Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 1; January 2002
Teacher Resource Books Preview
Using the Mother Tongue
The Mother Tongue as a Resource in the Foreign Language Classroom
By Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri
( Forthcoming with ETp Delta in late 2002 )
( these are Sheelagh exercises ) - Secondary and adult
Listen and find
Type of Class : monolingual
Teacher : needs a good knowledge of students' mother tongue.
Level : elementary upward
Purpose: pre-reading
to pre-teach unknown words in a text
to focus on collocations and chunks
- Give students the text you want them to read.
- Pick out some words and phrases. This could be language you predict they may not know, and or collocations and chunks you want them to focus on. Translate them into MT.
- Students look at the text while you call out the words and chunks on your list. Make sure these are not in the order in which they appear in the text. While listening to the MT students underline the TL equivalent in the text.
- In pairs students compare their underlinings and write the MT version in the margin.
- Pairs take in turns to call out one of the MT words or chunks and the rest of the class call out the TL in the text.
Variation
This could also be done with a listening text. In this case write your MT words on the board and ask the students to raise their hands when they hear the TL equivalents.
