Exploiting Conti-style mosaic translations

 You'll see what I mean by a mosaic translation by looking at the example below. Students pick words or chunks from the grid to translate senetnces into the target language. The idea is one by Gianfranco Conti and is a highly scaffolded way of allowing students to translate. It works best, in my view, with average to lower-attaining students.

So in this post I'll show you an example, then suggest some ways to extend the activity if you feel that just getting students to do the task in writing does not stretch some students enough. For many students it will be enough.

Below is an example I produced for frenchteacher.net. Students would see a landscape page, with the sentences on the left and the grid on the right. You'll then see my suggestions for exploiting the resource further.

     Le week-end dernier (Last weekend)

1.     Last weekend I went cycling with my friends.

2.     On Sunday I went to the Italian restaurant.

3.     I went for a walk with my parents.

4.     On Saturday I saw a film at the cinema.

5.     I went to London by train with my friends.

6.     I played video games with my friends.

7.     I revised for an exam.

8.     On Sunday we went to the cinema in the town centre.

9.     On Saturday I went to my friend’s house.

10.  I watched a series on my computer.

11.  I played board games at my friend’s house.

12.  On Friday evening I read my new novel for two hours.

13.  I went to a party at my friend’s house for his birthday.

14.  I played rugby for my school team.

15.  I went out to the Indian restaurant with my parents.

 

j’ai révisé	j’ai lu	pour son anniversaire	avec mes  ami(e)s
j’ai regardé	je suis allé(e)	au rugby	au restaurant indien
je suis sorti(e)	on est allés	mon nouveau roman	à Londres
à une fête	le week-end dernier	j’ai vu	une série
j’ai joué	chez mon ami(e)	dimanche	à des jeux vidéo
samedi	en train	j’ai fait	de mon collège
au centre- ville	du vélo	pour un examen	au restaurant italien
vendredi soir	un film au cinéma	une randonnée	à des jeux de société
avec mes parents	pendant deux heures	sur mon ordinateur	pour l’équipe

Here are some ways you could exploit the resource. Maybe you can think of others.

- Students complete the mosaic translation individually or in pairs.

- Elicit answers for students check their work.

- Do a ‘mind reading;’ activity. Choose a sentence from the list which students must guess. As an option, give the class one word as a clue. This could be done as a race, with the class divided in two.

- In pairs, students could do the activity above.

- With the worksheet hidden, in pairs, students recall as many sentences as they can, taking turns until one partner is stuck.

- Ask a series of questions, each one of which provides an answer from the list of sentences on the worksheet. Students can either answer with hands up or note down their answer on paper or a mini-whiteboard.

- Read aloud examples of the sentence, each one with a difference. Students must identify ion paper or on a mini-whiteboard what the difference is.

- Ask students to come up with variations on the translated answers – swapping in new phrases. This could be a written task, with pairs then comparing answers, or a purely oral one in pairs.

- Do a dictation task, re-using the sentences, or variations of them. Use a gapped version if ‘pure’ dictation is too hard for the class. Consider running dictation and delayed dictation (where you leave about 10 seconds after saying a phrase before students write it).

- Have students reproduce from memory as many of the sentences as they can.

- Use the sentences as the source for a game of Sentence Stealer or Sentence Chaos. (Explanations of at gianfrancoconti.com.)

I have several examples of mosaic translations on my site.

Happy teaching!