Some approaches to text summarization teaching

Доклад на 6-ой Всекрымской конференции преподавателей иностранного языка в декабре 2019 года рассматривает некоторые приёмы обучения аннотированию и реферированию англоязычных текстов профессиональной направленности

SOME APPROACHES TO TEXT SUMMARIZATION TEACHING

Natalia Sukhareva

Shipbuilding Mechanical Technical School

of the Federal State Budget Educational Establishment

of Higher Education “Kerch State Maritime Technological University”

At present, along with the traditional full interpretation of professionally oriented texts, new types of technical texts analysis have become widespread. These include abstract translation and annotation. In studies at high and higher educational establishments it is essential for students to be able to summarise information. Different information sources – lectures, textbooks, journal articles, etc. – are supposed to be reduced in such a way that students could distinguish the major issues from the minor ones.

The range of use of annotations and summaries, the main purpose of which is the rapid spread of scientific and technical information, is extremely wide. Being the most economical means of familiarization with the material of the primary source, these types of secondary texts are used in the information support of scientific research, educational process. They act as a means of international information exchange as well.

The training in writing summaries and annotations by students should include four main stages: 1) motivation and orientation stage; 2) stage for setting goals; 3) developing and forming stage; 4) generalisation stage. Such types of work with special texts in a foreign language pursue practical, educational and upbringing goals considered as the whole.

We develop reading and writing abilities of students simultaneously in this field of teaching English. Production and interpretation strategies used affects all the aspects of the language application. That is why we cannot consider summary writing only as a linguistic activity, but also a communicative and logical one.

Many investigators made researches in this area: A. Veize, I. Babaeva, T. van Dijk, Bracewell, Donin, Dillinger and others. They noticed that summarising links reading and writing comprehensions. It implies the use of different cognitive mechanisms. They identified creating a summary with the organizing abilities for the rearrangement of information to make it clear and appealing. Moreover, this activity demonstrates the full comprehension of the original piece of information, which is necessary for creating an abridgement based on the original text.

It cannot but mentioned that summarization teaching is a difficult task. Our aim is to help students to perform abridging texts and try to facilitate this process.

The theoretical observation of the process includes a presentation of the following aspects of the subject:

• main stages, basic concepts and specifics of a summary and annotation foreign sources;
• methods of presentation of information in a summary or annotation;
• general and distinctive characteristics of a summary and annotation;
• the language and style features of a summary and annotation and lexical and grammatical means of presentation.

At the first stage, it is important for students to understand that text annotation is the practice and the result of adding a note or gloss to a text, which may include highlights or underlining, comments, footnotes, tags, and links. Text annotations can include notes written for a reader's private purposes, as well as shared annotations written for the purposes of collaborative writing and editing, commentary, or social reading and sharing. At the same time, summarising articles involves reducing the physical volume of the primary article while its main content is preserved. Information in the process of summarising is compressed, which is associated with the analysis and selection of the most important substantive information, its main provisions, evidence, results, and conclusions.

It is advisable to organize the first summarizing as a group work at a lesson following a teacher’s instructions. At the second stage, a teacher and his/ her students should define what texts are suitable for the group and individual summarizing. Then at the third stage the professional vocabulary expansion is carried out, practical skills of applying the knowledge obtained in the study of a foreign language in situations of everyday professional communication are laid, activated and consolidated. It is essential to keep in mind that our students are carriers of basic knowledge in the sphere of their professional activity.

The purpose of the fourth stage is to systematize the knowledge gained by students and to carry out the final quality control of its practical application by them. The way of gradual and systematic mastering of these skills is going from simple texts to complex ones, from group classroom work to independent work.

For beginners it is advisable to follow the plan below:

1. Reading of an article silently and dividing it into semantic parts.
2. Replacing difficult grammar constructions with easier ones and working with new vocabulary.
3. Underlining/ writing out the main thoughts in the native language.
4. Preparation of a summary in a foreign language in writing.
5. Oral summarising in a foreign language in the classroom.
6. Answering the questions.
7. Comments of group-mates/ a teacher, assessments and additions.

When writing a summary, it is necessary to be able to separate the main information from the secondary information. The summary is based entirely on the original language. It may include passages borrowed from the original source (generalizations, formulations). Special phrases, clichés and terms typical for this type of writing, can also be used in the summary. It contains all the main provisions of the original. The volume of the summary is usually 10-15% of the volume of the initial text.

The abstract usually has the following structure:

1. The name of the text, its author, the source of information.
2. The field of science or technology, which the text is referred to.
3. The main themes and problems highlighted by the text.
4. A summary of the content.
5. Conclusions.
6. Student's opinion on the content of the text material read.

The possibilities of using professional text materials in terms of training qualified specialists with knowledge of a foreign language are extensive. This type of educational and methodical activity creates favorable opportunities for combining technical and humanitarian education, promotes personal growth of students. The recommendations on working with foreign professional texts in a non-linguistic educational establishment is considered as an additional means of optimizing the process of a foreign language training, focused on the further development of forms and methods of solving educational problems.

Sources

1. Комарова Е.В. Реферирование как один из самых распространённых приёмов работы с иноязычным текстом в процессе обучения иностранному языку в вузе // Молодой учёный. – 2015. – №15. – С. 482 – 484. [Электронный ресурс].URL: http://moluch.ru/archive/85/15878/
2. Соловова Е.Н. Чтение в составе универсальных учебных действий: позиции ФГОС и традиционной методики обучения иностранным языкам // Иностранные языки в школе. – 2014. – № 4.
3. https://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=549