Bringing Receptive Skills Mediation into Your Classroom

by Wai Yan Htut

What Is Mediation?

Mediation is essentially the process of facilitating communication by learners acting as social agents who actively construct meaning across linguistic, cultural, or conceptual differences, bridging gaps between those differences. It can go beyond basic language production and comprehension in ways that make complex ideas more accessible to others. As Oxford University Press ELT (2023) explains, “Mediation is about facilitating communication. It’s not just about understanding and producing language, but about relaying, interpreting, and translating information for others. It’s bridging the gap between two parties, often making complex ideas more understandable.“

In the 2020 CEFR Companion Volume, mediation is also defined as occurring “when a learner/user acts as a social agent who creates bridges and helps to construct or convey meaning” (Council of Europe, 2020, p. 90). As Cambridge University Press (2022, p. 4) further explains in their guide to mediation, it “describes the actions of those who help when, for some reason, there is a communication gap which needs to be filled, and the same (or similar) content is conveyed using different language (not necessarily just one different language), to bridge that gap.“

Despite its importance, mediation has not yet made its way into many textbooks. Most materials still focus on the original four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) without explicitly addressing how specific language is used to mediate meaning in real-world contexts (Piccardo, 2024). This creates a challenge for us as teachers.

This article aims to show you practical ways to transform textbook receptive skills activities into mediation activities.

Three Types of Mediation

The CEFR identifies three main types of mediation according to Cambridge University Press (2022, p. 5):

1. Mediating a text

This involves helping someone understand a text they would not otherwise be able to access. When your students read an English text and then explain the main points to a partner who did not understand it, then they are mediating that text.

2. Mediating concepts

This involves facilitating the co-construction of meaning, particularly in collaborative ways. When your students work together to solve a particular problem, and one student helps others understand difficult concepts, they are now mediating those concepts.

3. Mediating communication

This involves helping learners communicate when they cannot do so directly. This might be due to linguistic or cultural differences. When your students help resolve misunderstandings in a group discussion or explain cultural differences or experiences to newcomers, they are trying to mediate communication.

As North and Piccardo (2016, p. 4) explain, mediation is not just a simple process of translation. It is about establishing supportive environments for effective communication and learning by working together to build shared knowledge and helping others develop and gain new concepts, and exchanging information in ways that are accessible through simplification, expansion, examples, or any form of adaptation that make the communication process smoother for all participants.

The Cambridge guide on mediation (2022, p. 4) further clarifies that mediation can also bridge gaps between different languages, varieties of the same language, registers of language, cultural differences, and skills.

Becoming a Mediation-Focused Teacher: Practical Principles

So, how do we bridge the gap between what our textbooks offer and what our students need? Here are some practical principles to guide your approach:

• Integration: Do not think of mediation as yet another skill to teach separately. Instead, you should look for ways to integrate it into the skill and system lessons you are already doing.
• Authenticity: Whenever possible, adapt activities to include authentic communication that truly requires mediation.
• Student agency: Position your students as active mediators of meaning rather than passive recipients of the lessons, especially in those involving receptive skills.
• Embrace complexity: Do not shy away from unpredictable aspects of language learning. Just create safe spaces for students to navigate that complexity through mediation.
• Cultural responsiveness: Adapt mediation activities to address the specific cultural and linguistic characteristics of your teaching context and student backgrounds.

From Theory to Practice: Transforming Textbook Activities

Example 1: Listening Activity

Let’s look at an example of how to transform a receptive skill activity into one involving mediation, with a specific focus on Myanmar adult learners. Here is a listening activity about “living libraries” where students listen to a radio program and answer comprehension questions about the speakers’ experiences.

*Layout adjusted for better readability

Illustration 1: Listening activity from Speakout Advanced Students’ book (Clare & Wilson), Unit 2, page 23

In Myanmar, the concept of a “living library” is particularly unfamiliar, as library access is limited. With only 4,868 libraries in the entire country (compared to Vietnam’s 20,000+), many Myanmar students rely primarily on internet resources, private schools, or university libraries. This limited exposure to traditional libraries creates both a challenge and an opportunity for meaningful mediation.

Possible listening mediation activities

1. Context bridging

Before playing the audio, the teacher asks:

• The different library contexts between Myanmar and Western countries
• Students to share their experiences with libraries in Myanmar
• How they typically access information and knowledge

This creates awareness of the cultural gap that needs to be mediated.

2. Digital adaptation mediation

Since Myanmar students often rely on internet resources, have them discuss how the concept of a “living library” works in a digital context or in communities with limited physical library infrastructure.

