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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 4; July 03
Translation game
Level : Elementary to Advanced
Time : 15-20 minutes
Preparation
Ensure that each member of the group possesses or has access to a good bilingual dictionary (English - mother tongue / mother tongue - English). Pocket dictionaries will not be adequate.
In class
- Ask the students to work individually.
- Write up an English word on the blackboard: choose one which will produce a rich set of translations.
- Ask the students to look up in the dictionary the word you have put up and to read through the translation(s) given. Then ask them to choose one mother-tongue word that translates the English word and to look that up in the mother tongue - English section of the dictionary. They should then choose one of the English translations offered for that word and repeat the process.
- Ask the students to continue in this way until they have looked up, say, a dozen words. At each stage they should write down the word they look up.
Example
Working with a German-English dictionary, one person produced this list:
BAG /\ Sack /\ SACK /\ Laufpass /\ DISMISSAL /\ Entlassung /\ RELEASE /\ Befreiung /\ DELIVERANCE /\ Rettung /\ SALVAGE /\ Bergung /\ SHELTERING /\ Zuflucht /\ REFUGE
