4 Model Activities
As a teacher, you know that even when you explain anything in five steps, modeling still helps. Therefore, this section includes a breakdown of how to implement two sample activities using the five steps from the prior section. We’ll start with a proverbs activity and then move to a sales and marketing activity. While the implementation of both activities is explained here, full lesson plans for these activities, together with all attachments, are included in the last section of this handbook.
Example 1: Proverbs Activity
Matching proverbs activity:
Provide a list of proverbs in English and in the second language; design a match activity in which students find either the English or the L2 proverb corresponding to the one provided; then have students comment on the differences, in particular any cultural differences.
Step 1: Determine what your students can do
Our teacher determined that her intermediate students were linguistically ready to do a translation activity with proverbs in Spanish.
Step 2: Determine if you have content that you can build around
Since proverbs are short yet loaded with linguistic and cultural information, many teachers and curriculum designers find that it makes sense to incorporate them into second language teaching. Our teacher was already using proverbs as a way to introduce a fable unit, so she decided to expand how she taught the proverbs through this translation activity.
Step 3: Determine your goals or objectives
One way to approach setting objectives for these activities is to determine what learning objectives you want to meet through the translation activity and then combine those with the ACTFL proficiency standards. For example, after considering the proposed roles that translation can serve in language learning, such as linguistic or cultural awareness (see Section 4, Step 3 of this Manual, Colina & Lafford, 2017), in our example it was determined that that the primary translation focus of this activity would be cultural, so cultural learning as a translation goal was overlaid onto the Intermediate-Mid ACTFL proficiency standards for Interpersonal Communication as well as the Can-Do Statements. The resultant objectives for the proverbs translation activity can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1
Objectives:
Students will use translation to be able to
- Identify the underlying message in Spanish proverbs
- Explain how proverbs are related to cultural perspectives
- Use proverbs in English and Spanish to make cultural comparisons
Standards:
- I can identify the underlying message in Spanish proverbs.
- In my own and other cultures, I can explain how proverbs are related to cultural perspectives.
- I can use proverbs in English and Spanish to make cultural comparisons.
Other objectives, such as linguistic or literacy goals, for example, could be added in as well. This could depend on how you want the activity to align with what you are already doing in your curriculum, or it could depend on new types of learning that you are wanting to incorporate in. Additionally, the activity could be modified by level. Less-advanced students, for example, could be given a vocabulary list, while advanced students could make their own lists of proverbs and translations. How you align objectives with what you are already doing in your curriculum is up to you, but with clearly set goals, you will find that the activity makes more sense in your overall teaching.
Step 4: Plan the activity
Once you have chosen an activity, decided if you already have curriculum that you are going to build it around, and set your goals and/or objectives for the activity, you can begin to plan the activity itself. As with the planning of most learning activities, you will want to consider the following:
- What prior knowledge do your students need to have to successfully complete this activity? For the proverbs translation activity, our teacher determined that her intermediate students needed grammatical knowledge of present tense and present and past participles. For the activity itself, students would need to guess the meaning of or look up various vocabulary terms as well as some idiomatic expressions.
- What materials need to be prepared in advance? For the proverbs translation activity, groups of 3-4 students would be matching sets of proverbs in Spanish to their English equivalents. Our teacher prepared two separate, equivalent lists of proverbs, one in Spanish, and one in English, made enough copies for group work in class, and cut the lists apart. A complete set of Spanish and English proverbs was ready to be given to each group for the matching activity. Since cultural learning was an objective for the activity, our teacher also prepared a worksheet for individual students to complete as they worked in their groups. The proverbs in Spanish were listed down the left column. Then, in the remaining three columns, students were to write a direct translation of the proverb, the English equivalent once they had matched the proverbs together, and a cultural comparison of the two proverbs. Did the two proverbs culturally mean exactly the same thing? Or was there an element that was focused on more in one language than in another (possible findings: money, family, independence, etc.)? If there was a proverb unique to a particular Spanish-speaking country, what cultural elements were present that made that proverb unique to that country?
- What procedures are you going to follow to implement the activity in class?
- Steps for the proverb activity might include the following (see Lesson Plans, for full plan):
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- Activate prior knowledge: What do you think of when you hear the word, “proverb”?
- Think of 2-3 proverbs in English. What do they mean? How often do you use them in everyday life?
- Tell students they will be doing a translation activity in which they compare a set of proverbs in Spanish with a set of proverbs in English, with the objectives of the activity (see objectives in full activity in Section 6)
- Give students the worksheet with the list of proverbs in Spanish (see lesson plan section for all materials) and have them do the following:
- Skim the proverbs (they can ask about words they do not know).
