The TextActivities Blog

Not-quite translation: transforming L1 notes to L2 text

This post features an idea I've written about previously on the Textivate blog. The text used (and the inspiration) came originally from an idea posted by Steve Smith (of FrenchTeacher.net) on his blog a few years ago in a post entitled "Google Translate beaters". In the post, Steve suggests a translation activity based on providing students with an L1 and L2 text, each with different words or chunks missing. Steve's idea looks a bit like what has now become known as "tangled translation", the difference being that in tangled translation the text is presented as one text that alternates between the L1 and the L2. But it's very similar in that students are required to complete both the L1 and L2 versions of the text by referring to the bits that are in the other language and translating.

A crucial part of Steve's original idea is that students are guided towards the required answer by the inclusion of letter spaces indicating the length of each word to be typed, in both the L1 and the L2. Steve suggests this as a way of providing 2-way translation which, because of the chopped up nature of each text and the dashed gaps, is practically impossible to complete using translation tools such as Google Translate. An excellent activity! :o)

Translation in TextActivities works in a similar way to Steve's example because it specifies the letter gaps to be completed. i.e. it will only accept the pre-defined translation. This makes it difficult to google translate your L1 text to the L2 because GT will only work as long as the GT translation matches the pre-defined L2 text provided by the teacher.

TextActivities translation into the L2 is a useful activity to push students to practise particular language; particular words, chunks and expressions that we think they should be able to say / write. (This blog post on working with model texts explores this in more detail.)

However, it occurred to me that we could make the activity slightly more challenging and even less google-translatable by providing L1 notes rather than the "Full English" as it were...

Translation into the Target Language (with examples in several languages)

TextActivities is a great tool for practising translation into the L2 / the target language.

You can create your own resources in a matter of minutes and then have access to all sorts of activity options that will give your students TONS of translation practice.

Getting your students used to doing this sort of thing from the get-go can only help to improve their ability to write accurately in the L2, including translation, and arguably the sorts of noticing and implicit grammar practice involved in these tasks will make them more competent speakers of the L2 as well.

(The activities generated can also include audio, so dictation and listening practice are also available. But this post focuses solely on activities with an L1 prompt that require students to translate that prompt into the target language.)

Working with parallel texts in language teaching

Parallel texts as a self-learning tool

Plenty has been written about the benefits for motivated language learners of using parallel texts to help learn a language. (Do a quick google search and you’ll see.)

Much of what is written in support of parallel texts from a self-teaching perspective is along the following lines:

🎬 Video Tutorials

Video guides / how-to videos to support the TextActivities website and blog 👇👇👇

All of the videos listed here can also be viewed via the TextActivities Info YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TextActivities/videos

The TextActivities resource page

A video intro to the resource page on TextActivities, looking at what all of the buttons do, the resource view and activity view tabs, the activity menu, the worksheet menu, plus a whistle stop tour of the various interactive activities. (Features the resource created in the "Creating a TextActivities Resource" video below.)

A first attempt at using AI to generate a TextActivities resource

I had a go at using the free version of ChatGPT to generate some content to form the basis of a TextActivities resource. I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy the whole process was. See my prompts + the responses below, as well as a link to the resource at the bottom of the page.

Text prompt:

Write me a text of about 100 words in Spanish, aimed at beginners, in the present tense, talking about what I do at the weekend

Exploiting a Model Text to the Max to Promote Productive Skills in MFL

When it comes to exploiting texts for language teaching, the choice of text matters. Different types of texts suit different purposes.

Some types of text often seen in language teaching classrooms:

WORKSHEETS on TextActivities

All resources on TextActivities.com have a worksheet printing option accessed via this button, which is visible in resource view and activity view:

Assignments on TextActivities

This post examines "Assignments" on TextActivities. (For those familiar with Textivate, "assignments" are similar to Textivate's "sequences", but they work very differently. See section 1 (xiii) in this blog post comparing TextActivities and Textivate.)

Dictation activities on TextActivities

Many of the activities available on TextActivities.com -- both text rebuild and vocab / matching -- can be seen as scaffolded dictation activities, i.e. which require students to listen to some language in the L2 (the target language) and also interact in some way with that same bit of language in its written form.

This blog takes a look at how this works and which modes to choose if your aim is to practise dictation-like activities.

Setting up classes and students on TextActivities

This user-guide is for those new to TextActivities.

It explains how to create a class and how to create student accounts.

It also shows you what it looks like from a student's perspective when they go to the site for the first time.