Jacques Tardif : L'approche par compétences – Jacques Tardif on the Competency-Based Approach

A lecture by Jacques Tardif on the competency-based approach and the change of paradigm it demands – foundational viewing for anyone designing competency-based translation programmes.

Apprendre et enseigner à l'ère numérique – Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age

A French-language talk on learning and teaching in the digital age – relevant to how we blend online and face-to-face work in translator education.

Les compétences au cœur du dispositif pédagogique – Competencies at the Heart of Pedagogical Design

A French-language talk that puts competencies at the centre of pedagogical design – a companion to the Tardif lecture.

The Complex Profile of the Translation Instructor

Being a doctoral student in a faculty of education has taught me a great deal about my own practice, both as a translator educator and as a member of the translation profession. Many concepts used across the education field, from primary and secondary to tertiary, professional, online and continuing education, can be transferred to translation and interpreting studies, and above all to translator education, training, teaching and programmes.

Some of these concepts are already in use in research or teaching. Others remain unexplored, especially at the regional level, in the Arab world and particularly in Gulf universities. Because academically based translation programmes are new in many of these countries, the research field is still largely virgin territory.

Why the Instructor's Profile Matters

One such unexplored element is the identity of the teacher, faculty member or instructor, and the competencies required to teach in a university translation or interpreting programme. To many this seems a trivial matter; even research in applied translation studies has neglected it (Kelly, 2008). But things have changed in recent years. Translation programmes are booming worldwide, and there is growing interest in professionally oriented programmes, driven by globalisation and by developing countries' need to join the knowledge-based society. The profile of the faculty working in such programmes must therefore be taken seriously (Gambier, 2012), since a programme's success depends heavily on the professional, disciplinary and pedagogical competencies of its instructors.

Four Typical Profiles

Because translation and interpreting are occupational fields, the true professional identity of the instructor raises concerns. These are the profiles most often found in translation programmes:

• PhD holders in translation studies with little or no up-to-date professional know-how. This profile is fine, but such educators are most likely to be assigned theoretical or semi-theoretical courses. Translation is an academic discipline, but reflection on practice counts, and students make sense of concepts more readily when the educator offers authentic examples and scenarios drawn from the profession, whether in-house work in the private and public sectors or freelancing online and offline. In a professionally oriented programme this is crucial: students, whether traditional adult learners or returning professionals, want a trainer who can bring everyday professional knowledge into the classroom and theorise it. Professional students are allergic to detached theory, so the choice of content matters. Recruiting only PhD holders in TS without considerable, multidimensional professional experience is a point administrators and recruiters should review.
• PhD holders in language studies or comparative literature. Here we may face a serious problem. The educator's baseline education in linguistics or literature will inevitably shape how they design, develop and assess courses and learning. They carry an identity gained in a discipline that once housed translation, but translation studies has since developed its own frameworks and concepts, along with a socio-professional dimension that must inform teaching and course design.
• MA holders in translation with professional experience, hired to run practical courses. Their disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical abilities need questioning. This profile usually delivers the skills the market needs, but years of non-academic identity in the profession, combined with a lack of sound pedagogical competencies for facilitating practical courses, may compromise the quality of outcomes.
• The dual professional. Teaching and translation are both recognised professions in many countries. An instructor with exposure to both may face a double identity. Juggling the two can produce a hybrid, balanced framework (a double agent, if you like), or it can lead to clinging to a single identity, teaching or translating, simply to make a living. The first is desirable; the second needs to be questioned, because it creates problems for quality assurance and performance at programme and outcome level, in other words for how graduates contribute to society after graduation.

NB: The author addresses this problem in his ongoing doctoral research.

Simultaneous Arabic Interpreting

A demonstration of simultaneous interpreting into and out of Arabic – useful material for interpreting classes.

6th Annual Translation Conference, Day 2

Recording of the second day of the 6th Annual Translation Conference – conference sessions like these are a good way to keep students in touch with the field.

الحياة - بيئة الترجمة في السعودية.. عشوائية ومعوقات

الحياة - بيئة الترجمة في السعودية.. عشوائية ومعوقات

Please post your comments.

Translating Europe Forum: A Model for the Arab World?

The Translating Europe Forum is a smart strategy for mobilising every stakeholder in the translation and interpreting industry. Forums of this kind generate a huge store of knowledge about the field.

I wonder whether we could do the same in the Arabic context: encourage dialogue between academics, professionals, and the private and public sectors through a platform, online or face-to-face, like the one organised by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation.

Dorothy Kelly at the Translating Europe Workshop, London

Dorothy Kelly's talk at the Translating Europe Workshop in London – Kelly's work on translator training is essential, and this is a good way in.

Dorothy Kelly: Implications of the EHEA (Bologna) for Translator Training

Dorothy Kelly on what the European Higher Education Area (Bologna) means for translator training – and, by extension, for any programme trying to align with international standards.

Why Translator Educators Need a Community of Practice

One of the best ways to advance translator education, and translation studies in general, is for our community of practitioners (academics, professionals, and future academics and professionals) to engage in dialogue through social media and the internet, alongside meetings, conferences and online forums. This solidarity and exchange of ideas, experiences, initiatives and innovative approaches, in teaching, in the profession and in research, empowers everyone in it.

Here is an example: an exchange between me and a colleague who inherited a course I had taught the previous semester, Multimedia Translation II. I was a visiting lecturer at that university for one semester and the first to design and teach the course for the department. It was also the first time I had taught such a course.

His Question

"… your course content seems largely technical, which calls for having technological resources in place! It is evident that you did a challenging and hard job!

