Past tenses in Spanish and English are sometimes different in perspective and conception.English past simple can be expressed in Spanish using Indefinido, Imperfecto or Perfecto, this can confuse our students.
That's why this time translation doesn't seem the best way to learn this particular concept.
Some useful strategies to teach/learn verb tenses are:
- drawing the concept
- connecting concepts to particular communicative situations
- interpreting significance from examples and drawing conclusions from them
- etc
Should we use translation in our class or teach as much as we can in the target language?
A lot has been written about this topic and still there are some doubts on both sides of the argument.
Sometimes translation comes in handy to speed up the learning process and can help you connect with a student.
I am not a big fan of translating in class because I think that the most important thing that happens in class is the process, what students do to learn, and sometimes translating is kind of taking a shortcut with everything that doing that implies. But at the same time, one of our priorities as teachers is knowing our students, offering them different ways of learning and respecting the diversity in our class. So, in the end, I understand that we need to use our professional judgment to make the best decision according to our personal context.
The best education I have ever received was through travel.
Lisa Ling
