Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03

Inner Translation

Level: intermediate to advanced
Time: 50-70 mins
Preparation: read through the whole unit carefully.

In class:

1. Dictate this short text

   -One group of North American Indians have a very clear idea of WHERE time is. For them the past is something you can see clearly and so it is way out ahead of you. The distant past is far away and so you can only see it dimly. The “day before yesterday” is further out in front of you so you see it more distantly and more dimly than you see “yesterday”.
   The present is inside you. It is “here and now”. You don't see it, you feel it.
   The future is behind and no one can see what is in the future. It is out of vision.

   Ask the students to discuss their reactions to this way of spatialising time. Give the plenary discussion five minutes. Listen carefully yourself to the ideas that come up.

2. Dictate this questionnaire

   -Think of the last time you were with a person you like. Can you see, hear, and feel the situation?

   -Think of the space in you and around you.

   -Where in this space do you place the memory of the meeting? Is it behind you, in you, somewhere in front of you?

   -Think of something you plan to do.

   -Are you seeing it, feeling it, smelling it or hearing it? Or something else?

   -Where is this future thing in your personal space?

   -Where, in personal space, is the PRESENT for you.

   Is it inside you, if so WHERE? Is it outside you? If so where?

   -Does where it is depend on…..?

   -If so, on what?

3. Group the students in threes
   Ask them to share with their classmates the answers to the questions they have just taken down.
   If this work goes well you will see a lot of gestures and spatial activity.

4. Now ask the students, still working in their threes, to place the tense system of English in their own personal space. Explain that some people may have the present tenses inside them, some may have the present continuous inside and the present simple outside. Some may have the simple past in front of them to the left. Some may have the past behind them etc….. Ask them to make sure they also place tenses like present perfect, used to, past continuous and future perfect. They may need 10-15 minutes for this work.

5. Ask three students to tell the class about their placing of the tenses in their personal space.

Language comment

Course books have plenty of two dimensional representations of the tenses: time lines. These are relatively fine for students who see time out in front of them but make less sense to students who have the present IN them.

Teachers will often gesture forwards to indicate future and backwards to indicate the past and this makes less good sense to the students who perceive all of time out in front of them.