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TeachingEnglish Young Learners Activity Book
Activities
Activity 19: Information translation
Laura Toro – Italy
Age: 7+
30 minutes Large classes? Yes Mixed level? No
Materials: Pieces of paper with questions written in the children’s first language.
Organisation: Pair work, whole class.
Aim: To practise asking and answering questions. To translate from L1 to English.
Description: In this activity the children translate questions from their own language into
English to get information they need.
Preparation: You will need to prepare folded strips of paper with questions in the children’s
first language. You will need one set of questions for each pair.
Procedure
1. Choose a set of questions, written in the children’s first language, on a particular theme.
These might be personal questions the children can ask to find out information about each
other, such as What’s your favourite food? What sports do you play? and so on. Questions
can also be more challenging and be about general knowledge or about a particular
subject, such as science.
2. Give each pair a set of questions. The children take turns to open a strip of paper and read
the question. They then have to translate the question into English to ask their partner.
3. The second child answers the question in English. He or she then picks a question to ask
and so on, until all the questions have been answered.
4. You can extend the activity by asking the children to write a paragraph with the information
they have learned from their questions.
For example:
This is Paolo. He’s from Verona and he has two sisters.
He likes playing football. He has a cat called Blue.
Notes
Although translation is not much used in many current approaches to language teaching, it can
support language learning in a number of ways. Here, for example, children are encouraged to
make links between their first language and English and to understand that English can be used
to communicate ideas successfully.
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© British Council 2012