Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 6; November 02

Inner Translation

Type of class: monolingual or multilingual classes

Teacher: doesn't need to know students' MT

Level: lower intermediate to advanced

Purpose: to help students to do inner voice work on English, without the pressure of other speakers round them.

• Do a short relaxation exercise- a very simple one is to ask students to shut their eyes and notice their breathing - another is to ask them to shut their eyes and to measure a minute anyway they wish, other than looking at a clock or watch.
• Ask the students to close their eyes and bring to mind a mother tongue sentence that expresses something they are thinking about. Ask them to say the sentence over to themselves under their breath in as many ways as possible. Ask them to think of different people saying the sentence.
• Now ask the students to put the MT sentence into English and say the sentence over several times in their head's voice.
  Now ask them to find a different English translation of the same original sentence and say this new version over internally.
  Now ask the students to find a third translation and say it over several times.
• Ask each student to write down the three English versions of his/her original sentence.
  Allow time for them to ask you language questions.
• Group the students in 4's, 5's or 6's and ask them to read out their three versions to the group and explain which one they like best and why. This task usually provokes strong linguistic thought.
• Do as many “rounds”, following the steps above, as you have time for.

Acknowledgement:
This exercise would not have happened without Adrian Underhill's offer of the Inner Workbench idea.