Background:
Newcomers and students without working proficiency in English have a twofold task when it comes to writing about academic content: they have to , but how can they if
How can newcomers, or students without working proficiency in English, simultaneously write about academic content while acquiring English? One way is to incorporate heteroglossia and translanguaging in the classroom (see Garcia & Leiva, 2014), or in other words, let them rely on their L1 as a resource. They can, say, write in Spanish to answer comprehension questions from science class. But this leave out the English language acquisition part. How can we bridge the two languages and help them acquire English writing, while not limiting their expression to just the L2?
I recently tried and had success with a strategy I call the “translated sentence scramble.” For students who can’t produce virtually any written or spoken English but may have been exposed to English for some years and are in the “silent phase,” this method allows them to express themselves without hindrance using their L1, but also gain practice in the L2.
Rather than allowing their minimal English ability to limit what they can communicate, this method takes away the limitations by relying on the L1, but uses machine translation and a sentence scramble task to support L2 acquisition.
Benefits:
- The use of translation ensures the learner can first write in the L1, making the task more personal to them (as opposed to a sentence scramble task that involves random sentences), and the sentence scramble does two things:
- The sentence scramble task helps them draw parallels between words in the L1 and L2 (which can also help them recognize cognates).
- The sentence scramble also exposes them to L2 syntax and grammar in a context they are already familiar with (because they just wrote the same thing in their L1).
Finally, this task is very low prep when using the right online tools (Google Translate and a sentence scramble maker like this (printable) or this (drag-and-drop computer-based).
Example 1
Here is an example of a sentence scramble translation task I made. Students were reading a short passage about gender representation in leadership positions. The Spanish below was written by the student, and the scrambled English sentences were created by me with the help of Google translate. The boxes are where the student writes the unscrambled sentences in English.
Example 2
First, the student completes a written assignment in the L1.
In this example, the assignment was to make a timeline of 5 events in the history of an invention. The student chose computers as the topic, and wrote the timeline in Spanish.
Next, I translated the sentences into English, checked grammar/ accuracy, and scrambled them.
Finally, the student unscrambles each English sentence.
How to plan and carry out the activity:
- First, have the student produce a short piece of writing on a given topic in their L1. The writing must be typed, so it can be pasted into Google Translate. In my case, I asked the student to write a self-introduction that had to include certain information such as a description of his family, culture, favorite food, favorite place, hobbies, and so on). The student wrote it in Spanish.
- Use Google Translate (or DeepL, or other) to translate the student’s writing into English. Check the translation for accuracy, grammar, and punctuation. Remember the student may not have full control of grammar in their L1, which might result in a grammatically incorrect translation.
- After class, copy and paste each sentence of the English version into a sentence scramble maker to create the scrambles. Here is one that makes printable worksheets. Here is one that makes interactive drag-and-drop sentence scrambles. I prefer the printable one so I have a record of the student’s work.
- During the next lesson, give the student the sentence scramble task. For each sentence, they should reference their original L1 writing, then look at the scrambles sentence in English and try to write it out. For students whose L1 has similar syntax as English, it should not be too hard (they can usually recognize the subject, articles, any words that are cognates, prepositions, etc.)
- Bonus 1: The student reads their English sentences aloud. This allows them to express themselves orally in English!
- Bonus 2: The student identifies key English vocabulary from the activity that they think are important to know. Then help them practice these words and put them on a quiz or otherwise hold them responsible for learning these words. Because the words were written by them (in the L1 at first), they may be more motivated to learn them than if they were an impersonal, top-down list of words decided upon by the teacher or the textbook.
Some takeaways:
Because my student was a native Spanish speaker, he made the predictable error of reversing adjective and noun word order when writing his English sentences (e.g., a house very large). It opened up a conversation into English word order, and allowed this grammar point to be taught almost effortlessly. Because the grammar was taught in the context of his own sentences about his own life, it was interesting and memorable for him.
It can be quite rewarding for both the teacher and student to be able to read a set of sentences they produced in perfect English. The sentence scramble is a wonderful scaffold for students’ self-expression in English, as it allows for learner autonomy, personalization, and the use of the L1 to build confidence and promote communication and acquisition side by side.
References:
Garcia, O. & Leiva, C. (2014). Theorizing and enacting translanguaging for social justice. In A. Blackledge & A. Creese (Eds.), Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (pp. 199-216) Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-7856-611
