I recalled that once I could not stop my students from looking up their electric translators in the class whenever I introduced a new topic or new vocabulary. As their ESL instructor, I would like my students to express English freely without afraid of making mistakes. Using electric traslator really slowed them down and made them less active.
Then I came up with an idea. One class I divided the class into small groups. I gave each group a piece of blank paper and had each group member take turn to draw a small picture. In the end, each group has eight pictures on the piece of paper. I then asked each group to create a story out of the pictures they drew in their mother tongue --Taiwanese. My students were surprised and excited about that. After that I asked them to translate the story to English.
Through the process, my students practiced choosing appropriate vocabulary, analyze different grammar system and sentence patterns and in the end they told me that they found it's easier just creating the story in English directly rather than making the story in their mother togune and then translate it to English. I told them "Yes, and it is also faster because you think in English instead of thinking in your first langauge and then writing it again in English".
I like the idea of holding a cotest for the funniest story. I can see how effective of holding a contest for the funniest will be when I apply it to my teaching next time. Furthemore, I also agree that instead of stopping students from using translators why not using it as a teachable moment. As we learn much from mistakes and bad examples.
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