Proverbs and Idioms: Fun Translation Lesson

Here's a cool little lesson idea that I found worked exceptionally well, in fact, much better than I had anticipated.  I'd been wanting to do proverbs and idioms with my middle school (junior 2) students for a while, but struggled to come up with  an idea that would keep them amused and not bore them to death. Whilst refining my own Chinese speaking skills I hit upon an interesting article listing English proverbs that translate into Chinese "yanyu or cheng yu", which is the equivalent of our proverbs and idioms. What is interesting is the words don't directly translate, but the meanings do.

Like these two examples...

爱人如己  - àirénrújǐ    =  Similar English expression : Love others as you would yourself.

倾盆大雨    qīngpéndàyǔ      Similar English Expression : To rain cats and dogs.

So I came up with the plan to first do up a word document listing the English Proverbs.
Second make up a word document listing the English proverbs and the equivalent Chinese translations that basically have the same meaning.

Here is a copy of my lesson plan. For those of you teaching in China you are more than welcome to download and use my English to Chinese proverb list which I have included the links for below. For those of you teaching in other countries, sorry but you will need to work on your own translations.
Engish Proverbs file (without answers)      English Proverbs With Chinese Equivalent Answers

Title: Proverbs And Idioms Lesson 01

 Keywords:

The Proverbs And Idioms keywords we will study are:  Different English Proverbs And Idioms That Have A Matching Chinese Meaning.

Objective:
To be able to understand the English proverbs and idioms and write the matching Chinese Yan yu or Cheng yu.

Starter:
Explain difference between idioms and proverbs and show some examples - raining cats and dogs and matching Chinese yanyu.

Activity:
Show the proverbs on the screen and get the students to use their dictionaries if they need help with words. Students must work out and write down the equivalent Chinese proverb to match the English ones.

Plenary:
Now show students the answers... Reveal them one by one and see how many the students got correct.

Resources:
The Proverbs And Idioms resources we will need are - the 3 word files on a USB drive
-  proverb /idiom examples for explanation
-  English proverbs
-  English proverbs with Chinese answers
Students will need a dictionary and a pen and paper.

Reminder:
During the proverbs and idioms lesson we must remember  - kids can work in groups, pairs or alone ... Let them discuss and work out the answers between them.

Standards:
The standards we will fulfill during this proverbs and idioms lesson are: learning useful English proverbs that we use frequently.

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