I’m helping one of my kids with some Spanish homework. She didn’t know which definition of a word was correct. I have never had Spanish, but I know how to use several translator web sites. My daughter says they are not permitted to use a web site to look up words. They have to use a paper dictionary.
This is crazy. Why should students be forced to use the old-fashioned slow way to look up words in a paper dictionary? It takes ten times as long. I can understand the importance dictionary skills. Students must know how to use a paper-based dictionary properly. I think by tenth grade that skill has been mastered.
We are now talking about learning a foreign language. Time on task should include as little time as possible flipping through pages of a dictionary. Study time should focus on reading comprehension in context and speaking. A web-based translator helps all these things. The free Yahoo Spanish/English dictionary has the definition and an audio file of each word properly spoken.
My daughter says the fear of the teacher is that students will copy whole paragraphs into translators which do not work properly. Just read any warning label printed on a product made in China. A teacher can easily identify a paragraph that has been passed through a Google-like translator. I can identify it and I have not been trained to teach a foreign language.
We have to get our heads out of the old school way of thinking. We are surrounded by technology that can help us complete the tedious tasks associated with subjects like foreign language. If we do not use these technologies to help us, our country will continue to lose ground in the global economy.
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