Blog#3 Paraphrasing and Language Learning

In my opinion, teachers are encouraged to combine para-phrasing with paraphrasing while giving instruction to students for they emphasize different language skills. According to Orellana and Reynolds (2008), para-phrasing refers to “oral translations of texts written in English—one aspect of the everyday translation or interpretation work that the children of immigrants do for their families” (p.1). So it can be regard as out-of-school activity to enhance the ability of language learners, and provide them with a more comprehensive way of translating the written text within their knowledge. Paraphrasing, however, shares some similarities with the former and valued as a vital skill by school. In other words, students may be required to do paraphrasing in school every day but may not do para-phrasing at home in daily routine.

It reminds me of my English learning experience in my college. In a integrated English course, the teacher asked us to paraphrase every sentence in every passage that we learned. And we did it for 2 semester, finding out it did improve our translation skills like broaden our vocabulary and sentence patterns. But our oral English proficiency made no progress because while we do paraphrasing instead of para-phrasing, we could turn to some tools for help like dictionary. Para-phrasing, in contrast, requires learners’ own knowledge and skills of the target language, helping the language skills move on smoothly and fluently.