Getting the most out of your parallel-text KOs in textivate

This post features a video tutorial on how teachers who follow a "parallel text knowledge organiser" approach can exploit their KOs to maximum effect in textivate.

If you have your KO prepared in parallel text style, a resource such as the one demonstrated in the video should take around 15 to 20 mins to create.

What you end up with is a whole range of text reconstruction activities with the option of a parallel English text for reference, with text-to-speech, with chunk by chunk rebuild for some of the activities, as well as a similar number of matching activities using the same chunks used in the parallel text, and where the L2 text can also be used as support for the vocab activities.

The steps involved are as follows:

  1. Add the French KO text: 0:00
  2. Add the English parallel text from the KO: 1:30
  3. Chunking the main text: 2:35
  4. Add matching items: 4:45
  5. Add "extras" such as text-to-speech: 6:03
  6. Upload the resource: 8:55

Here's the video. I hope to make a lot more of these, which, I hope, people will find easier to follow than user-guides full of text and images.

Here are a few example resources which have been created in the way shown in the video:

German: Auf in die Schule

French: Comment est ta famille?

Those who are not familiar with textivate will need to have a good play around with the activities that are available from the activity menus in those 2 links above.

I've already made it so that the parallel text is visible, which means that, for the activity menu and the Text activities, the parallel English text is displayed alongside, while for the Match activities, the main L2 text is displayed.

Many of the activity screens have various parameters that can be set on the screens themselves, and all of these can also be fixed for any links that you share to specific activities, as well as for all activities that you may decide to include in an activity Sequence (an assignment based on a pre-defined set of activities for a resource, see here).

Here are a few example links, based on the 2 resources listed above:

1. Multi-choice chunk rebuild with parallel text and no TTS: French | German

2. Jumble activity with parallel text and no TTS: French | German

3. Find the French (with initials) | Find the German (with initials)

4. Translation / dictation (via TTS) combined: French | German 

Hope you find this useful :o)

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