I have noticed that students are not used to purchase text books, or to obtain the illegal photocopied version, or the least to borrow a reference from the library. the troubling relationship students have with text books worries me. In particular as I also noticed that students are no longer interested in reading text, or reading anything that is more than a page. Sadly, my observations were confirmed by lecturers at different colleges, and apparently, it is a national habit nowadays. This generation in general, reads less and enjoy books less.
This new disease is infesting this generation!!
The refrain from reading text have it is effect that I widely felt it across all courses that I taught so far. Such effects can be summarized in the following:
- Students have weak English vocabulary.
- Weak vocabulary can not help them construct a sentence in English.
- That said, they are not able to read and comprehend English text books, or any reading material.
- So, as a result, MCQ exams results were horrible, and they have no interest in answering any assay question.
- Writing lab report is the biggest chore for students.
I realized the depth of this problem first when I asked them to write me a lab report. I could barely understand what is the idea of the sentence. Apparently, many of them rely on Google Translator, a machine with no brain. Google translator works by translating words individually, rather than working on whole sentences. Given that one Arabic word could mean many things, I got some funny reports, but frankly, all were sad. Sad because students are lagging behind in writing report, in understanding scientific peer-reviewed papers, which of course has a big impact on their abilities to carry out scientific research.
I am lost now between how to get students engaged, and how to get them to read. But will be exploring their minds to find a solution to this problem,.
and until then, will keep this blog a live to get them to read a little.
below are few pictures of how google translator can go wrong:
this one is the best so far
not mixed, it is problem
instead of parking for everyone, it turned out to be only for uncles!!!!
no word can explain how this went wrong
This is my best, a cheese that cause paralysis
Best luck all, and hopefully Google translator can get smarter as it seems people can not
