Listening and memory training in translation

We place particular emphasis on foreign study. Naturally, a summer or semester in Leningrad or Moscow does not fit every student's plans, but we do offer these opportunities to qualified students through our membership in such organizations as the Council for International Educational Exchange and the American Council of Teachers of Russian. Closer to home, students have available the total-immersion summer programs at Indiana and Middlebury, as well as the weekend Russian Language Camp sponsored in the fall by the University of Virginia and James Madison University. Attendance at such domestic programs--or, even better, study in the country itself--provides a target for the student to aim at, a time and place to utilize what he or she has learned.

We are fortunate at Virginia in having excellent cooperation among foreign language departments. One immediate result of this cooperation has been the acquisition of a demonstration classroom with excellent video-tape equipment. This superb facility provides both faculty and teaching assistants with an opportunity to observe themselves and others performing, and to correct errors or improve techniques. All foreign language faculty and teaching assistants hold regular meetings to discuss problems and methodology.

Each department and each college or university has its own institutional mission, and it is both natural and healthy that there should be a wide variety of approaches and emphases. However, the FL program must remain central to the concerns of the traditional language and literature department. If there are no students with a solid grounding in the foreign language, then there will be no majors, no upper-level courses in which the FL is used, and ultimately no graduates with a true understanding of the life and culture of the country concerned. A department that neglects its language program loses its heart. Every effort should be made, whether the institution has a foreign language requirement or not, to make the language program as successful as possible.

The second major focus is, of course, the study of literature. It can be an enormously civilizing and liberating experience for undergraduates, providing we do not insist on burdening them with an unrelieved diet of close formalist analysis of the sort inflicted on us in graduate school. At the risk of excommunication by adherents to the exclusively intrinsic study of literature, I must say that I believe it is a mistake to insist that undergraduates share our enthusiasm for formalist or structural analysis of texts. A department should make such courses available, but it should also offer courses of a more humane breadth which treat, for example, the relationship between literature and the society from which it emanates, a topic that Harry Levin has written on with his customary wit and elegance.

Whatever the approach, FL departments should never allow themselves to be isolated. No one relishes playing the FTE game, least of all those of us involved in the study of literature, concerned as it is with the problematical and contingent in life and the larger questions of the human condition. And yet, if we believe in the value of what we are doing, we ought to have the courage of our convictions and be prepared to defend our discipline in an honorable and intellectually responsible manner. A foreign language department should consider carefully engaging in cooperative joint programs or courses with other FL departments (and English departments), as well as with non-language departments involved in area studies programs. Another useful idea is to offer courses in English translation. Some people frown on such courses as a sort of betrayal, but if they are offered as supplementary courses to the department's core program they can provide a useful service and, if taught well, attract good students. After all, not every student interested in the novels of Dostoevsky or Camus or Thomas Mann or Borges may have the time to study the foreign language to a level where he or she can read them in the original. Quite often a student becomes interested in the language through a literature course in translation.

Team-taught courses provide another useful addition to a department's offerings--for example, a course on civilization and culture, or on contemporary society, taught by an FL faculty member and someone in the history department. Such interdisciplinary courses are by no means easy to put together or to teach but they can be very successful.

These are all ideas that have worked quite well for us, but this is certainly not an exclusive or prescriptive list. Nor do I want to suggest that we have no problems, either in the Virginia program or in Russian studies across the country. Enrollments are down in many institutions. If foreign languages are the most vulnerable part of the humanities curriculum as a whole, then Russian is probably the most vulnerable among them, certainly more vulnerable than the more traditional and better established languages.

In fact, until about twenty years ago Russian hardly existed at all as a language taught in the colleges, let alone the secondary schools, of this country. It is true that World War II and the Cold War aroused considerable interest in the Soviet Union, but, with very few exceptions, neither war had much impact on the American educational system. Appropriately enough it was the Russians themselves who obliged us to pay more attention to their language. The catalyst, of course, was sputnik , a new word that entered the language to symbolize both awareness of Soviet achievements and anxiety over an apparent failure of American science and technology to keep pace.