Then, students can mediate between the Western concept presented in the listening and the Myanmar reality.

3. Resource adaptation discussion

After the listening activity, engage them in a discussion on how they might adapt the “living library” concept using available resources in their local context. This requires them to mediate between the ideal described in the listening and practical implementation in Myanmar’s resource-limited environment.

This adaptation not only transforms a standard listening comprehension activity into an opportunity for communication mediation but also makes it culturally relevant for Myanmar learners. It acknowledges their specific context while building bridges to new concepts, directly addressing the CEFR descriptor: “Can facilitate pluricultural space by actively encouraging participation and by providing the necessary linguistic and cultural support” (Council of Europe, 2020). When adapting textbook activities for your students with unique backgrounds, always consider how their specific context might create both challenges and opportunities for meaningful mediation practice.

Example 2: Reading Activity

Here is a reading activity about “Words from the wise”, where students read advice from successful people and match advice statements with the people who said them. Students then discuss which pieces of advice they agree with and share similar experiences.

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Illustration 2: Reading activity from Speakout Advanced Students’ book (Clare & Wilson), Unit 2, pages 20-21

Possible reading mediation activities

1. Cross-cultural advice interpretation

Before reading, form small groups and have students discuss:

• What does “good advice” mean in Myanmar culture versus Western cultures?
• What types of advice are commonly given by older people in Myanmar?
• How might cultural values influence what’s considered “good advice”?

This establishes the need for mediation across different cultural perspectives.

2. Simplified text mediation

After students read the full quotes, ask them to rewrite three pieces of advice in simpler language that A2-level English learners would understand.

This practice is the key mediation skill of simplifying complex ideas while maintaining the core meaning.

3. Advice adaptation mediation

Ask students to:

• Select one piece of advice that doesn’t translate well to Myanmar contexts.
• Mediate it by adapting it to be more culturally relevant while maintaining the core wisdom.

This requires a deep understanding of both the original meaning and the target cultural context.

4. Multilingual sharing

As a follow-up activity, the teacher can try:

• Inviting students to share similar proverbs or pieces of wisdom from the Myanmar language.
• Noticing those sayings or proverbs in the Myanmar language.
• Mediating the meaning into English.
• Discussing how culture might be lost or something gained in such a translation.

By having students not just understand but transform and adapt advice for different audiences, they can practice essential mediation skills that will serve them in multiple contexts. These types of adaptation transform a standard reading and discussion activity into a variety of opportunities for text mediation, addressing the CEFR descriptor: “Can paraphrase more simply main points made in short, straightforward texts on familiar subjects to make the contents accessible for others” (Council of Europe, 2020).

Becoming Agents of Change

As teachers, we don’t want to have to wait for publishers to catch up with current understandings of or trends in language learning. We can be agents of change in our own classrooms by transforming the materials we already have into opportunities for meaningful mediation. If you are already encouraging real-life communication in your lessons, you are probably already teaching mediation skills to some extent (Cambridge, 2022, p. 7).

The key here is to become more conscious and systematic about your practice. Basing what you do on the CEFR descriptors will help you identify relevant activities for your students’ level and adapt them for the learners’ specific needs and contexts.

By adapting even a few activities each week, we can help our students develop the mediation skills they will potentially need in different contexts. We can embrace what Piccardo (2024) states in her podcast, the “messiness” of language learning, being seen not as a problem to be eliminated, but as a resource to be leveraged.

The examples in this guide are just starting points. As you become more familiar with mediation concepts, you will discover more opportunities to adapt your existing materials in all aspects of skills and system lessons. Your students will benefit from your more integrated language learning experiences that prepare them for real-world communication.

References

Cambridge University Press. (2022). Mediation: What it is, how to teach it, and how to assess it. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/664965-mediation-what-it-is-how-to-teach-it-and-how-to-assess-it.pdf
Clare, A., & Wilson, J. J. (2016). Speakout Advanced Students’ Book (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.
Council of Europe. (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment – Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing. https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4
Learn YOUR English (2024). The Communicative Approach is a DISASTER – Dr. Enrica Piccardo. [online] Learn YOUR English. Available at: https://www.learnyourenglish.net/podcast/episode-piccardo
North, B. and Piccardo, E. (2016). Developing illustrative descriptors of aspects of mediation for the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Language Teaching, [online] 49(3), pp.455–459. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444816000100
Oxford University Press ELT. (2023, October 3). How to help your English learners develop mediation skills. Teaching English With Oxford. https://teachingenglishwithoxford.oup.com/2023/10/03/help-english-learners-develop-mediation-skills/

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