How to make students write idiomatically?

wangyuxia1980 · Post by **wangyuxia1980** » Fri May 11, 2007 3:55 am

I am a graduate student now. I has been a teacher for three years.During my teaching, I found that many students often wrote articles with the similar sentence structures as their mother tongue.My question is how to make students avoid such interference of the mpther tongue?
Thanks a lot.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Sun May 13, 2007 3:56 pm

I show them pictures of houses in their neighbourhoods and then pictures of houses in my neighbourhood in Canada. The basic structure is usually the same - four outside walls, floor and roof - but the windows are often different or the decorations, where the door is placed and so on. Then I give them examples of where their language differs from English and ask them to watch out for the differences in decoration.

If you can understand the message, I find it rather charming to have students write or speak as they are thinking. If you don't have to worry about exams then what is the harm? Who could resist a Frenchman saying,
"Zee estomach, zit goes well, no?" for "How are you?"

wangyuxia1980 · Post by **wangyuxia1980** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:53 am

You gave me very valuable advise. Thank you. I will try it in my practical teaching.