One important response to sputnik was the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958, which resulted in millions of dollars being poured into language and area studies programs. Among the so-called critical or strategic languages, Russian has benefited most from NDEA legislation. Twenty years later we now find that Russian is taught in practically every respectable college and university in the country. Major institutions have Russian departments, or even Slavic departments where not only Russian but other major languages such as Czech, Polish, or Serbo-Croatian are taught. There are now twenty-three doctoral programs in Slavic languages and literatures where only three or four existed prior to 1958. Fourteen Slavic area studies programs continue to receive federal support under NDEA Title VI, which also provides Foreign Language and Area Studies graduate fellowships to major Slavic programs. It should be noted that in awarding these fellowships preference is now given to students in the non-Russian Slavic and East European languages and in disciplines other than literature, history, economics, and political science, which are felt to have come of age at the graduate level.

It seems to me entirely proper that the traditional foreign languages should maintain their preeminence. However, long years of neglect of other major world languages can only be remedied in the short run by the sort of federal boost provided by NDEA, which has brought the American educational system more in line with the economic and political realities of the twentieth century. It is worth remembering that many of the so-called “smaller” languages are in fact spoken by hundreds of millions of people: Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Arabic. No one would suggest that what this country needs is a samovar in every kitchen, but clearly it is a matter of national interest that a language such as Russian should be made available in a substantial number of our schools and colleges.

The position of Russian is certainly much better than it was twenty years ago. However, the rather panicky reaction to sputnik brought with it some problems because it created a hothouse growth of Russian and East European programs that could only flourish, or in some cases survive, with constant financial support from outside sources. Some programs put down roots; others have begun to wither. It is obviously unhealthy and impractical for foreign language instruction to depend upon the inscrutable shifts of Soviet policy or the momentary shifts in the climate of international affairs. There still exists the danger under NDEA that some programs are obliged to balance on a seesaw of grant and detente; in other words, good news is bad news and vice versa.

We have a habit in this country of throwing money at problems. This leads to a sort of “greening of America” with a difference. What I mean is that federal assistance and private funding increased FL enrollments for a time, but all the while SAT scores were declining. This is a point we would do well to remember as we enter what may be a new era of federal funding for foreign language and area studies. One unexpected result of the Helsinki Accords has been to bring the importance of international studies to the attention of President Carter. Each signatory commits itself to “encourage the study of foreign languages and civilizations as an important means of expanding communication among peoples--for the strengthening of international cooperation.” Having signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the United States finds itself in a rather embarrassing position since it needs to do a great deal more than it is currently doing to “encourage the study of foreign languages and civilizations.” In response chiefly to the actions of Representative Paul Simon of Illinois, the President has ordered the creation of a Presidential Commission on Foreign Languages and International Studies, which should submit its report during 1978.

One encouraging difference between this renewed federal interest in foreign languages and that prompted by sputnik twenty years ago is tone. For example, it was significant that the former National Defense Foreign Language (NDFL) fellowships have been retitled Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships. In other words, “defense” is being removed from the title, and from the motivation behind offering the awards. It would seem that we feel less threatened militarily and have a more healthy understanding of the importance of foreign languages for our national well-being, even in a world at peace.

Whatever the recommendations of the Presidential Commission, it is already clear that foreign language instruction has the support of the recently installed U.S. Commissioner of Education, Ernest L. Boyer. Dr. Boyer, until last year a chancellor in the State University of New York system, has a strong professional background in international studies and a thorough understanding of their importance in the American educational system. His public comments on the problems and objectives of education at all levels have been most encouraging, particularly his speech at the annual meeting of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities last December. He was reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (12 December 1977) to have stated his intention to “revitalize [federal] support of foreign-language and area-studies programs” and to give “a new priority” to internationalizing American education.

