[quote=“bob”]Tell me what is wrong with this theory/plan/idea (besides the fact that it could get boring after awhile).
Most second language learners never get to the point where they actually think in the L2. In conversation then they: 1) Listen to L2. 2) Translate what they hear to L1. 3) Formulate a response in L1. 4) Translate response from L1 to L2 in their heads - this involves searching for a lot of vocabulary and considering the odd grammatical/phonological problem. 5) Respond. That’s a lot of steps. No wonder conversation is so slow.
So what if you had a list of common, useful expressions taken either from experiences you know they have had in the past or from material that you know they will cover in the future, and you asked them to translate that list either from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese. Chinese to English is similar to talking for them (aside from the fact that they are not actually expressing their own ideas). And English to Chinese is similar to listening for them.
The number of steps is cut in half by doing this. And I can see how it would be fun to take a translations of expressions with words like take or get and ask them to translate back to English.
I have been doing this quite a bit recently and it “seems” to be working quite well i.e, they are learning a lot of expressions( and it is doing wonders for my Chinese no doubt). Am I missing something or is this a simple, effective exercise?[/quote]
First of all, outlaw Chinese-English dictionaries. Allow only English dictionaries. This is the biggest step of getting your students to stop thinking of the Chinese equivalent and to start using what they know in English to explain something unfamiliar in English.
I am still working on this with my fifth graders. They have been writing to penpals in America and still want direct Chinese-to-English translations of things that happen in their schools. I told them that it’s better to just write the Chinese name and explain what happens to help their penpal understand.
Second language learning is most effective when it relates to the learner’s total personality: his senses, emotions, hopes, fears, sense of humor and rhythm, to his intellect and to his first language. It is a mistake to presume that an “adult” second language learner is going to approach something as complicated and nuanced as a serious film without reference to his first language. Unlike a child an adult is not learning concepts and the sounds and structures related to those concepts. He already comprehends ideas like plot, theme, abstraction, justice, government, idiom, etc etc. The most direct route to the words that correspond to ideas like these in English is translation.
I have had an opportunity to discuss my DVD methodolgy with some seriously well educated and highly experienced ESL teachers recently. They have been very supportive of the basic idea but have also had one serious concern and that is that the students would simply be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of uncomprehensible input. One way to deal with this difficulty is by using an initial viewing of the film with Chinese subtitle to familiarize the student with the basic outline of the story and bring his attention to the portions of the film that could productively be focused upon. At this point the subtitle is switched to English.
I am not suggesting that I have all the answers here but I am ceratin that no one else does either. The difference between us is that I have been using DVD to teach adults for the last two years and in my experience an initial viewing with Chinese subtitle is useful unless the student is really quite advanced and familiar with colloquial English and exceedinly bright.
Would it be better to view the script first, so that they study the language without all the other distractions? Then you show the clip to put it all into context. If they already know what is going to be said they know what to listen for.
That has to be better than waiting for whatever they have translated the chinese into. I agree with Imani (&Toe?) about not using Chinese-English dictionaries, and if you start with the language written down then they can analyse and break it down as much as is necessary, but all in English and using a good learner’s dictionary.
If you have a script it makes it easier to recreate the action in the classroom too. You could start by supplying a script with bits missing, and have them guess what goes in the blanks. Then play the audio only. Eventually, you progress to the clip - maybe after showing them a few stills from the scene.
I would use non-mainstream movies too. Or have you thought of using TV adverts that are particularly representative of a culture? Not the “buy today while stocks last” rubbish, but the ones that will give an insight into how these crazy foreigners live.
Sounds like interesting in class stratagies Strag but I think the original question was more concerned with how students should proceed at home. Considering time restraints, student motivations (frequently just to enjoy a film at the outset), aptitude etc. I still believe the initial viewing with Chinese subtitle is what you will actually get them to do at home on their own. I love your ideas for in class activities though. In the past I have experimented with gradually adding context (sound/ picture/English subtitle) etc. and in different orders. It is a good way to make students aware of just how rich the context actually is and how dependant the meaning frequently is upon that context.
It is nice to see that a few of you are giving this idea of using DVD some serious thought. I think you will be suprised at the number of interesting possibilities that it provides (most of which I am too burned out to think of myself at this point). Thanks.
I’ve been giving this translation/no translation thing some pretty serious thought today so if you’ll bear with me for a bit I think I can wrap this up pretty well.
First of all I think it has to be admitted that it is pretty difficult for anyone to learn something that he hasn’t noticed and consciously focused on for a while. Lets take an easy, obvious example like the expression “Hao jiu bu jian.” There are basically two ways that an English speaking person would learn an expresion like this. The first is that he would go from English to Chinese, perhaps by asking his Chinese friend “How do you say ‘long time no see in English?’” or by encountering the word in a Mandarin textbook. The other way would be that he would be continually confronted with the expression and develop some curiosity as to it’s meaning. He would then be most likely to ask someone to translate it into English. Both of these processes invlove translation.
After this he would go about his day to day life and he would inevitably hear the expression again. The first few times he heard it he would be thrown into a situation where he would have to decide whether or not he had heard the expression before. This is what happens to second language learners. If he decided that he knew the expression it would be because he could translate it.
To ignore these basic facts of how a second language is learned, especially by beginner and intermediate level students, is just maddness in my opinion; however, it is also true that people frequently learn something in a second language with no immediate referance to translation and there is indeed something almost transcendant about that experience. It certainly makes the vocabulary more memorable. To take another mundane example I can remember when I first came to Taiwan I was particularly eager to see just how fast I could hike the local mountain trails. It wasn’t long before I had heard (you guessed it) “Jia you!” about a thousand times, and given the encouraging tone with which the expression was delivered it wasn’t long before I got what it meant. It took a couple of weeks for me to realize that I didn’t know exactly how to translate it. “Don’t give up!” seemed not to quite catch the spirit of the phrase and nither did “Keep it up!” or “You are almost there!” I still don’t know exactly how to translate it.
If I could learn everything in Chinese like this I would be thrilled but to be honest I just don’t think it is possible. It really is impossible for me to imagine learning “Bi zui!” or “Jie guo” or a thousand other expressions without at some point attempting to find an English equivalent. This is a big part of what we mean when we say that we know what a word or expression means in another language.
This is a complicated business we are involved in here folks. Lets not betray our ignorance of that fact by insisting on absolutes.
