball/football,
Basketball/basketball, schwimmen/swim), animals (Kamel/ camel,
Katze/ cat,
Elefant/ elephant), music (Klarinette/ clarinet, Akkordeon/ accordion, Trompete/ trumpet), clothes (Jacke/ jacket, Schuh/ shoe,
Socke/ sock), colours (rot/ red,
grün/ green,
braun/ brown), adjectives and adverbs (kalt/ cold,
warm/ warm,
bitter/ bitter,
frisch/ fresh,
praktisch/ practical, offen/ open), verbs (fallen/ fall, finden/ find,
waschen/ wash,
reparieren/ repair, rennen/ run) and
numbers (sieben/ seven, zehn/ ten,
hundert/ hundred, tausend/
thousand) and so on.
On the
other hand there are some English words borrowed from German (kindergarten, angst, wunderkind, zeitgeist,
lager, fest, sauerkraut, blitzkrieg, doppelganger and so on).
There
are a lot of words which came to German from English. “Denglish” (Deutsch
+English) has become “a new German language” and an ordinary and conventionally
reality in Germany [1, p. 23]. Among English words which are frequently used
in modern German one should mention: die
Girl, cool, shoppen, das Baby, der Sale, Job,
die Kids, Flyer, Crash, Lifestyle, der Star, das
Poster, die
Site, der/das Terminal, in-house, download,
Laptop, das Ticket, relaxen and so on. Moreover, there are a lot of anglicisms in marketing and business
terminology
(das Outsourcing, das Marketing, Public
Relations, der Sale, Follower, renewable energy, die Healthcare, der Salesmanager, das Servicecenter, der Share, das Shoppingcenter, das Controlling, der Smalltalk, das Benchmarking, die
Software, der Profit, Human Resources and so on). No doubt possessing this vocabulary, students have fewer
problems with Business German.
N.
Hedderich points out that he finds
the influence of English vocabulary along a spectrum of assimilation in German
vocabulary, ranging from direct to indirect borrowing. He adds that Bartsch and Siegrist (2001) provide a model of
a five-segment spectrum of assimilation as follows:
1) Adoption (e.g. Download)
Adoptions are the most direct from
of transfer. The spelling of the English word ikept in its original form. The
word may be pronounced either as in British or American English or it may be assimilated to the German phonological system.
2) Adaptation (e.g. Dekoder,
downloaden)
The word has been adapted to the
morphological and syntactical system of German.
3) Mixed Compounds (e.g. Softwareschmiede)
German and English elements are combined to form a new compound noun.
4) Loan Translations (e.g. Festplatte,
Suchmaschine)
Formation of a new word occurs on
the basis of German elements, but according to the semantic pattern of English.
5) Pseudo-Transfers (e.g. Handy)
A new word is formed from English
lexical and morphological elements. While sounding English, the word does not
exist in English at all, or with a different meaning [3, p. 3].
A great help in stimulating and facilitating German as a second
foreign language provide video
courses («Alles Gute»,
«Easy German», «Extra auf Deutsch», «Deutsch spielerisch lernen», «Jojo sucht das Glück», «Easy German», «Learn German», «Learn German with entertaining videos», «Learn German with Deutsch Happen» and others). At
the very beginning of learning German we often use these materials with English
subtitles. In our opinion this method can boost students’ interest
and motivation.
As a
conclusion we can say that motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers
and researchers as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success
of second foreign language learning.
LITERATURE
1.
Ю.
Н. Одинец, Е. И. Тарашкевич. Английские заимствования в современном немецком
языке. Материалы II
Республиканской научно-практической конференции «Лингвистические и
социокультурные аспекты иностранного языка» Брест 21 мая 2013. – С. 21-26
2. M. Bastürk, R. Gulmez. Multilingual learning environment in French
and German language teaching departments. The Online Journal of New Horizons in Education – January 2011,Volume 1, Issue 2 – p. 16-22.
3. N. Hedderich.
Language change in Business German. Global business languages. – 2007. – 12(1).
– p. 1-10.
4. M. Jungwirth.
Language awareness. Second language acquisition: the interface between theory
and practice. – October 2002 - January 2003. – p. 14-19.
5. M. Payne, Ch.
Spurgin. Cultural content and references in the teaching of German. German as a
foreign language. – 2013 – № 1. – p. 1-18.