We should welcome this increased awareness at the upper levels of the federal government of what has come to be called “global perspectives.” Let us take advantage of the new favorable climate of opinion and the possible increase in federal funding to get “back to basics.” Foreign language instruction and international studies need to be strengthened at all levels, not simply at the college and university levels. We must devote increased attention to the elementary and secondary schools in order to effect a genuine change and improvement in the present situation.

1.3.2.H.L. MENCKEN used to tell the story of a state legislator who clinched his argument against a proposed allocation of funds for foreign language instruction by declaring proudly, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me.” Funny perhaps, but it is hard to keep smiling when similar expressions of smug obscurantism continue to crop up with embarrassing frequency and in the most surprising places. The deputy superintendent for instruction in the Washington, D.C. system, James T. Guines, was quoted in the Washington Post (4 September 1977) as saying that a cut in the school budget meant that such luxuries as foreign language classes in elementary schools would be the first to go. After all, he explained, “Even if you go abroad now, you don't need a language. The dollar speaks louder than anything.”

A brief trip to Europe might assist Mr. Guines in acquiring a better appreciation of the value of foreign languages--and of the dollar. But before we become too self-righteous, we should remember that there is another side to this question. We may agree that foreign languages have intrinsic value, but that value will remain untapped unless and until it is transmitted correctly. Another Mencken anecdote may clarify the point. He recalled studying French for two years in high school and looking forward to his first visit to France; much to his dismay, he discovered that no one in Paris understood “high school French.”

Charity begins at home. We must put our own house in order. Foreign language instruction needs improvement at all levels, but the crux of our problem lies in the elementary and secondary schools. This is where languages should be taught, not in the colleges. I am convinced that the long-range solution to the plight of foreign languages in this country will come with improvement of instruction at the high school level and with coordination of an effective transition from high school to college. However, in the meantime we must face the situation as it is and do the best we can.

Our present prospects are, unfortunately, not very happy. There is no need to rehearse the litany of complaints, but it is worth reiterating that the plight of foreign languages reflects a larger problem that threatens the educational system as a whole. I am speaking of the continued decline in verbal and mathematical skills among young people, demonstrated by the drop in SAT scores over the past few years. To no one's surprise, a special commission charged with studying the matter attributed the lower scores to several factors, including too much television. My own feeling is that two important underlying causes are, or have been, a creeping anti-intellectualism in the public at large and a loss of confidence among teachers.

As a result of this fatal combination, many students receive high school diplomas that are not worth the paper they are written on. Large numbers of so-called graduates are functional illiterates, incapable of even balancing a checkbook. They can hardly read and write their own language, so what hope do they have of learning another? The gradual abandonment of the emphasis on the three R's has been encouraged by the “quick fix” mentality and the introduction of “innovative” ideas, whose chief purpose appears to be to persuade children that learning requires little or no effort. No one is suggesting that we return to the bad old days, but surely the pendulum has swung too far from Gradgrind to the Good Humor Man.

The Good Humor Man approach is intellectually dishonest (children are not fooled, by the way), and it does the children a terrible disservice, as many of them come to realize later in life. Many boys and girls accept tough discipline in sports, and anyone who can learn “plays” in basketball can learn “plays” in English or mathematics. I do not believe that young people who discipline their bodies cannot also discipline their minds. But of course boys and girls have a right to an education; they do not have any right to play for their school in basketball or tennis, so they try harder.

2..3.2. Unfortunately, in too many schools sports dominate all other activities. We are drifting away from the Greek ideal, which like so much in the Classical heritage comes down to us in a Latin tag: “Mens sana in corpore sano.” We need to give high school teachers something of the authority enjoyed by the football coach. It might help, too, if we could focus more attention on educators rather than “educationists” or organizers of teaching, and also get school boards and PTA's off the teachers' backs. Perhaps a little “teacher power” would lead to more respect for teachers--and for the learning process--on the part of the students.

