Reading, Teaching German, and the Web

Teaching German, Spring 2009

The Web and Language Learning
The world has indeed changed. What is it that all German students, regardless of level, can take with them into the “wider world” when they leave our courses? What is it that they can continue to do if so inclined? One skill that should help them continue their use of German is the ability to read “intelligently,” especially the skill to read the web: to know what sites are reliable and for what, and to know how to glean meaning from texts. In addition, if they are interested in keeping their language competence in German fresh, reading for pleasure will help them do so.

Issues about Online Translation Tools
I know many faculty members are against the use of online translating websites, and certainly they often provide terrible translations. However, if students understand exactly what online translation tools can and cannot do, they can learn to use them wisely. It is similar to the calculator. When that came out, people were against using it, because it was feared that people would no longer be able to do math in their heads. That fear has been realized, to some degree. However, I would not be without my calculator nowadays when I balance my checkbook. (Yes, I’m one of that very small minority of people who uses checks and aggravates the people standing in line behind them!)

The Positive Aspects of Online Translation Tools
After having sat in on my colleague’s translation course, where he used translation memory and translating tools that are used in companies to provide the raw data for huge numbers of words that must be translated as accurately and quickly as possible, after seeing how students can be scaffolded to create culturally sensitive, polished English translations of texts translated from the second to the first language, I am convinced that even the poor translating tools accessible to all can be used to help further language acquisition instead of simply allowing students to cheat. They can provide the raw data, like dictionaries do, for students to use as they attempt to glean meaning from difficult texts. As I have seen in my colleague’s class, such raw data is only the beginning, for students have to grapple with textual meaning, culture-specific meanings in certain words, phrases, and texts, in order to fully understand a text.

So next semester I plan to begin by demonstrating to students, by way of examples, just what the online tools can do, and what they cannot do, how one has to be aware of where they go wrong and how they can change the meaning of a sentence or even the implications of a whole text. I want to show them the difference between dictionary based translators, as I believe babelfish is, and data-based translators, as I believe the google translator is. I’ll show them when a translator is doing a good job, and when it is “sending the wrong meaning.” I’ll demonstrate that they will have to learn how to be the “arbiter of meaning,” so to speak, how to know when the translator is right on, when it is not. And that will require them to analyze the original text in some depth.

We can teach them how to navigate the web. We can teach them that cultural meaning is hard to translate. We can teach them to beware of literal translations. We can teach them to use context, their logic, and their background knowledge to know when a translation is going wrong, doesn’t make sense, is not coherent. For example, if the translation tool translates ‘Lager’ as ‘camp’ when the context dictates ‘Lager’ as referring to beer, then students need to learn to watch the context for clues as to which word is conveying utterly in appropriate meaning.

Google Images: What They Can Do for Foreign Language Students
I also want students to understand the help that google images in German can provide, given that students learn to be aware of the source of the pictures (i.e., do they come from German-speaking sources?). Especially concrete nouns and verbs, but even other words or word phrases can produce 1) visual images, and 2) verbal and visual context. Sometimes a picture, or 20 pictures, are worth a thousand words, for they provide students with a visual image of how that particular object or idea is conceived of in the L2 culture. Students who process language more visually may be benefited, too. I have also noticed that the words underneath the picture are usually within a context of a phrase or sentence, so that interested students can see how they are used as well. I want to alert students to this potentiality of images. For example, the word ‘Lindwurmbrunnen’ was an important concept in a paragraph about the city of Klagenfurt, Austria, in a text students were asked to read recently. If you look up ‘Lindwurmbrunnen’ in google.de images (Bilder), you’ll find a number of pictures of it. You’ll also find phrases like “Lindwurmbrunnen in Klagenfurt” or “Klagenfurt - Der Lindwurmbrunnen.” Even words like ‘love’ (‘Liebe’) have visual representations on the web. Words like ‘honesty,’ while producing pictures, are more difficult to comprehend; however, with an online dictionary like Leo, the word can be understood, and students who are interested can see how the word is used in picture and text. Verbs like ‘laufen’ (‘to run’) are fairly concrete and easy to depict, while words like ‘verstehen’ (‘to understand’/’understanding’) need both the dictionary and the visual uses.

