Thesis (EdD)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN080745.

This study attempts to shed light on the efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of translating web content in Canada. Within, we seek to explore and understand if a model can be created that can estimate the effectiveness of crowdsourced translation as a means of bridging the Canadian Linguistic Digital Divide. To test our hypotheses and models, we use structural equation modeling techniques coupled with confidence intervals for comparing experimental crowdsourced translation to both professional and machine translation baselines. Furthermore, we explore a variety of factors which influence the quality of the experimental translations, how those translations performed in the context of their source text, and the ways in which the views of the quality of the experimental translations were measured before and after participants were made aware of how the experimental translations were created.

This study attempts to shed light on the efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of translating web content in Canada. Within, we seek to explore and understand if a model can be created that can estimate the effectiveness of crowdsourced translation as a means of bridging the Canadian Linguistic Digital Divide. To test our hypotheses and models, we use structural equation modeling techniques coupled with confidence intervals for comparing experimental crowdsourced translation to both professional and machine translation baselines. Furthermore, we explore a variety of factors which influence the quality of the experimental translations, how those translations performed in the context of their source text, and the ways in which the views of the quality of the experimental translations were measured before and after participants were made aware of how the experimental translations were created.

This study attempts to shed light on the efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of translating web content in Canada. Within, we seek to explore and understand if a model can be created that can estimate the effectiveness of crowdsourced translation as a means of bridging the Canadian Linguistic Digital Divide. To test our hypotheses and models, we use structural equation modeling techniques coupled with confidence intervals for comparing experimental crowdsourced translation to both professional and machine translation baselines. Furthermore, we explore a variety of factors which influence the quality of the experimental translations, how those translations performed in the context of their source text, and the ways in which the views of the quality of the experimental translations were measured before and after participants were made aware of how the experimental translations were created.

This study attempts to shed light on the efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of translating web content in Canada. Within, we seek to explore and understand if a model can be created that can estimate the effectiveness of crowdsourced translation as a means of bridging the Canadian Linguistic Digital Divide. To test our hypotheses and models, we use structural equation modeling techniques coupled with confidence intervals for comparing experimental crowdsourced translation to both professional and machine translation baselines. Furthermore, we explore a variety of factors which influence the quality of the experimental translations, how those translations performed in the context of their source text, and the ways in which the views of the quality of the experimental translations were measured before and after participants were made aware of how the experimental translations were created.

Este trabalho originou-se da necessidade de elaborar e complementar atividades que promovam o ensino e a aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue da Universidade Estadual de Maringá-PR. Durante o andamento do curso, percebemos que as tarefas de produção escrita poderiam ser potencializadas se tivessem como origem um texto oral, pois os alunos mobilizariam de forma mais proveitosa suas estratégias de compreensão. Para comprovar nossa hipótese, elaboramos uma tarefa na qual os alunos devessem passar uma mensagem gravada na secretária eletrônica para uma nota de serviço, que são situações de comunicação muito correntes no ofício do secretariado. Nossa previsão era que ao conhecer o formato do texto de destino, o aluno selecionaria com mais agilidade as informações necessárias no texto fonte, comprovando o movimento de reciprocidade entre os saberes profissionais (estrutura do texto, contexto de emprego, etc.) e os saberes linguísticos. De fato, após quase um ano de trabalho, nossos alunos foram capazes de compor a nota de serviço a partir de uma gravação na secretária eletrônica, pois utilizaram estratégias de mediação para ligar a compreensão do texto fonte à produção do texto de destino. O resultado do uso dessas estratégias foi um texto de destino que obedeceu às normas de composição esperadas e cumpriu sua função comunicativa, comprovando o papel das estratégias de mediação na aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue. / The aim of this work was to develop and supplement activities in order to promote the teaching and learning of French focusing the Trilingual Executive Secretariat Course of Universidade Estadual de Maringá state of Paraná Brazil. It was observed during the classes that the written production tasks could be improved if the oral text were taken into account, since the students would be able to mobilize the comprehension strategies in a more profitable way. To try the hypothesis, a communicative situation task was chosen among the most current of Secretariat work. For the elaborated task students should deliver a recorded message from an electronic machine into a memo. Our assumption was that students should select more accurately the necessary information of the source text, once they knew the format of the target text, confirming thus the exchange movement between their professional knowledge (text structure, job context, etc) and their linguistic knowledge. In fact, after almost one year of work, students were able to build up the memo, based in an electronic machine recording, by using mediation strategies to link the source text comprehension to the target text production. The use of such strategies showed that the target text followed the composition rules and accomplished its communicative function, proving the role of the mediation strategies in the learning of specific purpose French for the Executive Secretariat Course.

