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Composition Games: An Approach to Composing Directly in L2
Margaret Orleans
Meiji Gakuen High School, Japan
Learners who habitually compose in their first language and then translate
into the target language are doing themselves a great disservice. Drawbacks
to this approach include inadequate planning and rewriting time, inattention
to transcription errors, and a need to route all L2 meaning through the
L1. Many Japanese learners perceive English as a sort of code for which
they must find one-to-one correspondences with the L1 original, in which
all the "true meaning" resides. As a result, they find it difficult to
discuss their writing in the L2 and to revise it. In order to give students
the experience of composing directly in L2, particularly in making word
choices without reference to the L1, I have devised several dozen game-like
warm-up activities which, because of their reliance on such language features
as spelling, rhyme, and word length, are impossible to translate.
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