释义（Paraphrasing），即复述、重述、澄清。这个词衍生自希腊语（παρφρασι），意为：其他表达方式。释义这一技能主要是通过学生对文本的充分理解，进而用自己的语言说出内容意思。本期，三好教师联盟将分享如何通过Paraphrasing增加学生的词汇量和语言知识，进而培养其逻辑思维和语言表达能力。
释义游戏活动设计
How can a teacher get students to show true comprehension of a written text, rather than answer questions with mere repetition of words from the original? This is a difficulty for the teacher because many English as a foreign language (EFL) learners have little or no anglophone cultural background. They need three prerequisites in order to achieve and demonstrate real comprehension:
老师怎样做才能通过学生的反馈了解他们真正对文本内容的理解程度，而不是仅仅通过重复原文来回答问题这类做法？由于很多二语学习者没有相应的英语文化背景，因此这对英语教师来说是一大难题。二语学习者需要以下三个先决条件才能达到目标并展示出真正的理解力：
sufficient vocabulary（足够的词汇量）general world-context knowledge（世界局势常识）mental agility（思维敏捷性）
It’s possible that none of these have been acquired—especially by younger learners. How can learners be taught all three in a time-efficient way? English-language courses can vary in length and intensiveness, but no course can give EFL learners the years of immersion in the anglophone language and cultural context that they have missed. One way to tackle the challenge is to focus systematically on paraphrasing itself, as a skill to be learned and practiced.
学生有可能一个条件都不符合，特别是少儿学习者。那么如何以一种高效的方式教学生掌握这三个方面的知识呢？英语学科课程的时长和难易度虽然各不相同，但是没有一门课程能让学生学习他们多年来错过的英语语言和文化背景知识。解决这一问题的方法之一是专注于系统释义语言本身的含义，这也是一种需要学习和训练的技能。
01
PARAPHRASING
释义
Paraphrasing is a productive exercise for students at the intermediate level because it develops capability in both directions: the cognitive capability to comprehend and the linguistic capability to express ideas autonomously—that is, without needing to copy from the original. Along the way, students acquire knowledge of new lexical items, intensively, in a meaningful context.
释义对中等水平的学生来说是一项富有成效的训练，因为它培养了学生两方面的能力：理解上的认知能力和观点表达上的语言能力，即不再是从原文或结构中去复制（进行回答）。在此过程中，学生可以在有意义的语境中吸收新的词汇知识。
However, for students at this level, paraphrasing is a difficult and high-level skill. How can we get them to acquire and practice using it?
然而，对于这一水平的学生来说，释义仍是一项难度高且水平高的技能。那么我们怎样才能让他们学会并训练去使用它呢？
There is no short path to the goal of building up the necessary cultural background knowledge and world-context perspective that nonnative-speaker learners lack. One effective method is to use quality resources carefully chosen to be relatable for the age group, in a cycle of the patient and regular exposure, discussion, and explanation.
想要建立非母语学习者所缺乏但必要的文化背景知识和世界局势视角是没有捷径可走的。有效方法之一是使用精选的与年龄组相关的优质资源，让学生定期接触、讨论和释义形成一个可循环体系。
To implement this idea, I developed an interactive paraphrasing game that I use for a portion of every lesson, usually as a warm-up activity. The game has three levels: single words, then single sentences, and finally paragraphs. It can be played orally or with written responses. The content focus and the difficulty level can be controlled by the teacher, according to the students’ level of English.
为了验证这一想法，作者设计了一个交互式的释义游戏活动，并用在每节课的课堂教学设计中，通常是作为热身活动来使用。此游戏有三个层次：单个词汇，然后是单个句子，最后是段落。它可以口头表达，也可以书面回答。教师可以根据学生的英语水平来控制内容的重点和难度。
The game is adaptable and extensible. It requires the teacher to prepare a model answer paraphrase for each item of the target text, and this takes some time and effort.
此活动具有极强地适应性和扩展性。它需要老师花费一定地时间和精力去为目标文本的每一个环节准备一个参考答案
The regular use of the game format provides an opportunity to practice comprehension, to build content-area knowledge, and to develop higher-level vocabulary and thinking skills.
经常使用这个游戏形式给训练理解力，建构内容领域知识，并发展更高层次的词汇技能和思维技能提供了机会。
Here is the game setup, in a nutshell. The text items that you use in the game can be taken from your course’s content area, from the set text for your class at the time, from contemporary news stories, or from out-of-copyright children’s literature.
