SMARTPHONES AS ESSENTIAL EDUCATIONAL TOOLS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

The world around us has changed and smartphones are present in every aspect of our daily lives. This advanced technology can benefit both students and teachers. However, teachers in North Macedonia still resist the changes that are essential for achieving a 21st century classroom.One simple and affordable way of improving the educational process is by using the smartphone as a teaching and a learning tool in the classroom. The successful implementation of smartphones in the regular curriculum will benefit both teachers and students.In this paper I will discuss the most common obstacles that students and teachers face, the appropriate solutions for those obstacles and the general advantages of the smartphone as an educational tool in the classroom. I will also offer practical examples for using the smartphones in the EFL classroom.Key words: smartphones, secondary schools, EFL

The variability of linguistic politeness

Politeness is a universal concept present in all languages and cultures. Despite the universality of the general concept of politeness, linguistic politeness is a different concept with its own distinct features related to both language and culture. The aim of this paper is to raise the awareness for the variability of linguistic politeness and its influence on the communicative competence of learners of English as a foreign language. The paper gives a thorough explanation on the difference between politeness as a behavioural trait and linguistic politeness by a theoretical overview of the development of linguistic politeness in English and some of the most influential linguistic approaches to this multiplex concept. Furthermore, it shows the culture-based variety of linguistic politeness in other languages and cultures and consequently emphasizes its influence on EFL learners with different cultural backgrounds and its importance for EFL teachers as well

Contrastive analysis of the speech act of complaining in Macedonian and American English

The research presented in this thesis is a cross-cultural study of the speech act of complaining in Macedonian and in American English. Our aim was to determine the differences and similarities of formulating complaints in the two languages with respect to complaint strategies, perspective and modification. We based our analysis on the work of Trosborg (1995), Olshtain and Weinbach (1993), Haverkate (1998) and Wahyumi (2010). Data for the research were collected through an online Discourse Completion Task (DCT) consisting of eight hypothetical situations that elicit complaints. The used situations had different social and power distance between the interlocutors and different severity of offence. The participants were 29 students at the Public Secondary School “Kole Nehtenin” located in Shtip, Macedonian, and 29 students at the John Burroughs High School located in Burbank, California, USA. The research has indicated that there are some differences between the two languages in the strategy use, the perspective and the use of internal modifiers, which may cause miscommunication. In general, the research has implied that the similarities outnumber the differences. In this study we have also identified the most common forms of complaining preferred by the speakers of both communities. The findings of the research can help us understand the social values and relationships in the two languages, and they can also help us overcome the possible language barriers between the speakers of the Macedonian and the American community

A comparative analysis on apology speech acts in American English and Macedonian

The subject of analysis in this paper is the speech act of apology. The comparative analysis was conducted in relation to the form of the speech act and the strategies used to express it. The analysed data were obtained through an online discourse completion task among American and Macedonian university students. The DCT includes three situations that differ in accordance to the social distance and the social status of the participants, and the severity of the offence. The aim of the research is to define the pragmatic structure of apologies, by determining the possible similarities and differences in both languages. Herein, speakers in both languages can avoid future miscommunication and become aware of different communication styles and cultural features of the languages

Newest Trends and Technologies Related to Actuarial Mathematics - Review Paper

This paper gives an overview of the new methods and the last trends considering actuarial mathematics. Based on a few papers that we consider relevant to our topic, we picked the information that is interesting to review. We will discuss different mathematical models and their use in the actuarial calculations for life insurance and non-life insurance

British English vs American English preference by university students of EFL

For decades English has been considered a global language used as not only a native language, but as an official language, a second language in many countries and taught as a foreign language worldwide. Herein, English includes numerous varieties, regional and local dialects, professional speech, slangs, jargons etc. The variety of English is an important feature for learners of EFL, especially for future teachers of English. The constant exposure to different types of English through television, movies, online content etc. might hinder the fluency of EFL learners. Therefore, EFL teachers need to help their students and prevent any ambiguities due to the differences between American and British English. In this research, we have analysed the preference of students between British English and American English vocabulary. The analysis includes 60 first year students of English language and literature from the University “Goce Delcev” in North Macedonia and the South-West University in the Republic of Bulgaria. The results provide an insight on both the knowledge and linguistic preference of students between the two standardized English varieties and enable teachers, university professors and English coursebooks authors to determine their approach in class and help students master fluency

Analysis of Grammar Vocabulary in Foreign Language Textbooks: Italian, German, English, and Macedonian

