대학 영작문 교과목에서 자동번역기 활용법 개선을 위한 연구

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the perception of Korean university students regarding online automatic translators (ATs) and the effect of ATs on their learning of English writing. A total of 141 university freshmen students participated in the study by answering two sets of survey questionnaires and writing an English essay with the help of an AT. A method of using an AT during writing an essay was also developed in this study. The results show that students have been accustomed to using ATs, and most of them even frequently use ATs while doing writing assignments for their English classes at university. Students use ATs because they are satisfied with the speed and convenience of ATs, as well as their helpfulness in the use of vocabulary. Despite their frequent use of ATs, students commented that they are not able to judge the correctness of the translation results and had questions about the justification of its use. After conducting English composition using an AT while following the newly proposed method in this study, participants reported that they were helped to supplement the quality and content of the essay and also to learn vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. With the newly proposed method, they could write the first draft in English on their own, and then they took enough time to think deeply about their essay through the revision process using an AT. This study is meaningful in that ATs were confirmed to be effective as an educational tool rather than as a translator itself for students to learn English writing. Finally, this study suggests that various educational methods of using ATs should be devised for other fields of language learning and for other levels of students.