How to Translate And Not Be Lost In Translation when it's raining cats and dogs

Problem
I was teaching Intermediate English in Singapore to pupils wanting to pass the English exam which would enable them to attend English speaking schools or colleges in Singapore.

After the lesson I and one of the pupils looked out of the window, waiting for the rain to stop before we set off for our homes.

I said, "It's raining cats and dogs."

He replied, puzzled, "I see cats - but I don't see any dogs."

I said, "It's an English expression. It means raining hard."

I looked up the translation on the internet.

You can find translations of many idioms into a page of different languages. It's interesting to see how many use similar expressions.

The Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese use the expression:
basin-bending big rain.

That's a translation into a Chinese idiom, with the words translated back more or less exactly.

For more idioms, go to:
omniglot.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages.

What I learned teaching English As A Foreign Language In Singapore

Problems
How do you teach English as a foreign language to pupils who themselves speak different foreign languages? How do you teach a ten week course from a thirty chapter textbook?

Answers
1 Follow a text book course, fitting the number of chapters to the number of weeks on the school course or year for which the pupils have paid and committed.

2 Remove the last week / lesson for giving out results. Remove the previous week / lesson for the exam.

Marking Exams
You may need a weekend to allow time to mark all the papers if the school is giving out awards.

If you are simply doing a test, you can get the pupils to swap papers and mark each other's work. If you don't like the idea of two friends swapping papers, swap the papers of people who sit far away from each other.

Alternatively, let each pupil play at being an examiner. Conceal the names on the papers with post-its. Let the pupils do the commenting on how some of the pupils have done well, others badly, which papers were hardest, what the person marked as a fail has to do to reach the passmark.

Ask those with problems answering or low marks or lower marks then they expected to say what they found hardest. Reveal the names of those who did best and ask them to stand up and advise the others on how to revise and remember.

If you cannot do this for the final exam, do it for the mock exam.

Mock Exam
Remove the week before exam for a mock exam. Remove a week before that for revision (unless you can do revision in the first half of the lesson and the mock exam in the second half.

Spacing Lessons
Check the number of weeks remaining and the number of chapters you need to cover. Supposing you need to cover only one chapter and have two lessons. You can then have pupils reading the chapter aloud and starting it in one lesson, reading out the answers or doing the questions a second time in the next lesson.

On the other hand, you might have two chapters to cover in a day or week, but only one lesson. In that case do one chapter in the lesson and set the other one for the pupils to read for homework.

Games Lessons
If you have a spare lesson in the afternoon, this can be a fun and games lesson, using the material learned. For example, if you have taught them to say, I am taller than you are, they can line up in height order. Then starting at the front each person will say, I am taller than you are to the pupil on one side, and you are taller than I am, and I am smaller than you are, to the person on the other side.

You can buy books of language games. Make up your own. Ask the pupils to devise a game. Ask other teacher for a game. Check the school library or resources box. Ask the head of department or school head for games.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and author, English teacher.