Minutes from the Conference I attended this week on Translation ( Practice, teaching and theory).

Between the 6th and 10th Mai 2013, Laval University (Quebec) hosted the 82nd round of the Acfas Conference (Reuniting all french speaking universities in the world). I delivered my communication on enhancing educational technology in translator training to improve teaching and learning outcomes.

It was a great experience for me. I totally enjoyed being amongst most of the members of my community/peers. We exchanged ideas and debated issues in relation to the field of translation studies, technologies for translators, translator industry and translator education and training. Further, I came to know and network with many colleagues ( professors and PhD students) here in Canada. It was great to get to know them in person instead of only reading their articles in international magazines on Translation.

This event had boosted my confidence (especially in giving conferences in french :)) ) and contextualised my progress and was also a self -evaluation test to improve my ongoing learning curve and pathway. In this conference, many issues were raised and here the ones that attracted my attention :

• It is not enough to be proficient in your subject field (only), but also on how to vehicle and monitor other types of knowledge : Pedagogy/Andragogy as well as knowledge of how to use technology in your teaching ( Given the fact we are in a knowledge based society)

• Virtual and Distance learning in translation programme : a trend of the future.

•  Seeking to innovate in curriculum and courses design (new types of contents needed)

• Multilingualism is very important as well as translating into the non-mother tongue (L2)

• Stressing the social mission of the university in training translators in Higher Education : educating socially functionning citizens that could use their abilities all along their life and not only to convert words and structures.

• Role of the Translator vis-a-vis technology: the need to emphasise the agency of the translator as a decision maker in the industry and not only a word engineer.

In brief these are the major points that were raised and discussed in the two days session I attended.

Regards

Fouad