Sparrow Farm Junior School

translator: sarah griffin-mason

Children in Years 4 and 5 at Sparrow Farm Junior School embarked on the Translation Nation project with Spanish speaking translator, editor and teacher Sarah Griffin-Mason. During the first session, the students enjoyed Sarah’s translation of a Spanish story and were curious to find out more about each other’s languages and cultures. They went on to translate three stories from the school’s community languages of Urdu, Telegu and Polish over the following days. Outside the Translation Nation hub, other children in the school took part in parallel story writing sessions throughout the project.

The last session was dedicated to polishing the stories and preparing them for presentation to an audience of teachers and students. As well as incorporating music into their performances, the students utilised their impressive IT skills to create PowerPoint presentations. The audience responded enthusiastically to all the stories and gave a huge cheer at the announcement that The Magic Stone, translated from Urdu, was the winning story.

Parents, teachers and other pupils in the school showed great interest in the project, and Sarah thought it had been a very special event for the whole school community. The teachers were very impressed by the students’ translation abilities but were also pleased that the children had developed their English language skills through the creative writing exercises. One teacher observed, ‘The children’s enhanced pride and positive self-esteem as a result of participation in the project was very evident’, and expressed a wish to further explore and celebrate their language skills in the future.

Audio files