Recent studies in the use of lexicographic devices for language learning and teaching have shown that, especially since the introduction of neural networks, online machine translation programmes are replacing more traditional forms of dictionaries or lexicographic resources which allow users to overcome linguistic problems in production and reception (Kölbl, Pérez Cañizares, und Schnitzer 2021).
At the Vienna University of Economics and Business, we conducted a survey as well as a performance test looking into the use of online machine translation by our students. The goal of our project was to find out which programmes the students find particularly helpful, how they are dealing with the different programmes, and how they judge the quality of the programmes' outputs. In our presentation, we would like to address the results of our study, but even more importantly, we draw conclusions for our teaching routines. How can we as teachers guide our students in the use of these programmes? What are the flaws of the programmes and how can we address them productively during our classes? Our focus lies on business language classes at an intermediate level (B1-B2) in the three Romance languages French, Italian and Spanish.
Students report making use of online machine translation particularly for short structures rather than for whole texts. They also report context-sensitive results and wish for better support and inclusion of how to use the programmes in class. In addition, they still like using online dictionaries whereas traditional dictionaries in print are used very rarely. Our results seem to emphasize the need of addressing the use and handling of these programmes in class. It would be wrong to assume that university students know how to deal with them anyway.
These findings also confirm the results of other studies (Jolley und Maimone 2022), especially the fact that we should use machine translation programmes as a "potentially valuable language learning tool" rather than prohibiting their use (Briggs 2018, 4). We also follow Ducar and Schocket's call for integration of the tools in our teaching and for the inclusion of them into research practices (Ducar und Schocket 2018).
Briggs, Neil. 2018. „Neural machine translation tools in the language learning classroom: Students' use, perceptions, and analyses". JALT CALL Journal Vol. 14, No.1, 3–24.
Ducar, Cynthia, und Deborah Houk Schocket. 2018. „Machine Translation and the L2 Classroom: Pedagogical Solutions for Making Peace with Google Translate". Foreign Language Annals 51 (4): 779–95.
Jolley, Jason R, und Luciane Maimone. 2022. „Thirty Years of Machine Translation in Language Teaching and Learning: A Review of the Literature". L2 Journal 14 (1).
Kölbl, Elisabeth, Pilar Pérez Cañizares, und Johannes Schnitzer. 2021. „Avances tecnológicos en las herramientas lexicográficas y sus repercusiones en la enseñanza del Español de los Negocios". Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas 15 (31): 161–78. https://doi.org/10.26378/rnlael1531464.
