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    Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment
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Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment

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Mediation
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Teaching materials database

The METLA task database contains sample (cross)linguistic mediation tasks in different languages for different contexts. Materials are available for these languages:  Arabic, Croatian, Danish, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese and Spanish.
14 teaching materials on 1 page
page: 1 

School World Song Contest (Task 37)

This activity is about incorporating learners’ home languages and the (inter-/pluri) cultural component. The students will watch a video news item about the Eurovision Song Contest and/or read an accompanying online text - both in Language A (the language of schooling). They will condense and summarise three key points in Language B (French) about Eurovision from the two source texts for the school newspaper or the school whiteboard. They will then collaborate to produce a poster in Language B based on the information in the texts - the aim of the poster is to advertise a multilingual school song contest. They will prepare for an oral presentation about music in their home countries in Language B (with help from their families). They will use their mediation skills to record a voice message in their home language (Language C) to explain the information in the poster to their families.

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Italian menu (Task 43)

Students will perform a number of mediation activities as they go through the process of reading the menu, choosing, and ordering food and drinks for each member of their family while on holiday in a foreign country. The tasks aim at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from a source text and relaying it into a target text in another language.

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Transition Year work experience (Task 46)

The aim of the task is to compile a class Padlet (in Irish) comprising a series of video and text summaries of information students gather online about work experience placements. Students firstly watch a video in which other students share ideas in English for work experience placements, then they use a specific web resource in English to learn about various work experience possibilities for their Transition Year placements. They choose an experience which interests them, and they learn relevant vocabulary in Irish related to careers to help them complete a task in Irish which involves contributing a video recording and short text to a class Padlet.

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Proper use of face masks (Task 6)

Students are expected to relay information and explain data about the correct use of face masks with the help of poster diagrams, and also to produce an approximate translation.

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Filmmaking competition (Task 7)

Students will perform a number of mediation activities as they go through the process of getting to know about a language film design competition and actually writing the script for the competition. The tasks aim at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from source texts and relaying it into a target text in another language.

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Airport instructions (Task 9)

This is a project activity that focuses on cross-cultural communication and the way we communicate parts of this information to different people. First, the students will read a text regarding airport transportation, and they will write informal short messages as part of written text communication with an exchange student. Then, the students will have to use the same information and write a formal email to the student’s parents.

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Maths family connect sessions (Task 11)

Students are to relay information and explain data from a poster about Maths evening classes for students accompanied by their parents.

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T-shirt design competition (Task 12)

Students will perform a number of mediation activities as they go through the process of getting to know about a language t-shirt design competition and a final presentation of their work. The tasks aim at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from source texts and relaying it into a target text in another language.

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Tower of Babel – WhatsApp group (Task 13)

The aim of this activity is to practise the student’s reception and production skills in an authentic situation. Firstly, the students discuss the features of a typical social media (WhatsApp) message. Then, working in small groups, they read five different WhatsApp messages (Language B/C), and provide an answer either in Language A and/or B(/C), depending on the instructions given in the message. Finally, they share their answers with the rest of the groups. As a follow-up activity, students have to write their own message in Language A as part of their homework, and next time, in pairs, they answer their own messages in Language B (/C).

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Celebrating Mother’s Day in Portugal (Task 29)

Students are put in a role play situation: Celebrating Mother’s Day in Portugal. They will go through some “adventures” to get to buy a present together with their dad, who doesn’t speak a word of Portuguese. The aim of the lesson is to activate students’ previous knowledge and develop their mediation strategies, skills needed to deal with informal situations encountered in daily life.

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A Mexican in your town (Task 30)

This task aims at familiarizing students with different text types and practising their skills in comprehending texts in Language A and producing in Language B and vice versa. In the first part, students mediate a German text about touristic information into Spanish. In the second task, a Spanish text is mediated into German or a heritage language, involving intercultural aspects and using a text format that students are accustomed to: a WhatsApp message. In the third task, students reflect on their own experiences with mediation.

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Eat and throw away - Lessons learnt from the pandemic (Task 36)

During the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to statistics most people had to change their life drastically. Many gained weight. At the same time, the use of plastic increased, having an environmental impact. This activity provides the same source text on which students will work in different languages, English, French, Spanish, Italian and German, and leaves room for the teacher to decide what language(s) will be used as Language A (language of source texts) or Language B (that of the end product of the students, which will be a leaflet). An additional aim of this activity is to raise students´ awareness of health and environmental issues during the pandemic, and to find some solutions to the problems.

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Social media and teenage life (Task 42)

This lesson focuses on written mediation. The main tasks aim at: a) developing learners’ skills in selecting information from a source text (a blog entry), b) summarising messages into a target language, and c) developing the mediation strategies of paraphrasing, providing synonyms, distinguishing major from minor information.

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Transition Year work experience (Task 46)

The aim of the task is to compile a class Padlet (in Irish) comprising a series of video and text summaries of information students gather online about work experience placements. Students firstly watch a video in which other students share ideas in English for work experience placements, then they use a specific web resource in English to learn about various work experience possibilities for their Transition Year placements. They choose an experience which interests them, and they learn relevant vocabulary in Irish related to careers to help them complete a task in Irish which involves contributing a video recording and short text to a class Padlet.

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