- In groups of 3-4, directly translate the proverbs and write the translations in the middle column.
- In the last column, write down in English what you think the proverb means. In other words, what truth is the proverb teaching, or what advice is it giving?
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- Once students have completed the previous step, give each group a cut-up list of the English proverbs and Spanish proverbs (these are provided in the lesson plan section) and have students match the proverbs in English and Spanish. Circulate to see if the matches are correct. The matching could be made into a competition to see which group can match them all correctly first.
- Introduce the idea of literal and functional translations to the class, then ask the following:
- Which translations are literal and which are functional?
- What does this say to you about different types of translations?
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- Have students write the English proverb next to the Spanish proverb on the cultural comparison sheet (Appendix 1.1). In their groups, they should discuss the following:
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- What are cultural similarities and differences between the proverbs? Take notes on the worksheet.
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- Discuss cultural comparisons as a class.
- Closure: Think, then discuss (whole class): How do proverbs represent cultural perspectives?
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Step 5: Assess and reflect
As with all activities, once the proverbs translation activity is completed, you will want to assess and reflect on student learning as well as reflect on the implementation of the activity.
Assess
There are various ways that you can formally and informally assess translation activities. Simple checks for understanding can be done by circulating around the classroom and listening to students’ conversations. For formal assessment, you could the objectives of cultural learning:
- Identify the underlying message in Spanish proverbs
- Explain how proverbs are related to cultural perspectives
- Use proverbs in English and Spanish to make cultural comparisons
To align with these objectives, you might have students choose a matching set of proverbs in English and Spanish and 1) write out and illustrate the proverbs on a poster; 2) in Spanish or English, explain cultural similarities and differences between the proverbs. This could be done on the front or back of the same poster or in a different submission. Our teacher’s students completed small posters which were placed around campus during National Foreign Language Week.
Reflect
After you have implemented your activity, some factors both you and your students may want to consider are the following, with some illustrations from our teacher’s activity notes:
- How did your directions and explanations go? Were they clear?
- How was your timing?
- Did you meet your objectives? Why or why not?
- Teacher’s activity notes: Objectives were met. Students translated the proverbs without difficulty and made interesting insights and comparisons on both language and culture.
- What went well? What could you have done differently?
- Teacher’s activity notes: The matching activity could have been more challenging.
- Did you accomplish anything through translation that you might not have otherwise?
- Teacher’s activity notes: The activity prompted interesting discussions between heritage and non-heritage speakers, especially on the cultural level.
Example 2: Slogans and Marketing Activity
Slogans and marketing activity:
Have students select an existing slogan/campaign/ad for a well-known product; have them prepare an L2 campaign. Have them present it to the class and share difficulties encountered.
Step 1: Determine what your students can do
Our teacher determined that her intermediate students were linguistically ready to work with an existing slogan/campaign/ad for a well-known product and to prepare an L2 campaign and to present it to the class.
Step 2: Determine if you have content that you can build around
The slogans and marketing activity is another translation activity that our teacher determined could be worked into the pre-existing curriculum. She had already been using ads when teaching commands to intermediate students because ads frequently use commands. Therefore, she determined that she could easily incorporate a previously-existing slogan and marketing activity into her curriculum at this point.
Step 3: Determine your goals or objectives
For this activity, it was determined that a primary goal should be for students to be able to use translation to be able to prepare a marketing campaign in Spanish for a well-known product. After considering the proposed roles that translation can serve in language learning, such as linguistic or cultural awareness (see Section 4, Step 3; Colina & Lafford, 2017), we identified the need for a focus on cultural awareness and literacy–including oral and written linguistic components, reading comprehension, writing, critical thinking, and organizing and deciding skills–and translanguaging. Once this general objective was determined, it was overlaid onto relevant ACTFL intermediate-mid proficiency objectives as illustrated in Table 2.
Table 2
Objectives:
After designing their campaign, students will be able to:
- Explain why/how their campaign reflects the practices/perspectives of their target audience
- Explain why/how their campaign is different from practices/perspectives of the original one
- Explain why/how their campaign is appropriate linguistically for their target audience
- Explain any difficulties they may have had in determining the prior objectives
Standards:
- In my own and other cultures I can use a marketing campaign to make comparisons between products and practices to help me understand perspectives.
- I can state my viewpoint on familiar or researched topics and provide reasons to support it, orally and in writing (using a few short paragraphs).