I may appear to have drifted from the topic of foreign language instruction, but I am trying to make the point that we share a community of interests with our colleagues in English and mathematics, and indeed with all teachers at the secondary school level. Foreign languages are the most fragile and vulnerable part of the humanities curriculum. All of us man the front line in a constant battle against obscurantism and the Madison Avenue mentality, but high school teachers are in the trenches. Foreign language instruction is bound to suffer if verbal and mathematical skills decline and if the Good Humor Man approach continues to flourish. Anyone involved in FL teaching also has a stake in the maintenance of high standards of oral and written skills in the English language, because the level of those skills determines the quality of the students we see in our own classes. A foreign language can, of course, be taught well or badly, like any other subject, but learning must involve effort, memorization, precision, and a good knowledge of how one's own language works. That is why we should all welcome the “back to basics” movement that appears to be gaining ground in various parts of the country. Both students and parents are beginning to realize that all the fancy talk about innovation and creative freedom does not help much if a graduate cannot read and write beyond the eighth-grade level and therefore cannot get a job. Frustrated by this discovery, some parents have threatened to sue high schools for awarding diplomas under false pretenses--which is precisely what some schools have done.

Perhaps those of us in Russian studies are more aware of the shared community of interests and of the need for students to have a solid grounding in basic verbal skills. We certainly have more to gain, first, because Russian is such a late arrival on the American educational scene, and second, because Russian requires a good understanding of grammar and syntax (not that one can do without this understanding in learning other languages).

The University of Virginia Slavic Department draws heavily upon applied linguistics in teaching Russian. The discipline of modern linguistics was largely created by Slavists and hence figures as a subject of central importance in most Slavic departments. At the same time, this approach recognizes the obvious fact that Russian is a highly inflected language having, for example, six cases. A student who cannot distinguish between subject and predicate or accusative and dative is likely to find the going rough. On the other hand, Russian grammar is logical and predictable; students willing to make a reasonable effort usually do very well.

Russian classes are anything but dull. Our beginning text is A Russian Course by Alexander Lipson (Slavica Publishers). It is a text with excellent layout, tapes, and an exceptionally good workbook manual. The book offers an ideal combination of liveliness and linguistic sophistication. The first three chapters present a microcosm of the Russian language in practice by use of the question-and-answer technique and frequent repetition. Thereafter the grammar is introduced in stages because the student now has an understanding of how the language works in practice. The instructor speaks Russian from the outset, eliciting correct answers by writing symbols or matchstick drawings on the blackboard; he needs to be on his toes and to be something of a ham in order to create the proper atmosphere of give and take in the repetition of “rituals.”

Lipson's text abandons the old-fashioned type of grammar sentence and opts for nonsense phrases which force the student to focus as much on the linguistic nature of the words as on their meaning. Much fun is had at the expense of Socialist Realism and Soviet propaganda claims of breaking cement-mixing records, but it is verbal play rather than social criticism. Students learn a great deal about the fascinating inhabitants of the twin cities of West Blinsk and East Blinsk, the latter being renamed Gubkingrad in honor of Gubkin, the renowned hero of Socialist Labor. There is also the continuing saga of Superman ( Sverxcelovek ) and Superboy ( Sverxmal'cik ).

The point of all this silliness is that students enjoy the pleasures of contrastive grammar, of punning with sounds that exist only in English or only in Russian. Not only do they acquire a useful set of phrases, but they learn to generate their own “rituals.” They begin to understand that language, any language, is a system tending toward, but never quite reaching, perfect balance in its various components and prosodic features. They enjoy being “behind the scenes,” getting an insight into the ways in which the linguist formulates rules for what takes place in a language. They enjoy learning about linguistic universals, about the relationship between front and back vowels and hard and soft consonants. They perceive a parallel between consonantal and pronunciation changes in Russian ( krast'--kradu ) and in English (wit--wisdom; Christ-- Christian).

I have the impression that many FL instructors lack linguistic sophistication and do not know as much about the theory of language as they could or should in order to employ an up-to-date methodology. It might well be that we need a program of fellowships to enable foreign language instructors at all levels to “retool” and acquire some understanding of linguistics, semiotics, and communication theory.

Our students are not abandoned at the end of the first or second year, although Virginia does have a two-year FL requirement. A determined effort is made to coordinate all four levels of the Russian language program so that students who wish to may continue with Russian in a coherent manner; quite a large proportion do decide to go on with the language. As a continuing text we use Genevra Gerhart's The Russian's World: Life and Language (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). The aim of the book is to tell the American student “what every Russian knows,” and it succeeds admirably. Gerhart gives the connotative as well as the denotative value of Russian words, thus putting cultural flesh on the linguistic bones, breathing life into the frame.

We place particular emphasis on foreign study. Naturally, a summer or semester in Leningrad or Moscow does not fit every student's plans, but we do offer these opportunities to qualified students through our membership in such organizations as the Council for International Educational Exchange and the American Council of Teachers of Russian. Closer to home, students have available the total-immersion summer programs at Indiana and Middlebury, as well as the weekend Russian Language Camp sponsored in the fall by the University of Virginia and James Madison University. Attendance at such domestic programs--or, even better, study in the country itself--provides a target for the student to aim at, a time and place to utilize what he or she has learned.

We are fortunate at Virginia in having excellent cooperation among foreign language departments. One immediate result of this cooperation has been the acquisition of a demonstration classroom with excellent video-tape equipment. This superb facility provides both faculty and teaching assistants with an opportunity to observe themselves and others performing, and to correct errors or improve techniques. All foreign language faculty and teaching assistants hold regular meetings to discuss problems and methodology.

Each department and each college or university has its own institutional mission, and it is both natural and healthy that there should be a wide variety of approaches and emphases. However, the FL program must remain central to the concerns of the traditional language and literature department. If there are no students with a solid grounding in the foreign language, then there will be no majors, no upper-level courses in which the FL is used, and ultimately no graduates with a true understanding of the life and culture of the country concerned. A department that neglects its language program loses its heart. Every effort should be made, whether the institution has a foreign language requirement or not, to make the language program as successful as possible.

The second major focus is, of course, the study of literature. It can be an enormously civilizing and liberating experience for undergraduates, providing we do not insist on burdening them with an unrelieved diet of close formalist analysis of the sort inflicted on us in graduate school. At the risk of excommunication by adherents to the exclusively intrinsic study of literature, I must say that I believe it is a mistake to insist that undergraduates share our enthusiasm for formalist or structural analysis of texts. A department should make such courses available, but it should also offer courses of a more humane breadth which treat, for example, the relationship between literature and the society from which it emanates, a topic that Harry Levin has written on with his customary wit and elegance.

Whatever the approach, FL departments should never allow themselves to be isolated. No one relishes playing the FTE game, least of all those of us involved in the study of literature, concerned as it is with the problematical and contingent in life and the larger questions of the human condition. And yet, if we believe in the value of what we are doing, we ought to have the courage of our convictions and be prepared to defend our discipline in an honorable and intellectually responsible manner. A foreign language department should consider carefully engaging in cooperative joint programs or courses with other FL departments (and English departments), as well as with non-language departments involved in area studies programs. Another useful idea is to offer courses in English translation. Some people frown on such courses as a sort of betrayal, but if they are offered as supplementary courses to the department's core program they can provide a useful service and, if taught well, attract good students. After all, not every student interested in the novels of Dostoevsky or Camus or Thomas Mann or Borges may have the time to study the foreign language to a level where he or she can read them in the original. Quite often a student becomes interested in the language through a literature course in translation.

Team-taught courses provide another useful addition to a department's offerings--for example, a course on civilization and culture, or on contemporary society, taught by an FL faculty member and someone in the history department. Such interdisciplinary courses are by no means easy to put together or to teach but they can be very successful.

