Adventures in Exam Technique 5 MFL Style – Translation

If you follow my blog (thank you), have been on Twitter or are part of the fabulous #MFLTwitterati (created by @joedale ) then you will know that I have been releasing a short blog post each day since April 1st on either Revision or Exam Technique MFL Style. They are observations to share with your students so they can help themselves and still improve their exam technique and revise for their forthcoming MFL terminal assessments.  Feel free to read them here. Today I shall focus on Exam Technique specifically the translation task.

Within the reading and writing papers a short translation task is to be completed and depending on exam board and tier, depends on the marks allocated.  I instruct students to ensure the key information is highlighted (which language the text should be translated in to) and to write on alternate lines (as previously discussed) to ensure their completed translation will be readable and clear.  I ask them to read through the piece to translate carefully, slowly even, not rushing where they might make assumptions. I want them to understand as best they can the topic(s) of the text and their brains start to recognise and pull familiar language to the fore.  Some want to translate immediately upon their first read, I ask them to wait and read it through a second time, underlining the tenses and again giving their brains time to recognise the language, understand what is being asked of them, identify the grammatical phrases, time phrases giving an indication of tense etc.  Some students like to write which tense they have to ensure they translate in to put this can make the text unclear. (See below)

On the third time of reading I recommend they start to translate the piece working through each sentence carefully. Having translated a sentence read it through carefully before moving on to the next, checking they have translated it in to the correct language, used the correct tense, used the correct vocabulary not missing personal pronouns or the gender of nouns and that it makes sense! Moving through the sentences, students hopefully do not leave gaps and if something doesn’t make sense they make a logical and educated guess – there is nothing worse than a blank when they could put in a word and perhaps gain a mark.

Upon completion of their translation of the given text. They are to read their translation carefully hearing the sounds of all they are reading in their heads ensuring that it makes sense against the original text, then read it through again check capital letters, grammar, agreements, accents, punctuation etc.

So many times reading the task you might ask as they do but its to make sure they end their exam paper as well as they have started it! Some students start with the translation task to give it their full attention and thats up to them, so long as they complete all of the questions on the paper they are required to do (there are choices on the writing paper for some exam boards but not all)  giving them their full attention to gain access to the full range of marks, ending with full focus and as well as they started.

 

Adventures in Exam Technique: MFL Style

This is a simple and easy exam strategy to employ yet some teachers don’t use it nor encourage their students to do it. The ‘power of the highlighter’ in exams is straight forward and doesn’t take longer than 1-2 minutes to do.  It has had a huge psychological impact upon students who often struggle to focus at the start of the exam and remain calm as a the result of a very able linguist at the start of the A level written paper dissolving in to tears some years ago.

Once students have completed the front page and are told by the invigilator to open their papers and start, there are those students look around the room seeking approval or instruction from the adults in the room with a look of fear or panic.  The stern professional faces and lack of reassurance can cause additional anxiety and time is ticking.  The MFL papers are such that for the time allowed and marks allocated there is one answer to be given every minute throughout the entire exam or more answers than what there is time on other papers!

As linguists we know that there is only one paper that has reading time (listening) and one that has preparation time (speaking) the reading and writing papers are simply open and complete.  I have spent years advising students how best to spend the first few minutes to ensure they are in control and not their emotions and this strategy helps them enormously! It isn’t rocket science to encourage students to read through the questions circling or highlighting the marks allocated per question but also identifying within which language the question has to be answered. This directs the nervous student to focus on the paper so they know:

• how many questions there are
• the topics of the questions
• the different sections of the question paper
• the different components / sub-questions within each question
• when a question is across two or three pages
• which language to answer the question in
• how many crosses or ticks are required
• where the question paper ends

Of course we share with students the number of questions and marks but how many of us have received back mock question papers where the last question or part of a question has been missed or there are two / three marks allocated requiring that many answers or that many points made and only one response is given?  All of which is a tragedy!

Exam day pressures result in daft mistakes not always seen in the classroom in frequent low stakes testing and no matter how well you have ‘trained’ and encouraged your students to read the questions carefully, know which language to answer in, how many points to give, how much time to spend on each question, when to check their answers and how long to allocate…mistakes happen.

Using a highlighter to indicate key information helps students focus right from the start.  It is not time wasted, far from it. It helps to quell anxiety and subdue nerves. It aids wellbeing through working through the paper tackling it, breaking it down in to smaller parts rather than it being ‘one massive collection of questions’ as once verbalised by a GCSE MFLer in my class. It allows students to start and do something positive in those first minutes whilst adrenaline is still high that will help them complete the paper especially if the first question is something of a challenge. Having gone through it first with a highlighter, the key details are highlighted so the task of answering the questions remain. Those that do practice this method and use it tend to come out of the exams feeling positive and feeling like they have given it their best. Those that ‘plough on’ and start answering immediately often miss giving the multiple answers to gain the full marks for questions but this is merely an observation over the years with my classes.  Students also remark that this helps with checking their answers before time is called.

A simple exam technique to share with students to help them to settle and complete the task at hand avoiding overwhelming nerves, frustration and tears.