Step 4: Plan the activity
For the slogans and marketing campaign translation activity, the following prior knowledge, materials, and procedures were taken into consideration during the planning phase.
- What prior knowledge do your students need to have to successfully complete this activity? For this activity, students needed to know the present subjunctive in Spanish in order to make formal and informal commands as well as have an awareness of linguistic and cultural differences between formal and informal registers.
- What materials need to be prepared in advance? This activity could be completed with hard copies of newspapers and magazines for students to research prior ad campaigns, and students could complete the product element of this activity, that is, to make their own ad or marketing campaign, on paper. However, in this case, students did everything digitally and therefore needed internet access and computers to look up digital ad campaigns and then to make their own campaigns using a digital platform. A projector was used to review the assignment and to show examples of ads.
- What procedures are you going to follow to implement the activity in class? To implement the slogans and marketing activity, our teacher followed the steps outlined below. She created another slide presentation so that students would have a visual to follow.
Prior to beginning the activity:
- Review commands. In a heritage language environment, the activity may be done first and commands reviewed afterwards.
- Review and discuss examples of marketing campaigns in Spanish that use formal and informal commands. Culturally, what message were the marketers sending when they chose to use formal or informal commands?
Lesson:
- Activate background knowledge by asking students: What kinds of marketing campaigns or ads have been particularly effective to you? Can you think of ways their use of language or appeal to culture were particularly effective?
- Discuss the following quotes from Forbes (Mizrahi, 2017) magazine with students:
- “…Consumers don’t want to be exposed to mere translations of messages from English to Spanish; they want to receive messages that reflect their culture.”
- “…the Spanish language alone is not enough to create an effective campaign, we now know that abandoning Spanish to focus only on cultural nuance is not enough.”
- As a class, use the projector to look at several examples of marketing campaigns in English. What types of linguistic and cultural issues have been taken into consideration?
- Slogan/Marketing Campaign: Have students work in their groups on the product they are going to market (see Section 6 for full student instructions and complete materials).
- After students complete their marketing campaign, have them present to the class in groups, using the presentation procedures outlined in 2. 1 (see Section 6 for complete lesson materials).
- Closure: As the groups discussed their projects, did you notice any linguistic or cultural issues that multiple groups had in common? Why do you think this might be the case?
Step 5: Assess and Reflect
Assess
As with the proverbs translation activity, informal checks for understanding can be done while students complete their ad campaign if you circulate around the classroom while students work. For example, our teacher noticed from group discussions that while many students recognized the need for cultural adaptation, they did not always know the appropriate adaptations to make, at times basing their adaptations on cultural stereotypes. Student ad campaigns for activity could be formally assessed using the rubric provided in Section 6.
Reflect
This section contains the same components as the prior reflection section, again with some activity notes from our teacher:
- How did your directions and explanations go? Were they clear?
- How was your timing?
- Did you meet your objectives? Why or why not?
- Yes! Teacher’s activity notes regarding the objective,“In my own and other cultures I can use a marketing campaign to make comparisons between products and practices to help me understand perspectives,” include student observations like the following:
- “Just because you translate directly doesn’t mean they’re going to understand because it’s not a part of their culture.”
- “You have to think more about culture being addressed.”
- “This activity showed me how culture affects real life rather than textbook Spanish.”
- “I liked that the message was transmitted through words and images.”
- What went well? What could you have done differently?
- Teacher’s activity notes: “Students sometimes thought they were coming up with a culturally relevant graphic or text but were not always on point (e.g. replacing a graphic of a hula dancer with a ‘Mexican’ dancer that was a flamenco dancer; replacing Elvis Presley with Elvis Crespo, but saying he was Mexican). So they were expanding their thinking but did not always have the practical knowledge to get there or were still making their own cultural assumptions.”
- Did you accomplish anything through translation that you might not have otherwise?
- Teacher’s activity notes: Yes, as shown by student comments:
- “This activity showed me how culture affects real life rather than textbook Spanish.”
- “They [the ads] added real-world applicability that we could see all the time.”
- Teacher’s activity notes: Yes, as shown by student comments:
- Yes! Teacher’s activity notes regarding the objective,“In my own and other cultures I can use a marketing campaign to make comparisons between products and practices to help me understand perspectives,” include student observations like the following:
Wrapping up
The final section of this handbook will introduce five complete translation lesson plans which you can use in your classes. These include handouts and suggestions for lesson modification by level, assessment and enhancement.