no dictionaries!

I just read Andrea's post about her activity in class where the students had to negotiate meaning of a text using an online dictionary. Very cool on many levels! Bravo Andrea! I love that they copied, pasted, highlighted, went to the web, typed, discussed and more - and never even used a pen or piece of paper. I bet they even stayed on task.

I have used this whole-language approach this year - negotiating meaning from a text just above my students' level, but not with the copy, paste, highlight, translate method... very doable and I especially like that they learn their is no perfect translation!

My mind is spinning... will I remember this in the Fall? Would the students be able to do this activity when there is a sub - ahh certainly, if I taught them the tools in advance!