Translations and Formal Writing

I found the article on translation and writing to be very interesting. The article basically showed how in the act of translating a message from one language to another, students retell the message differently depending on who they are delivering it to or what purpose they are translating it for. When we try to teach students in class the differences between writing informally to a friend or formally to a teacher, it is really important to recognize that the kids already know how to do this and know those differences because they do them all the time when translating. I think the most important thing undoubtedly is though that you get students to recognize the relationship between these two processes and feel like they are already a master at it and apply that previous knowledge to this new idea or writing formally/informally. Also, even when a student does not speak to languages or commonly translate between languages, we all relay and retell stories and messages to various people. All students probably speak or retell stories differently, either formally or informally, when they go home from school and tell their parent something versus telling their sibling. It is equally important that we get these students who are not bilingual to also notice this tendency they already have so they to can view themselves as masters of this already!