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Mediation in teaching, learning and assessment

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Mediation
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Mediation tasks

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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.

20 teaching materials on 1 page

page: 1

Grocery list (Task 1)

Students should work in pairs (Student A-B). Each student will receive a different worksheet: Student A will receive the Worksheet Grocery List A in Language A. Following the scenario instructions on the worksheet, Student A should relay information related to food and practise polite question forms in Language B. Using the Worksheet Grocery List B, Student B listens carefully to the information introduced by Student A in Language B and then B selects the fruit and vegetables just mentioned by Student A and writes them down in Language B.

A Londoner in Greece! (Task 15)

This lesson focuses on written mediation. The main tasks included aim at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from source texts of different genres, summarising messages into a target language and developing the mediation strategies of paraphrasing, providing synonyms, distinguishing major from minor information.

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.

Reasons to learn Spanish (Task 38)

This activity aims at providing practice to students into gathering information from a specific text in Language A (Greek) by identifying the main points in order to give a presentation on the reasons why someone should learn Spanish.

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.

Lost dog (Task 4)

The aim of this activity is to practice a specific vocabulary, introduce students to different text media, and raise intercultural awareness. Students read a short text in Language A about a friend’s missing dog, and they will have to create an Instagram post and a “lost dog” flyer in Language B.

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.

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.

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.

A visitor from Mexico (Task 14)

Students learn how to describe places through the use of adjectives, and at the same time become familiar with different text types. They practise their skills in comprehending texts in Language A and producing meaning in Language B. The lesson plan consists of five parts, each containing several steps. Communicating touristic information to people in another language is a common practise which can be taught in the classroom with steps 1-3 in the first part of the lesson plan. The second part (step 4) involves intercultural aspects and uses a text format that students are familiar with: a social media message. In the third part (step 5), students can reflect on their multilingual practises. In the final two parts (steps 6 and 7), students are exposed to multimodal texts (song, video and text) and are asked to transfer information from one language to another on a relevant topic, i.e., learning foreign languages.

Hot topics and digital media (Task 16)

Engaging students in the crisscrossing of information available in several media in different languages, this task aims at developing their critical thinking and skills of relating and interpreting. Because young people consume information in several languages, this task intends to bring their multiliteracy skills to the foreign language classroom. The tasks, even if classroom-specific, are oriented towards students’ authentic, every day needs as consumers and producers of media.

Healthy diet! (Task 17)

This lesson focuses on written mediation. The main tasks included aim at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from source texts and relaying it into a target text in another language.

The internet and its dangers (Task 26)

This lesson focuses on written mediation. The main task aims at developing learners’ skills in selecting information from different source texts, one of which is written in Language A (English) and another in Language B (Greek), and relaying messages into Language B (foreign language).

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.

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.

Organising a school trip to Germany (Task 35)

The activity is based on the visit of the Maltese students to Leipzig, Germany. First, the German-speaking students read a brochure about the main sights in Leipzig and relay the information (in English) from the brochure (on Activity Worksheet; text 1) briefly in the forum discussion with the Maltese. After that, the Maltese-speaking students agree on a specific area of interest (in Maltese) and report back to the German-speaking students in an email (in English). The German-speaking students then read the part of the brochure (online; text 2) regarding the chosen topic and report information about the topic (in English) to the Maltese-speaking students, orally, in a virtual meeting. Potentially, as a follow-up activity, the Maltese-speaking students present and discuss (in Maltese) the options they heard about in the previous step.

A visitor from Scotland (Task 39)

Students learn how to describe places through the use of adjectives and at the same time they become familiar with different text types. They practise their skills in comprehending texts in Language A and producing in Language B. Communicating touristic information to people in another language is a common practise which can be developed in the classroom with the first task. The second part involves intercultural aspects and uses a text format that students are accustomed to: a social media message. In the third part students can reflect on their multilingual practises. In the final two parts, students are exposed to multimodal texts (song and text) and are asked to transfer information from one language to another on a relevant topic: Learning foreign languages.

Volunteering (Task 44)

Through this lesson, students will have the opportunity to practise their cross-linguistic mediation skills in a variety of ways. But it is not only the different languages that are involved, but also the different genres across languages.

Visiting Paris (Task 45)

This task aims to familiarise the students with the process of transferring information from one language to another with the use of videos which focus on specific monuments of Paris.

A newcomer in our class (Task 89)

Students welcome a newcomer from Poland in our class. They learn how to describe our classroom rules to the newcomer by using the imperative form of verbs (affirmative or negative form) and the appropriate nouns and adjectives. They practise their skills in comprehending a short text in Language A and producing meaning in Language B. The lesson plan consists of six steps, each containing three steps. Communicating classroom rules to a peer in another language is a common practise which can be taught in the classroom with steps 1-4, in the first part of the lesson plan. The second part (step 5) involves collaboration and creativity, as students make their own posters for our school’s classes. In the final part (step 6) students reflect upon their multilingual experience, producing short texts which will be published in our school’s blog.

CEFR levels

ISCED levels

Mediation strategy

Linking to previous knowledge

Breaking down complicated information

Adapting language

Amplifying a dense text

Streamlining a text