简单地说，游戏设置如下：老师在活动中使用文本可以是来自教材的课文，也可以是为学生设计的问题，还可以是时事新闻故事或版权可用的儿童文学作品。
A useful source is a website of the Full-Text Archive (www.fulltextarchive.com/), which has a large library of downloadable children’s classics in PDF or e-book format. It is from there that I took the text of The Wonderful Wizard of Ozby L. Frank Baum, which I used for some of the examples in the tables below.
推荐一个实用的资源网站：Full-Text Archive，它有一个可下载电子书格式的大型儿童经典文学图书馆。作者将以来自此网站的L. Frank Baum所著《绿野仙踪》一书作为示例，阐述以下活动步骤。
02
THE PARAPHRASING GAME
释义游戏
A note on the game name: it’s an anagram of “Reword it,” itself a paraphrase of the instruction “Paraphrase it.”关于游戏名称的说明：这是一个“改写它”的字谜游戏，名称本身是“释义它”这一指令的意译。
Instructions for students
学生须知
The game has three levels, of increasing difficulty. It starts with single words (Level One), progresses to single sentences (Level Two), and finally moves to short texts, but not longer than a paragraph (Level Three).
游戏有三个层次，难度越来越大。它从单个词汇（第一级）开始；发展到单个句子（第二级）；最后发展到小短文，但短文内容不超过一个段落（第三级）。
In groups of three, players identify themselves as Player A, Player B, and Player T (Timekeeper and Evaluator).
在三人一组的游戏中，玩家们（学生们）将分为玩家A、玩家B和玩家T（即计时与评估员）。
Player A will read or speak a short text.玩家A将会读或说一段小短文。 Player B has to paraphrase Player A’s prompt within a specified time. For Level One, the time limit is 30 seconds; for Level Two, it is one minute; and for Level Three, it is three minutes. In Level Three, Player B is allowed to make notes.玩家B必须在指定时间内（用英文）释义玩家A所读的文本。第一级的时限是30秒；第二级的时限是1分钟；第三级的时限是3分钟。在第三级释义时，玩家B可以做笔记。 Player T has the task, apart from calling “Halt” when time is up, of deciding how close Player B’s paraphrase came to the meaning of the original and how much of it was not copied or repeated but properly paraphrased. Player T gives points for Player B’s performance.玩家T的任务除了在时间结束时叫停之外，还包括判断玩家B的释义与原文的意思是否相近，以及有多少内容不是重复原文，并且是被正确地释义出来的。玩家T根据玩家B的表现给出分数。 The teacher can keep score, or with larger classes, the students in each group keep track of their scores.教师可以记录下分数，或者在班级较大的情况下，每组的学生记录下他们的分数。 Rotate the roles and repeat until all three players have played all three parts.轮换角色并重复，直到三个玩家都扮演完过这三个角色。
Tables 1, 2, and 3 show sample prompts and possible valid responses for Levels One, Two, and Three, respectively.
下表1、2和3分别显示了第一级、第二级和第三级的示例提示和可能的有效反馈。
03
OUTCOMES结果
This is a fun game, and it is challenging, too. Your students will enjoy playing the paraphrasing game, and you can expect them to plunge into it with enthusiasm. The individual performances may vary in fluency and accuracy, but with an overall rising trend in successful paraphrasing over time.
这是一个有趣且具有挑战性的游戏活动。学生将可能会爱上玩释义游戏，老师可以期待学生会带着热情投入其中。虽然前期学生个人的表现可能在流利性和准确性上有所差异，但随着时间的推移，释义成功率将在总体上呈现上升的趋势。
Achieving vocabulary expansion and improvement of world-context knowledge is a slow and necessarily incremental process. I have seen evidence from students’ responses that they notched up a couple of increments with each round of the paraphrasing game. To consolidate the learning, I asked students to take notes on new lexical items after class. Where necessary, you can interpolate mini-explanations of cultural- context and world-knowledge references.
实现词汇量的扩展和世界局势常识的提高必然是一个缓慢且递增的过程。作者是从学生的回答中观察到这一规律，学生在每一轮释义游戏中都会有词汇和常识储备上的增量。为了巩固学习效果，作者让学生在课后记录下新单词。在必要的时候，老师也可以插入文化背景和世界知识引用的简短说明。
This regular activity on the skill of paraphrasing helped me enormously in my dual aim of (a) getting to know the specific gaps in my students’ knowledge of English words, phrases, and usage and (b) helping them to go beyond mimetism and thus achieve greater relative autonomy as language users.
这项关于训练释义技能的规律活动极大地帮助实现了以下双重目标：（a）了解学生在英语单词、短语和用法知识方面的具体差距；（b）帮助他们超越模仿，从而实现作为语言使用者应获得的更大的语言表达自主性。
