268. She's one of my best students!


One day teacher A said to teacher B,
"One day teacher C told me that she was helping a student of 2º Bachillerato to pass Selectividad examination.
Moreover, during the academic year these students had to work out texts set by their teacher (D), for Wednesdays.
This latter teacher set as homework to read and work on one given text.
In the class-period the students had to translate from Spanish into English, taking stuff of information from the text.
Teacher C advised this student to read and reread the texts in order to fully understand them;
also advised her to learn as many words as possible from the text, because this learner would have to use those words to translate the sentences;
and to learn and grasp grammar patterns and expressions from the texts, which would be useful for the translations.
The text level of difficulty is similar to First Certificate."
2º Bachillerato is the academic year before entering university, in Spain. And Selectividad is an examination the students have to pass and get the possible higher grades at, right after that year of Bachillerato. Translating is a very good activity, which comprises practicing several different strategies, but in Spain a few teachers overuse it. Translating from L1 to L2 is obviously more difficult than the other way round. Next academic year 2010-11 an oral conversation shall be one more part of this exam. So far, the students in Selectividad, have got to do varied activities about this text, plus some other exercises.
Picture from www attendis com.

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