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Translation and Learning Lexis–Philip Kerr
This was a really interesting talk for me since I did my dissertation on teachers’ attitudes to students’ own language use in the classroom. I’m looking forward to reading Kerr’s new book when it comes out next year. But in the meantime here’s his blog:
He also mentioned e-books for teachers who want to get into writing. http://www.eltteacher2writer.co.uk/
One interesting thing he said is that we need to teach less in class but facilitate learning more because the amount of vocabulary students need to progress is a lot more than what they learn in class. The average is 4 lexical items per hour of tuition. One useful activity–flashcards.
This is an old, yet effective, teaching technique where you translate a short text into another language and then back again. So for us:
English — Learners’ own languages —English
In our mixed language classes we can pair students of the same language together or have them work individually for the first translation stage but together to put it back into English. We can also use google translate. Students are going to anyways and this highlights some of the issues that could arise.
One idea I really liked, and not just because it has zero prep, is to take a text we did in class and have students translate it into their language. Then the teacher holds on to it for a few weeks/lessons and gives it back to them to translate back into English. It’s motivating, encourages noticing and is good review.
Another one is after you do a gap-fill exercise you could dictate the eight or so sentences back to the students but instead of them writing in English, they have to write in their own language very quickly. Then they have to translate them back to English with a partner.
(btw here’s the humorous job applicant letter he showed us)
To sum up his talk: translation is a motivating, effective way for learners to memorize chunks.
Creativity and Memorisation–Nick Bilbrough
We need to do something to make chunks stick in our minds. We shouldn’t be creative in language production because most of what we say is made up of pre-fabricated chunks, but there is room for creativity in remembering chunks. We need to make links between existing language and new. Links can be through meaning but also form.
We could try linking new language to places. We have a better memory for images than any other type of data, so if we can visualize where we put new language it helps us remember it. One useful way is to link expressions to a route when walking.
- Jumbled sentences with chunks
Put jumbled sentences on board for students to unscramble.
It’s difficult to unjumble:
smokers like heavy looks jam think traffic
because our mind is primed to notice chunks.
- Poems with chunks help with memory
Put a number of chunks on the board. Students choose a number from 1-however many chunks you’ve written. Then show chunks and students have to write a poem with the chunk corresponding to their number, in this form:
By the way
I want to say
That from today
I’m going to stay
By the way
- Keep/Let classification activity
Teacher puts stickies of expressions around the room (e.g. fingers cross, off steam). Students walk around and memorize them. Then walk back to desk to record in the correct column.
(answer to jumbled sentence: Smokers think traffic looks like heavy jam.)
Teaching Grammar Lexically–Hugh Dellar
In this talk Hugh criticised a structural, PPP (present, practise, produce) approach to teaching because focusing on structures in isolation distorts the reality of how language is used in conversation. Following this kind of syllabus where grammar and vocabulary are separate actually makes it harder for students. Students feel just because they’ve seen it once, they’ve done it, but being able to speak about English is not the same as being able to speak in English. They need less metalanguage and more real-life , frequently-used sentences like
How long have you been doing that?
or I’ll see you later.
or Why did you decide to do that, then? Well, I was thinking of…
rather than 