This paper analyzes grammar vocabulary in foreign language textbooks. It describes how metalinguistic terminology is presented in textbooks of Italian, German, English and Macedonian as a foreign language intended for students at level A1.1. First it analyzes how grammatical terms and expressions are presented, which strategies are used to explain their meaning, whether attention is paid to the problems that may arise in mastering their meaning, and how much attention is given to these terms. The analysis includes terms and expressions that lexically identify the grammatical aspects of the foreign language in question. It is a very specific terminology (e.g., verb, article, singular, personal pronouns, etc.), but also a lexicon that does not have grammatical value, but in a metalinguistic context it acquires it (regular, irregular), as well as words used in grammatical explanations (sentence, word, syllable, etc.). The analysis is divided according to the foreign language, and then a comparison is made between different textbooks for a foreign language. The subject of our analysis is the grammatical terminology of foreign language textbooks that are most often used in the educational institutions in the Republic of North Macedonia and the Macedonian language textbook that is used in the Macedonian language courses for foreigners in the Republic of North Macedonia: • Italian language textbooks: Nuovo Progetto Italiano 1, Corso multimediale di lingua e civiltà italiana, livello elementare A1-A2, T. Marin & S. Magnelli, Edilingua; Nuovo Espresso, Corso di italiano A1, L. Ziglio & G. Rizzo, Alma Edizioni; • German language textbooks: Planet 1, Deutsch für Jugendliche, A1, G. Koop & S. Büttner Hueber Verlang; Paul, Lisa & Co, Deutsch für Kinder, A1.1, Bovermann M., Georgiakaki, M. & Zschärlich, R., Hueber Verlang; • English language textbooks: Upstream Beginner A1+ Student’s Book, V. Evans & J. Dooley, Express Publishing; Solutions Elementary Student's Book A1-A2, T. Falla & P. A. Davies, Oxford University Press. • Macedonian language textbooks: Зборувате ли македонски?, почетен курс, M. Кусевска и Л. Mитковска, Скопје: Просветно дело. (Do you speak Macedonian?, Elementary course, М. Kusevska & L. Mitkovska, Skopje: Prosvetno delo). As authors and, above all, as foreign language teachers with many years of work experience, we give our own insight into how understandable and clear metalinguistic terminology can be understandable and clear for beginners. Keywords: grammatical terms, foreign language, metalinguistic terminology, grammatical explanations

Finding a suitable method for teaching Phraseological units

The Faculty of Philology at UGD-Shtip has teaching majors that primarily aim to train modern teachers of German, English, and Italian as foreign languages. As teachers, trainers or as guides of future language teachers, we aim to produce modern teachers who will be able to transfer knowledge to their students and easily fit into modern educational trends and be in step with world labor market trends. Such challenges require a reconsideration of the ways, i.e., of the methods used in language teaching. As everything in the world changes at lightning speed, so must the methods in the teaching process. This is exactly the topic of our research through which we will try to give an answer to one of the many current questions that we believe affect all stakeholders of the teaching process around the world, and that is finding an appropriate method for studying phraseological units (PUs) in foreign language teaching. There is no doubt that PUs are an important part of language and culture around the world. They cause difficulties for English, German and Italian learners of these as second languages because their meanings are more often than not unpredictable. Non-native speakers can find themselves in trouble at times when encountered with some PUs. To many foreign language learners Pus can be a stumbling block. Obviously, this is because the meaning of the words that constitute a PU in most cases does not match the intended meaning of the unit. Our paper investigates the reasons for the difficulties learners encounter in studying PUs and the practical methods in teaching these. The research is conducted in three phases: in the first phase we will survey 15 students from the Departments of German, English and Italian who study the phraseology provided in the teaching curricula to see their attitude to these specific lexical categories, i.e., to give an answer to the question ‘How do students perceive the teaching of phraseological units? and the results will be given in a diagram in percentages. The second phase will be done in two parts: the first part will consist of the use of the traditional method of studying phraseology in the teaching of the specified foreign languages and the evaluation of the acquired knowledge about the phraseology of the foreign languages they study through an appropriate test in order to determine the degree of acquired knowledge. The second part will consist of teaching using the modern method of studying phraseology called the conceptual metaphors method, conducted with the same students as in the first part of this phase, which will also be followed by testing the students involved to determine the degree of the acquired knowledge. The third phase of the research will consist of a self-evaluation list that all involved students will receive, which will give us information about the attitude of the students-future teachers: Which method of teaching PUs in L2 does teachers prefer - the traditional method or the conceptual metaphors instruction? Through the results obtained from the final phase of the research, we will actually get an answer to the question of what the most appropriate method for teaching and adopting phraseology in a foreign language is, which we as teachers and our students as future teachers should apply in order to perform modern foreign language teaching that will be positioned side by side with the world teaching trends

Phraseologisms and their function in the building of the motive "innocently prosecuted heroines" in the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales

