Multimedia Technologies in Foreign Languages Studying.

Ollie Korobka, Olena Piatkova, Tetyana Bondaryeva.

Faculty of Linguistics, National Technical University of Ukraine “Kiev Politechnic University”, 01032 Kiev Saksaganskogo Street 147/5, office 25, Ukraine, vallation@mail.ru.

Multimedia technologies provide a new approach in the field of foreign languages teaching within Bologna system of education. The efficiency of using informational technologies at the lessons is obvious due to the following reasons:

- Students can better perceive, comprehend and understand new general and special purpose information owing to the visual aids;

- Teachers can supply students with suitable demonstrative material (especially drawings, schemes, tables) in order to avoid speaking native language and to safe time on explanation.

Almost each multimedia lesson is based on a presentation created with the help of the following programs: PowerPoint (ppt.,pps. formats), Windows Movie Maker, PhotoShop, Lectora. This software allows students to improve their reading, listening, comprehension, speaking, vocabulary and grammar skills due to the development of imaginative and associative way of thinking.

Multimedia lessons give an opportunity to create a number of various tasks: listening (sound support of the visual material, viewing of educational/feature films with/without subtitles), grammar exercises (PowerPoint Presentations, on-line English grammar: Cambridge English Grammar, Advanced Grammar in Use, etc.), vocabulary development (language games: Association.ppt, Jeopardy.ppt, BookWorm Adventures, Marriam Webster Spelling Jam, Babel Deluxe, I Spy Spooky Mansion, etc).

Informational technologies enable to diversify methods of grammar and vocabulary verification. Hot Potatoes and Moodle software are used for entrance, progress and final tests tasks: Identifying Activities, Fill in the gaps, Multiple choice, Scrambled words, Quizzes, Odd one out, Crossword puzzles, etc.

The reason for applying multimedia technologies in foreign language studying is to increase teaching efficiency, to encourage and captivate students, and to smooth language barrier.