These are all ideas that have worked quite well for us, but this is certainly not an exclusive or prescriptive list. Nor do I want to suggest that we have no problems, either in the Virginia program or in Russian studies across the country. Enrollments are down in many institutions. If foreign languages are the most vulnerable part of the humanities curriculum as a whole, then Russian is probably the most vulnerable among them, certainly more vulnerable than the more traditional and better established languages.

In fact, until about twenty years ago Russian hardly existed at all as a language taught in the colleges, let alone the secondary schools, of this country. It is true that World War II and the Cold War aroused considerable interest in the Soviet Union, but, with very few exceptions, neither war had much impact on the American educational system. Appropriately enough it was the Russians themselves who obliged us to pay more attention to their language. The catalyst, of course, was sputnik , a new word that entered the language to symbolize both awareness of Soviet achievements and anxiety over an apparent failure of American science and technology to keep pace.

One important response to sputnik was the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958, which resulted in millions of dollars being poured into language and area studies programs. Among the so-called critical or strategic languages, Russian has benefited most from NDEA legislation. Twenty years later we now find that Russian is taught in practically every respectable college and university in the country. Major institutions have Russian departments, or even Slavic departments where not only Russian but other major languages such as Czech, Polish, or Serbo-Croatian are taught. There are now twenty-three doctoral programs in Slavic languages and literatures where only three or four existed prior to 1958. Fourteen Slavic area studies programs continue to receive federal support under NDEA Title VI, which also provides Foreign Language and Area Studies graduate fellowships to major Slavic programs. It should be noted that in awarding these fellowships preference is now given to students in the non-Russian Slavic and East European languages and in disciplines other than literature, history, economics, and political science, which are felt to have come of age at the graduate level.

It seems to me entirely proper that the traditional foreign languages should maintain their preeminence. However, long years of neglect of other major world languages can only be remedied in the short run by the sort of federal boost provided by NDEA, which has brought the American educational system more in line with the economic and political realities of the twentieth century. It is worth remembering that many of the so-called “smaller” languages are in fact spoken by hundreds of millions of people: Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Arabic. No one would suggest that what this country needs is a samovar in every kitchen, but clearly it is a matter of national interest that a language such as Russian should be made available in a substantial number of our schools and colleges.

The position of Russian is certainly much better than it was twenty years ago. However, the rather panicky reaction to sputnik brought with it some problems because it created a hothouse growth of Russian and East European programs that could only flourish, or in some cases survive, with constant financial support from outside sources. Some programs put down roots; others have begun to wither. It is obviously unhealthy and impractical for foreign language instruction to depend upon the inscrutable shifts of Soviet policy or the momentary shifts in the climate of international affairs. There still exists the danger under NDEA that some programs are obliged to balance on a seesaw of grant and detente; in other words, good news is bad news and vice versa.

We have a habit in this country of throwing money at problems. This leads to a sort of “greening of America” with a difference. What I mean is that federal assistance and private funding increased FL enrollments for a time, but all the while SAT scores were declining. This is a point we would do well to remember as we enter what may be a new era of federal funding for foreign language and area studies. One unexpected result of the Helsinki Accords has been to bring the importance of international studies to the attention of President Carter. Each signatory commits itself to “encourage the study of foreign languages and civilizations as an important means of expanding communication among peoples--for the strengthening of international cooperation.” Having signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the United States finds itself in a rather embarrassing position since it needs to do a great deal more than it is currently doing to “encourage the study of foreign languages and civilizations.” In response chiefly to the actions of Representative Paul Simon of Illinois, the President has ordered the creation of a Presidential Commission on Foreign Languages and International Studies, which should submit its report during 1978.

One encouraging difference between this renewed federal interest in foreign languages and that prompted by sputnik twenty years ago is tone. For example, it was significant that the former National Defense Foreign Language (NDFL) fellowships have been retitled Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships. In other words, “defense” is being removed from the title, and from the motivation behind offering the awards. It would seem that we feel less threatened militarily and have a more healthy understanding of the importance of foreign languages for our national well-being, even in a world at peace.