Using the Web to Understand Key Cultural Concepts
Students should also be taught how to use the web to decipher key words, phrases, and concepts. For example the German word ‘Heimat’ cannot be easily translated into English. According to Leo it means ‘country,’ ‘home,’ ‘homeland,’ ‘home country,’ ‘native country,’ or ‘home depot!’ However, even a quick scan of Wikipedia shows there is much more to the concept (translation follows):

Heimat kann eine Gegend oder Landschaft meinen, aber auch sich auf Dorf, Stadt, Land, Nation, Vaterland, Sprache oder Religion beziehen. Heimat bezeichnet somit keinen konkreten Ort (Heimstätte), sondern Identifikation. Es ist die Gesamtheit der Lebensumstände, in denen ein Mensch aufwächst. Auf sie wird seine Psyche geprägt, ihnen "ist er gewachsen". Als Gegenüber der Fremde wird Heimat im utopischen Sinne auch als der erst noch herzustellende Ort in einer Welt jenseits der Entfremdung verstanden, dies gilt insbesondere für Erfahrungen des Exils.

I used the google translator as the raw data, but polished the translation as best I could:
Home can be a region or landscape, but it can also refer to the concept of village, city, state, nation, homeland, language or religion. It does not denote a specific place (homestead), but rather an identification with something. It is the totality of the circumstances in which a person grows up. A person’s psyche is “stamped” with it, is shaped by it. It happens to him or her: “it grows him/her.” S/he is grown by it. A person is acted upon by it. As compared to that which is strange or foreign, the word ‘Heimat’ is understood in a utopian sense as that quietly constitutive place in a world beyond alienation. This especially applies to experiences of exile.

GOOGLE translation which I used as the raw data to form my own: Home can be a region or my landscape, but also to the village, city, state, nation, homeland, language or religion relate. Denotes home thus no specific place (home), but identification. It is the totality of the circumstances in which a person grows up. It is his psyche characterized them ", he is grown." As compared to the stranger in the home is also as a utopian sense of still herzustellende place in a world beyond the alienation understood, especially those experiences of exile.

(One can also see here why the translator only provides the raw data, and the reader must search further to understand the nuanced meaning of the definition.)

Help with Languages Not Even Studied!
If students understand how these online translators work, then they will be trained in the their even with languages they have not studied, languages such as Spanish for example, and they will know the caveats and what to look for as they are trying to glean meaning from texts in languages other than their native language. As the internet draws us closer to each other, we may indeed want to read a text in a language we do not know. If we know how to use the tools wisely, they can be an aid to us. If we know that cultural meaning is harder to translate, we’ll be more careful when trying to understand a text in another language.

Background Reading in the Native Language
I also want students to understand the value of background knowledge when attempting to read in another language. As scholars have said, if one knows the language and has background knowledge, then that is the ideal. One has many tools to help create meaning from language. If one has one, but not the other, i.e. language proficiency but not background knowledge or background knowledge but not proficiency, one can rely on what one has to compensate for the lack of the other. However, when both are missing, one has a great deal of difficulty. Our students can help compensate by getting some background knowledge in their own language about a topic and then attempting to understand L2 texts. This is another reason why it is good for students to explore their interests. Not only will they be more interested, but chances are they have more background knowledge in many of these areas of interest. In the past we were not allowed to read in our native language about whatever we were studying in the L2. I know from experience that such an approach severely limited my understanding of L2 literary texts, for I had neither the sophisticated language competence nor the cultural background knowledge needed for comprehending these texts in any depth. Later on I learned how to use English translations, articles about the texts, as well as the texts themselves to understand them as texts and within their sociocultural and historical context.

The Importance of Understanding How to Read the Web in General
Students are somewhat savvy about reading the web. They know that Wikipedia cannot be relied on 100%, for example. I want to help them navigate between fact and opinion, argument and description, exposition and narration. That will help them when writing, as well as when reading, if they are explicitly made aware of it all.

For Further Reading of My Own
Finally, I want to carefully read Swaffar, Byrnes, and Arens’s 1991 Reading for Meaning. It will help me be even better at teaching my students a “skill for life,” whether reading German, English, hard copy, the web, or some language they have never even studied!