Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

I was wondering if many people use bilingual texts. I have found at times they are useful, as some vocabulary is translated and possibly a cultural explanation is provided. I am not generally in support of texts that are fully translated as the cost is a factor as well as the thickness of the book can be a 'weighty' problem.

Seibido puts out some books with limited Japanese provided for shorter readings and vocabulary, and cultural explanations. Of course 'ideally' translation wouldn't ever be needed, and also students wouldn't ever want to try to access some more interesting topics without having studied a language for a longer period of time. But teachers resort to translation sometimes to save time, so why not allow some in the text to help clarify things for lewer level students in a class with some possible returnee students?

[John Hall]

[yaramaz]

At the moment, I'm teaching almost entirely beginner level adult students in company. We're talking Cutting Edge Starter here. Very low level. I still teach in English but sometimes I concept check very briefly in Turkish, just to make sure their understanding isn't completely off base. Or I ask one of the students who seems to have grasped it to tell me the version in Turkish so the ones who are struggling can get clarification. I allow this occasionally at this level but not at higher levels when the students have a stronger, basic understanding of English to work with.

[dmb]

what about when the teacher doesn't know a word? This has happened to me on more than one occasion where I know the Turkish word but not the English(more I just temporary forget) this seems to usually happen to food words. I buy kisnis at the supermarket on a regular basis here in Turkey but it has been about 15 years since I bought coriander in the UK(I couldn't remember coriander 2 days ago and had to look it up in a bilingual dictionary) Is this normal or am I just getting old.....

[Sherri]

I don't use bilingual texts now because our students come from all over the world and I didn't for the same reason when I taught in London. When I was teaching in Japan I didn't use them because they were all so awful! Maybe things have changed but I was very unimpressed with the Japanese-English EFL texts I saw in Japan.
Sherri

[Gordon]

I don't mind the texts with the occasional words translated in the margin, but I never use the books where it is 50/50 split in 2 languages. Makes the students too lazy and is not effective in learning a L2.

This really is only an issue where all the students have the same L1.

[gaijinalways]

Of course Gordan, it has to be a monolingual EFL class, otherwise kind of defeats the purpose.

Yarmaz, John Hall, and dmb,

Not to pick on you three, but did you read the title of the thread carefully? I am only talking about the text, not speech. Using translation in the classroom I think was covered a few months ago and I certainly agree with your opinions. Hence that is why I have in the past used them, even with a students that are not beginners, but who are eager to learn profession specifc jargon or langauge for a specifc purpose (flight attendant, immigration, etc).

[dmb]

Sorry gaiginalways.... it's that yaramaz- she's a bad influence.

To answer your question. NO

However many moons ago I did use translations from the teach yourself series. I realised they were awful and have never used them since.

[gaijinalways]

No problem, in Hong Kong I used bilingual texts with some adults who wanted to study ESP. They worked okay, though I prefer to teach allowing for more time, but some businesspeople don't have the luxary of waiting several years to get all the other vocabulary and structures.

Yes, Sherri, some of the bilingual texts are pretty bad, depends on the publisher. In your case anyway, you don't have any monolingual classes in Hawaii, so it's a moot point.

[Justin Trullinger]

[gaijinalways]

I didn't think of that, but it makes sense. Sometimes we have the parents teaching the kids, but it is not always the case.

[Sherri]

When I first arrived in Japan (1991) the company I worked for used bilingual texts. I couldn't understand anything and found it very irritating. As well as translating all the badly written, unnatural dialogues, there were these little side bars with so-called cultural explanations. In the end I would ask my students to explain what was written there. Usually there was so one in the class who could. Obviously they were not beginners, but they were pretty basic. Just the fact that they could get the meaning across to me meant that they didn't really need that translation or the cultural note which was usually distorted or wrong.

[Steppenwolf]

Since communicative approaches have been adopted in the foreign language teaching context bilingual texts have become acceptable.
This is particularly true of Asian (NE) countries where it is often argued that the cultural differences between L1 and L2 cultures are "unbridgeable" without using the students' first tongue...
I question this and I derive my scepticism from the generally poor language competence of East Asian students - both in their native tongue and, more so, in English!

Using the student's first language is limiting his or her own understanding of the target language! Students thus only "understand" superficially, and from their own language point of view. But we all know that things get lost in translations...

I am particularly averse to the use of bilingual textbooks! In CHina, even university students with up to ten years of formal classroom English study cannot read a genuine ENglish text... and even less produce some English of their own.

[gaijinalways]

Join the club, though in Japan they will try to read it and translate with a dictionary in hand , so you don't need to have students buy a bilingual text!