We Care About Your Privacy
By clicking “Accept all”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy.
Is it important for young English language learners to read dual language text?
It can be helpful for learners to read texts in both languages. It can provide a quick reference to aid comprehension and fosters an appreciation of the languages. It can be used creatively as a shared reading teaching tool in a bilingual setting. However, it is not a necessary part of learning the language. Often young learners will read one language and ignore the other. Additionally, if the majority language is English, this tends to reduce the desire to read in a minority language. Controversially, English quite frequently becomes the favoured language of choice due to its dominance/status in environments where English is widely used.
This ‘Introduce Me’ activity is a fun and rewarding way to introduce a new topic, while developing language skills.
It’s ideally suited to learners of English, allowing them to hear knowledge presented in different ways, by more than one source, in a non-threatening environment. There’s plenty of opportunity for repetition and rephrasing. This is an adaptable activity to suit any topic where you need to introduce content. This particular example is based on trading goods (see References), but a blank template is provided for you to create your own resource.
To mute or to unmute? To reply to one or everyone? To use gallery or speaker view?
While learning new languages, a lot of information simply needs to be remembered, and we often have to combine new information with what we already know, using our working memory. For students with specific learning differences, such as dyslexia, retrieving information from the long-term memory can be slower or less effective, resulting in greater difficulties in learning. It is therefore vital to teach specific memory strategies.
Memory processes are complex, but in my experience, we remember better the things that we: