I can’t believe I wasted all that time over the years translating the novels and trying to mix all that L1 direct translation into the reading class, as per a comment by Alisa that “knocked-me-up-side-the-head” this weekend:
…reading along in L1 (English) while the students are reading in L2 sounds totally confusing, jarring and counterproductive to me….
So today I had them read (text below their level) and then we discussed it and it worked with no translation.
I’m learnin’!