The original corpus of the linguistic material for this paper are the Grimm Brothers’ tales, in original in German and translated into Macedonian, English and Italian. The indicated phraseologisms are widely used today in both languages, which only proves their fluency in modern language trends.The basic criterion for classification refers to the phraseologisms that are related to the main character in the fairy tale, i.e., the hero who goes through his own initiation journey.In this paper the focus shifts to the two heroines in the fairy tales "Snow White" and "Cinderella" who have the common status of "innocently persecuted heroines". The tales "Snow White" and "Cinderella" are the two most famous tales by the Brothers Grimm.Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm's interest in German fairy tales began in 1812 with the publication of Kinder -und Hausmärchen("Children's and Household Tales").The fairy tales "Snow White" (Schneewittchen) and "Cinderella" (Achenputtel) were then published.Although there are many variants of these stories in the world andwith different titles, we would still dwell on their integral text.The aim of this scientific research paper is to present the similarities and differences in the phraseological units that are used in the same context, but in completely different language systems: German, English, Italian and Macedonian.The linguistic approach initiates the conclusion that phraseological units function at the morphological, syntactic and semantic level of the text, which means that they have a wide range of meanings.Phraseologisms are specific linguistic expressions composed of two or more words that form linguistic units recognizable for the linguistic environment of the speaker.The linguistic-cultural richness of the indicated languages, Macedonian and German and English and Italian is recognized by using phraseologisms as a tool for presenting the external and internal description of the character, but also the description of his/her socio-economic status in the community.The phraseologisms referring to the heroines in both tales are characterized by imagery, which gives the text a rich colorful structure.The imagery is achieved through the use of the comparative approach, i.e., through phraseological units that are built on the basis of comparison; the text is also enriched at reception and each reader creates his/her own individual image.The phraseological material in the fairy tales is quite rich, especially in the fairy tale "Snow White". These two most widespread tales of the Brothers Grimm are analyzed in science from various aspects.For us, the target group were students who, in the process of education, acquired knowledge about the meaning of phraseological units and are able to recognize them in a given text. The work fuses the knowledge from the field of folklore and from the field of language, in correlation with the teaching process, through which students acquire necessary knowledge from both fields of interest.However, this paper aims to detect the comparative phraseologisms used to describe the characters of the two heroines with a similar character structure.Both fairy tales are in the subgenre of tales of "innocently persecuted heroines", a fairy tale motif with a long history and deep antiquity. We will look into comparative phraseologisms through five different prisms:1.physical attributes of the character: handsome, ugly, thin, fat, short, tall2.character traits: good, bad, clever, stupid, brave, timid, proud3.emotional state of the character: love, hate, fear, anger, revenge4.socio-economic status of the character: poor, rich, learned, simple5.attitude towards others in the environment: understanding, tolerance, helping, misunderstandin

Using Fairy Tales for Enriching the Vocabulary of Foreign Languages

As foreign language teachers we are constantly faced with the challenge of finding new, modern, innovative and, above all, attractive to our students, methods and ways that will enable us to more easily adopt foreign vocabulary and thus, of course, achieve students’ richer vocabulary. Thus, our goal as linguists, researchers and primarily teachers is to enrich the vocabulary of foreign words in our students, i.e., students at the departments of Macedonian, German, English, and Italian language and literature at the Faculty of Philology, University "Goce Delcev" - Stip, the Republic of North Macedonia. For that aim, a research team consisting of several professors from the above mentioned departments has prepared this study based on the results of the research in which the third and fourth-year students were included from these departments and answered the questionnaire that consisted of two parts: the first part where carefully selected general statements were asked regarding the knowledge of fairy tales in their mother tongue and foreign languages, and the second part contained practical exercises with which we wanted to prove or disprove our thesis that children who actively read and retold fairy tales in early childhood, have a richer vocabulary at a later age. Confirmation or rejection of our thesis is of great importance for us as a research teaching staff, but also for our students, future teachers, who need to actively transfer their knowledge to their prospective students. With this study, we want to help the teaching professionals and, through the well-known fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, to facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language in a more sophisticated, easier, and more interesting manner. The question is why fairy tales are the subject of our interest and why we propose them for easier adoption of foreign lexicon by students from the listed language departments at the Faculty of Philology. In response, we quote the well-known thought of Albert Einstein: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” With this Einstein’s quote we begin our work because it, in a concise way, conveys the powerful message that is present in every fairy tale, be it in the native Macedonian language or in German, English, Italian or another foreign language. Einstein says that wise people teach their children about life with instructive messages presented through fairy tales. So, by learning about life and the wisdom of life, in fact, new vocabulary of a foreign language is unconsciously adopted by the students from the mentioned language departments at the Faculty of Philology. There is great truth in this Einstein's quote that fairy tales really have a positive impact on the enrichment of the vocabulary both of the native Macedonian language and of the foreign languages our students stud