Find the Difference

This is great, quick post-reading activity which you can do with students. I got this idea from Annabelle Allen's blog (if you are not reading her blog, bookmark it!), specifically from her post on "Milking Movie Talks." Bob Patrick and I had done a Movie Talk last week, and I was looking for some new novel post-reading activities to do with it. Annabelle's post was perfect for what I was looking!

"Find the Difference" is exactly what students will do: find the differences in a reading which you have been reviewing!

Directions

1. Type up a current reading, and make vocabulary word changes to it. It is important that students are quite familiar with the reading. In many ways, you do not want to completely change the reading - you do not want more differences than similarities.
2. Print up reading.

Classroom

1. Students will need a highlighter for this activity.
2. Hand out a reading to each student. You can pair them up if you want to focus on collaborative work.
3. Explain that students are to find the differences in the reading from the real story. Tell students HOW MANY differences for which they will be looking. This will be very helpful for students.
4. When students find a difference, they are to highlight the word(s) in the story. 
5. Review the answers with students. I projected the story onto a whiteboard and had students come up and underline the difference.
6. As an extension, you can ask students to replace the differences with the correct word(s) in the target language.

Observations

1. I was surprised at how quickly students were able to get through this activity. Because it was a reading with which students were familiar, (due to being a Movie Talk and having gone over it a few different ways), it did not take long.
2. Because I had told them ahead of time how many differences there were, students paid closer attention to the reading.
3. This is another great way for students to interact with comprehensible messages. 
4. Students were becoming tired of this story so this activity gave the reading some novelty!

Example in Latin:

Knock Knock Movie Talk reading

Ecce vir! Vir in spondā considit. Rē verā, vir totum diem agere vult in spondā. Rē verā, vir cenāre vult in spondā!

Subito, aliquis ianuam pulsat. Vir ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, nemo adest. Quod nemo adest, vir ianuam claudit. Aliquis iterum ianuam pulsat. Rē verā, vir totum diem agere vult in spondā. Rē verā, vir cenare vult in spondā! Vir iterum ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, nemo adest.

Vir iterum ianuam claudit, et iterum in spondā considit. Subito, aliquis iterum ianuam pulsat. vir ianuam non aperit, quod totum diem agere vult in spondā! Vir cenare vult in spondā!
Iterum aliquis ianuam pulsat! Vir valde iratus est!

Vir irate ianuam aperit. Rē verā, nemo adest! Vir ianuam claudit, sed rē verā, non in spondā considit. Aliquis ianuam pulsat. Vir iterum ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, nemo adest...

Find the Difference reading (changes are italicized here for your purpose)

Eheu vir! Vir in lecto considit. Rē verā, vir totum diem agere vult in Germania. Rē verā, vir aspicere televisionem vult in Germania!

Subito, aliquis ianuam pulsat. Vir ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, parvus catulus adest. Quod parvus catulus adest, vir ianuam claudit. Aliquis iterum ianuam pulsat. Rē verā, vir totum diem agere vult in lecto. Rē verā, vir cenare vult in lecto! Vir iterum ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, infans adest.

Vir iterum ianuam claudit, et iterum in spondā crustulum consumit. Subito, aliquis iterum ianuam pulsat. Vir ianuam non aperit, quod totum diem agere vult in spondā! Vir cenare vult in armario! Aliquis iterum ianuam pulsat! Vir valde laetus est!

Vir irate ianuam aperit. Rē verā, magnus porcus adest! Vir ianuam claudit, sed rē verā, non in ursa considit. Aliquis ianuam pulsat. Vir iterum ianuam aperit, sed rē verā, nemo adest…

In Which Language Should I Assess Reading Comprehension?

For the longest time, I struggled with this idea: when assessing reading comprehension on a test, should the questions/answers be in English or in the target language? In my early years of teaching, I used to assess purely in English, because that is how I myself had been assessed when I was in school, i.e., I did not know any other way. When I started to use more active Latin in my classroom, however, I switched over to only having the questions/answers written in Latin, because in my opinion, "This is a Latin class, not an English class! Having the questions/answers in English smells of translation!" (See one of my former blog posts which addresses the role of translation in a CI classroom). A few problems, however, began to arise:

• I noticed that it was possible for students to answer questions correctly from the reading passage without ever having understod what they were reading, because they were savvy enough to know how to pick the correct answer.
• When reviewing the test with students afterwards, I began to see that many students actually understood what they had read in the passage, but they did not understand the question or the answer choices due to mistranslation.

Leave it to the great Martina Bex to save the day! Last year I read a post on her blog which logically addressed this issue and every question which I had. As a result, I now assess reading comprehension only in English. Below is a link to her post.

Reading Activity or Reading Assessment

I still do have one question which I am mulling over: If students are being assessed over a passage which they have read and prepared ahead of time, (i.e., you have explicitly told students which passage(s) will be on the assessment), should the questions and answers then be in the target language? My experience has been that when students know the passage ahead of time, in many instances, they end up memorizing it in English and then never refer back to the passage on the assessment if the questions/answers are in English. Is there a way around this? If students know prior to the assessment that the questions/answers will be in the target language, will they not pay more attention to the language itself during their re-reading of the passage in their preparation? The jury is still out on this one for me. Any thoughts?