Este trabalho originou-se da necessidade de elaborar e complementar atividades que promovam o ensino e a aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue da Universidade Estadual de Maringá-PR. Durante o andamento do curso, percebemos que as tarefas de produção escrita poderiam ser potencializadas se tivessem como origem um texto oral, pois os alunos mobilizariam de forma mais proveitosa suas estratégias de compreensão. Para comprovar nossa hipótese, elaboramos uma tarefa na qual os alunos devessem passar uma mensagem gravada na secretária eletrônica para uma nota de serviço, que são situações de comunicação muito correntes no ofício do secretariado. Nossa previsão era que ao conhecer o formato do texto de destino, o aluno selecionaria com mais agilidade as informações necessárias no texto fonte, comprovando o movimento de reciprocidade entre os saberes profissionais (estrutura do texto, contexto de emprego, etc.) e os saberes linguísticos. De fato, após quase um ano de trabalho, nossos alunos foram capazes de compor a nota de serviço a partir de uma gravação na secretária eletrônica, pois utilizaram estratégias de mediação para ligar a compreensão do texto fonte à produção do texto de destino. O resultado do uso dessas estratégias foi um texto de destino que obedeceu às normas de composição esperadas e cumpriu sua função comunicativa, comprovando o papel das estratégias de mediação na aprendizagem do francês com objetivos específicos para o curso de Secretariado Executivo Trilíngue. / The aim of this work was to develop and supplement activities in order to promote the teaching and learning of French focusing the Trilingual Executive Secretariat Course of Universidade Estadual de Maringá state of Paraná Brazil. It was observed during the classes that the written production tasks could be improved if the oral text were taken into account, since the students would be able to mobilize the comprehension strategies in a more profitable way. To try the hypothesis, a communicative situation task was chosen among the most current of Secretariat work. For the elaborated task students should deliver a recorded message from an electronic machine into a memo. Our assumption was that students should select more accurately the necessary information of the source text, once they knew the format of the target text, confirming thus the exchange movement between their professional knowledge (text structure, job context, etc) and their linguistic knowledge. In fact, after almost one year of work, students were able to build up the memo, based in an electronic machine recording, by using mediation strategies to link the source text comprehension to the target text production. The use of such strategies showed that the target text followed the composition rules and accomplished its communicative function, proving the role of the mediation strategies in the learning of specific purpose French for the Executive Secretariat Course.

v AJ The thesis is dedicated to the situation of professional training for teachers of Czech as a second language. The topic was chosen due to its topical nature as teaching Czech as a second language is a topic growing in importance. Another reason for the choice of this topic is the thoroughly discussed issue of tertiary education at universities in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part of the thesis provides a description of current situation and current options for gaining professional expertise in the field of Czech as a second language. Various university programmes will be compared with respect to the sequence of individual subjects and the perceived purpose of individual subjects for teaching practice. The general availability of the programmes will be compared as well as the opportunities provided to students with respect to further improving their didactic skills The outside university options to gain and develop expertise in teaching Czech to foreigners (including the specialized courses and methodology trainings. The theoretical part aims to provide an overall review of all options for gaining the expertise and practical skills necessary to teach Czech to foreigners effectively. The findings of the theoretical part will help current and future teachers The empirical part will be...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:45:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thais Marchezoni da Silva.pdf: 3119851 bytes, checksum: 07b6547aaff57d6da20ea0ee7cc9e7c1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work aims at questioning the graduation of professionals in Curso de Letras, São Paulo - Brazil, who teach English as a foreign language (EFL) to children from 6 to 10 years old. To begin with, we considered legal texts and studies from well-known researchers which sustain our judgment about the existence of peculiarities towards the processes of teaching that age group, therefore the importance of that course provides didactic-pedagogical disciplines about child development. In order to understand and analyze the experience of teachers of English, who teach children, we applied a questionnaire which included questions about: their graduation, teaching materials, the classes, the child as a learner, among others. Based on information we obtained, we present considerations which will hopefully make agencies in charge of the country's education and teachers of English aware of some implications at teaching that language to children due to shortcomings in these professionals' graduation. / O presente trabalho visa à análise da formação do profissional de Letras atuante como professor(a) de inglês para crianças entre 6 e 10 anos de idade. Num primeiro momento da pesquisa, examinamos textos legais, estudos de teóricos e pesquisadores que sustentaram nosso julgamento de que há peculiaridades em relação ao processo de ensino-aprendizagem da faixa etária em questão, por isso a importância de o Curso de Letras oferecer disciplinas didático-pedagógicas específicas sobre o desenvolvimento infantil. A fim de conhecer e analisar a experiência docente de professores de inglês, que lecionam para crianças, aplicamos um questionário que consta de perguntas relacionadas: à formação, ao material didático, às aulas, à criança como aprendiz, dentre outras. Com base nas informações obtidas apresentamos algumas considerações que, esperamos, contribuam para conscientizar os órgãos responsáveis e professores de inglês a respeito de possíveis implicações no ensino do idioma para crianças devido às carências na formação deste profissional.