View Content #26664

By Leila Tamini Lichaei, CASLS Fellow

Lesson objectives: Learners will be able to 

• Use instant translation for learning languages in real life experiences
• Identify street signs in the target language 
• Critically analyze the machine translations and identify some benefits and drawbacks

Level: Novice High - Intermediate Low
Modes: Interpersonal, Interpretive
Materials: Worksheet #1 for learners to write down their own translations, Scavenger Hunt Worksheet plus the street signs to cut and put on the walls, previously downloaded Google Translate app on mobile devices

There are many ways to use instant translation apps in the classroom, such as: 

• Writing short texts, translating them, editing them, and fixing their grammatical errors
• Translating a website as a group project
• Translating a recipe or a chosen piece of text and finding the errors of the translation with its grammar, vocabulary, structure, etc

There are newer features to the instant translation apps such as: 

• Translating pictures 
• Translating handwriting 
• Voice recognition and instant transcripts 

In this activity we are going to see how a scavenger hunt game can be done with the help of Google Translate’s picture translation feature. Before doing the activity, have your language learners download Google Translate’s app. You could use any other similar app that you are familiar with. 

Pre-activity
For this part,with the help of your learners, put street signs of the target language on different walls of the classroom. Have learners walk around the classroom and read the signs. They are not allowed to use their apps yet. Students walk around the classroom and talk in pairs or groups and try to guess the meaning of the words on the signs. They can write them down on a piece of paper. Learners can use a sheet like Worksheet #1.

Activity 

Then explain to learners that you are going to play a scavenger hunt game in which learners are going to walk around the classroom, use their Google Translate app to read the pictures and complete the worksheet. In the worksheet, there are a list of clues that would help learners identify the signs. They should also write down the machine translations. Then explain to learners how this app works and what the features are. Also model translating one sign as an example for them. Here is how it looks when you use the app to translate a sign: 

Post-Activity

Lastly, ask learners to work in pairs or groups, compare their own translations with the machine translation, and answer the following questions:

• Was the machine translation accurate?
• Did you identify any errors? 
• If you want to grade the machine translation what number would it be? (1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest score)
• Do you think machine translation is helpful? Will you use it in the future?
• What are the limitations? (i.e. translation of longer phrases)

In the end, go over all the signs, explain the correct meaning of each sign, and discuss the errors and the limitations of the program.