Have you ever observed that when you try to explain something to someone else, your comprehension of it frequently grows? That is the outcome of mediation, a fundamental aspect of communication that takes place when we consider the needs of others and modify our own expression accordingly. When we negotiate, we consider both what to say and how to express it. As a result, new meanings and methods of communicating them are frequently created.
Mediation: A Crucial Skill For Language Learners
Each of us must learn information, comprehend it, and then communicate it to others. Although it could come naturally to certain people, pulling this off properly necessitates a special set of abilities. It is essential for language learners of all levels to be able to take information, summarize it, and transmit it. This process is known as mediation. For students who wish to study English for the real world, mediation is a key ability that we all need in our everyday lives. The CEFR is the global benchmark for language proficiency, and the companion volume placed more emphasis on teaching and learning mediation techniques.
The good news for teachers is that they presumably already cover mediation skills if they are teaching practical communication skills in the classroom. However, it is advised that teachers can push this one step further by creating efficient classroom tactics.
Three macro categories are used to organize the linguistic activities and accompanying scales for this skill:
– Using one’s own words to communicate info to someone who doesn’t have access to it is known as mediating a text;
– Concepts mediation: exchanging thoughts and cooperating with others to find a solution;
– Mediating communication is the process of bridging socio cultural gaps in order to enable people to understand one another.
What Purpose Do Mediation Activities Serve?
Many educators wonder why they should put this specific emphasis on communication skills at this time. The 21st century’s rapid change in communication requirements is one persuasive argument. Online communication is becoming more cross-cultural, necessitating a higher level of linguistic self-awareness in order to adapt and work together. Universities and companies now place a larger priority on soft communication skills that foster creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking because daily chores are becoming more and more automated.
This is especially true of English, which is recognised as a crucial language that opens doors to professions and study abroad. Thus, introducing learners to mediation exercises can help them become more adaptable and effective communicators in this dynamic setting. In a mediation assignment, language users are compelled to receive and produce texts (literacy skills), negotiate meaning, create hypotheses and offer solutions (learning skills), as well as to be adaptable and take charge (i.e. life skills).
Students will master the fundamentals of intercultural and cross-linguistic communication while practicing mediation in the classroom. Most of their friends are less likely to be aware of how to get across linguistic and cultural obstacles.
Developing Mediation Skills And Knowledge
Students and mediators must gain a variety of skills and information in order to be prepared for a mediation work.
Methods For Managing Source Texts
Finding the important information in a source text is the first stage in a mediation task. The length and sophistication of texts will vary depending on the age and academic level of the kids. Teenagers could be requested to highlight or briefly summarize important passages in a written material that they feel are important. On the other hand, younger pupils might find it simpler to select the important point or points from a list of alternatives or to respond to “true or false” questions.
Similar to written source texts, older students may be able to take notes more effectively when dealing with oral source texts, whereas younger students—while still being able to listen and write down specific words, phrases, and numbers—would require more assistance, such as filling in gaps in notes, drawing, or even coloring in objects.
Techniques For Creating Target Messages
The second stage is to use a target text to communicate the pertinent information chosen in the source text to the intended audience. Students or mediators may be required to explain, paraphrase, summarize, and/or translate information during the process.
Teachers should help students learn the techniques that writers and speakers use to define concepts, elaborate on what they have written or said, provide examples, and other techniques in order to educate them how to explain information. For instance, basic matching, sorting, or TPR exercises could be used to teach students between the ages of seven and ten how to offer examples or use body language.
Instead, older pupils will be better able to comprehend and employ more complicated analogies, as well as modify their language to a particular scenario, such as when presenting a challenging idea to-or even adapting a book or film for-a younger youngster.
The data in the source text may occasionally be in the student’s or the mediator’s native tongue. Students and mediators engaging in cross-linguistic mediation should be aware that they should not interpret the source text word for word but rather should transmit the main ideas in the original text in the target language.
Students must be aware of the genres to which they belong in order to develop target texts. Teachers should pay close attention to the traditional genre characteristics, such as purpose, when students are exposed to texts in class, whether they are brief and straightforward discussions or emails among friends for younger and lower-level students or subtler and more complex and challenging lectures or articles for older and higher-level students.
Sociocultural Awareness
Cultural factors may be mentioned in source materials. Although the students and mediators might be familiar with these references, the intended audience is not. Teachers could have students “experience” cross-cultural situations through role-playing in addition to exposing them to cultural content to aid in the development of sociocultural knowledge. Students might be asked to improvise or act in situations in which they must explain a particular aspect of their own culture.
The Bottom Line
Children and teenagers in school today will inevitably reach an age when certain abilities will no longer be optional. They can expand their understanding of important communication techniques and discover their position in the twenty-first century by practicing mediation in class with the help of relevant tasks.