Whatever the recommendations of the Presidential Commission, it is already clear that foreign language instruction has the support of the recently installed U.S. Commissioner of Education, Ernest L. Boyer. Dr. Boyer, until last year a chancellor in the State University of New York system, has a strong professional background in international studies and a thorough understanding of their importance in the American educational system. His public comments on the problems and objectives of education at all levels have been most encouraging, particularly his speech at the annual meeting of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities last December. He was reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (12 December 1977) to have stated his intention to “revitalize [federal] support of foreign-language and area-studies programs” and to give “a new priority” to internationalizing American education.

We should welcome this increased awareness at the upper levels of the federal government of what has come to be called “global perspectives.” Let us take advantage of the new favorable climate of opinion and the possible increase in federal funding to get “back to basics.” Foreign language instruction and international studies need to be strengthened at all levels, not simply at the college and university levels. We must devote increased attention to the elementary and secondary schools in order to effect a genuine change and improvement in the present situation.

A paper presented at ADFL Seminar West, 27-30 June 1977, in San Antonio, Texas. The author is Professor of Russian and Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Virginia.

The paper discusses memory training in interpreting. According Gile's Effort Model (a Processing Capacity Account), short-term memory is an essential part in the process of interpreting. This paper analyzes the major characteristics of Short-term Memory (STM) and their implications for interpreters' memory training. The author believes that interpreting is an STM-centered activity, which includes encoding of information from the Source Language, storing of information, retrieval of information, and decoding of information into the target language. The training of STM skills is the first step in training a professional interpreter. Tactics for memory training for interpreters like retelling, categorization, generalization, comparison, shadowing exercises, mnemonics, etc. are presented in this paper.

Interpreting is defined as "oral translation of a written text" (Shuttleworth & Cowie: 1997:83). Mahmoodzadeh gives a more detailed definition of interpreting:

Interpreting consists of presenting in the target language, the exact meaning of what is uttered in the source language either simultaneously or consecutively, preserving the tone of the speaker (1992:231).

Whether novice or experienced, all interpreters find this profession demanding and challenging. Phelan says that "when an interpreter is working, he or she cannot afford to have a bad day. One bad interpreter can ruin a conference" (2001:4). In discussing the qualifications required for an interpreter, Phelan mentions that:

"The interpreter needs a good short-term memory to retain what he or she has just heard and a good long-term memory to put the information into context. Ability to concentrate is a factor as is the ability to analyze and process what is heard" (2001:4-5).

Mahmoodzadeh also emphasizes that a skillful interpreter is expected to "have a powerful memory." (1992:233). Daniel Gile (1992,1995) emphasizes the difficulties and efforts involved in interpreting tasks and strategies needed to overcome them, observing that many failures occur in the absence of any visible difficulty. He then proposes his Effort Models for interpreting. He says that "The Effort Models are designed to help them [interpreters] understand these difficulties [of interpreting] and select appropriate strategies and tactics. They are based on the concept of Processing Capacity and on the fact that some mental operations in interpreting require much Processing Capacity."(1992:191) According to Gile, Consecutive Interpreting consists of two phases: a listening and reformulation phrase and a reconstruction phase (1992:191, 1995b:179):

Phase One: I=L+M+N

I=Interpreting, L=listening and analyzing the source language speech, M=short-term memory required between the time information is heard and the time it is written down in the notes, and N=note-taking.

Phase Two: I= Rem+Read+P

In this Phase Two of Consecutive Interpreting, interpreters retrieve messages from their short-term memory and reconstruct the speech (Rem), read the notes (N), and produce the Target Language Speech (P). Gile's Effort Model for Simultaneous Interpreting is:

SI=L+M+P

SI=Simultaneous Interpreting.

L=Listening and Analysis, which includes "all the mental operations between perception of a discourse by auditory mechanisms and the moment at which the interpreter either assigns, or decides not to assign, a meaning (or several potential meanings) to the segment which he has heard."

M=Short-term Memory, which includes "all the mental operations related to storage in memory of heard segments of discourse until either their restitution in the target language, their loss if they vanish from memory, or a decision by the interpreter not to interpret them."

P=Production, which includes "all the mental operations between the moment at which the interpreter decides to convey a datum or an idea and the moment at which he articulates (overtly produces) the form he has prepared to articulate" (1995a:93).

Gile emphasizes that the memory effort is assumed to stem form the need to store the words of a proposition until the hearer receives the end of that proposition. The storage of information is claimed to be particularly demanding in SI, since both the volume of information and the pace of storage and retrieval are imposed by the speaker (1995a:97-98).

In both models, Gile emphasizes the significance of Short-term Memory. It is actually one of the specific skills which should be imparted to trainees in the first stage of training. Among all the skills and techniques which are required for a good interpreter, memory skill is the first one which should be introduced to trainee interpreters.

III. Conclusion

1.3. As we tried to prove within our qualification work the problems of good listening and constant training of short-term memory are one of the most difficult and problematic for those who want to make perfect in learning any foreign language. So our qualification work set its task to find out the most appropriate and easy-to-understand ways for improving the mentioned tasks.

Why we named these problems difficult and decided to study it? As we know, there are two kinds of human memory: long- and short-termed. The day-by-day kind of it is a short-termed one. We often forget almost immediately, what has just been said. As a result, we waste a lot of time on looking through the requirable information in the dictionaries. It is especially harmful when we have to use the simultaneous translation. Short-Term Memory is also an essential part of interpreting, but memory training has long been ignored by professional trainers. From the above analysis, we can conclude that memory skills in interpreting could be acquired by effectively designed exercises. With a well-'trained' short-term memory, interpreters are actually equipped with an effective tool for the encoding and decoding information. It is, therefore, advised that institutions of interpreter training include "memory training" in the design of their courses.

The second part of the problem is that we cannot listen effectively. The problem caused as a result of it is that we are not able to transmit the received information to the other speakers. As a result, the students of foreign languages possess a bad capacity to retell the textual information without mistakes or more or less adequately. That is why so important for the teachers of foreign languages to know the appropriate methodic of listening. Our qualification work might give such an opportunity for the teachers. We gave a number of methods which are suitable and approved by the collective of educators in the USA and Europe.

As a supplementary part to our investigation we included the third chapter where we gave the synchronic light to the Russian influence onto the development of the English language. It helped us to understand some methods used in the theory of translation for translating borrowed words. Vice-versa, it helps us to understand the ways of translation of neologisms borrowed from English in the Russian language. The latter is especially actual for the reason of immediate and constant development of electronic informational technologies and prolonging internationalization of the English language.

One more problem we included into the third chapter is the analysis of teaching the skills of good listening and memory training at schools. It seemed to us actual because of the reason that our qualification work is thought to be applied at schools and colleges previously. In this item we gave the examples of methods used by the American universities.

On the whole, we dare to say that our qualification work will be useful for everyone who is interest in the theory of translation.

2.3. Having analyzed the question studied we could get the following results:

1) The problem of right translation both from receipted and accepted languages can be solved by the applying of the formulae SI=L+M+P.

2) Good listening skills are achieved by means of training exercises.

3) Development of modern informational technologies forces us to pay much attention to studying the problem of listening and memory training.

In conclusion to our work we would like to say that our qualification work can be applied and used by the following:

1) The work can be useful for all the teachers of foreign languages when they teach their students to translate the written sources of information or when the latters are taught to speak and transmit the information in foreign languages.

2) All the students of foreign languages department would be able to use the work for better knowledge of English or when they have practical classes on foreign language.

3) Translators and interpreters might find a lot of useful information for the improvement of their professional activity.

4) The qualification work will be useful for everyone who wants to make perfest in learning foreign languages.

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