However, I would like to share this with you and have your valuable feedback: Don't you think the course content could be geared towards highlighting the strategies employed by translators in subtitling and interpreters? I feel it would be more straightforward and practical to focus, in this higher-level course, on what translators/interpreters do and what roles they assume in the media. This can include showcasing and discussing audiovisual and online samples. I have done some research work on Reuters translation, which may be relevant here, when compared with that of other media, say, Al Jazeera. Film subtitles can be another topic, whereby cultural norms condition and constrain translation, e.g. principles of politeness."

My Reply

I invested a good deal of time and effort in conceptualising the course this way. I took into account the student profiles and needs, and the local and regional professional practices I had already documented in my doctoral study. Class size was another factor that shaped the design, the activities, the teaching modes and the assessment tools: I favoured a workshop, coaching and training mode over lecturing. Two of the four enrolled students hoped to do a Master's in audiovisual translation (AVT) at TII the following year, and I kept that in view during the design phase.

The ICT element was integrated to fit this hands-on, coaching mode. I placed many open e-resources on Blackboard for students to use in solving terminology and documentation problems. I used videos to explain how subtitling works. I did not start with subtitling software; I used educational videos first to demonstrate manual subtitling, then introduced the software to train them to caption (or transcribe) and then subtitle. Students liked cartoons, so I used some of those (Arabic/English), along with news reports and documentaries, where speech rate is regulated. I focused on building students' instrumental and reflective competence, supported by the technical material above and by knowledge of audiovisual translation from the literature (Díaz Cintas, 2007).

A related phenomenon is audio and video (remote) interpreting. This is current practice in the profession, and I felt students needed an introduction to it. Multimedia translation is diverse; it is not only subtitling, as students tend to think. To support that, I drew on recent publications and on best practices published by professional associations and consortia.

Your plan sounds rational and clear, and you may well follow it. As I see it, it makes sense for an undergraduate minor: comparing media samples, case studies, and the strategies and techniques they reveal. You are a translation scholar and you know what you will offer the students. Your material would be another valid way to run the course, though different from mine.

Did you check with Prof. XXX whether she covered that in Media I? I recall she said she dealt with that declarative knowledge there, working mostly on written texts (newspapers, advertising). Please check with her first. What I did in Media II was extend the course by adding two practical, missing elements: the profession and technology. As a minor course, it only introduced students to these areas, without the depth that a major or a professionally oriented BA or MA would allow. You might also diagnose students' needs; it could help, if you choose to.

I may have said too much, but I hope you now have a clear picture of the mechanics and rationale (pedagogical reasoning and intended learning outcomes) behind the design. It is up to you to shape the course as you prefer. Your proposal is sound. But please check with Prof. XXX about Media I to avoid redundancy or misalignment.

Takeaway

This is what a community of practice looks like at its most basic: two colleagues comparing design decisions openly, and both courses ending up stronger for it.

Does Pedagogy Matter in Higher Education? Translator Education in the Arab Context

Scholars know pedagogy matters. Why, then, do so many of them ignore it in their own translation classrooms? A recent symposium brought the question into the open.

An admission at Laval

I recently attended a symposium at Université Laval, here in Canada, on literary versus non-literary translation. Participants approached the theme from linguistics, sociology, the profession and the educational sciences. Some are well-known scholars in translation studies, in Canada and worldwide. In this reflection I want to pick up one point that came up in discussion and on which every participant agreed.

One participant contended that it is quite bizarre that faculty, scholars and instructors do not pay enough attention to the pedagogical dimension of their teaching, whether of literary or non-literary translation, and sometimes deliberately ignore it. In my view, and I presume many colleagues would agree, this has been going on in universities for a very long time. It goes back to the Humboldtian model of the eighteenth-century German university, which rests on the predominantly research-driven mission of the university and the primacy of pure science over the human and social sciences.

The university has changed

In the twenty-first century things are different. We are witnessing a paradigm shift in higher education, driven by student mobility, internationalisation, tight budgets and fierce competition. Universities need to be closer to society and ready to respond to social and economic concerns; the service dimension has to be there. The age of the ivory tower is over. Nor do universities hold a monopoly on knowledge any more. Knowledge is everywhere (see network theory in the learning sciences).

Teaching, learning and the delivery of quality outcomes therefore place heavy pressure on universities to revise their approaches, so that their cohorts receive a twenty-first-century education and training.

What needs reconfiguring in translator education

Translation programmes face new concerns. Our recent review of the literature on universities in the Arab context, above all Gulf-based universities, shows that translation programmes need careful revision and remedy (Atari, 2012; Al-Qinai, 2010; Farghal, 2009) at the following levels:

• The content delivered or facilitated, which is decontextualised from the real life of the multilingual service provider
• Programme orientation and departmental identities and ideologies
• Staff profiles and competencies, which need re-examining; professionals with translation-specific academic qualifications need to be brought into the department
• The lack of teaching frameworks drawn from mainstream applied translation studies, rather than only from applied linguistics, linguistics or literary and critical studies, and of theorised, praxis-based knowledge

To these I would add:

• Reviewing the instruction and training modes for specific courses (specialised translation, literary translation, translation studies, revision), together with student feedback
• Checking the alignment of content, activities and assessment in each course syllabus, and triangulating the documents with student feedback or classroom observation; this is crucial and closely tied to quality assurance
• Making the internship an integrated and structured part of the programme
• Integrating the technological and professional dimensions efficiently into the curriculum, and securing the human and material resources to do so

Takeaway: pedagogy is not an optional extra in translator education. It is the mechanism through which programmes deliver, or fail to deliver, on their promises.

مبادرات التعليم العربية تغزو أوروبا – Arab Education Initiatives Reach Europe

An Asharq Al-Awsat report on Arab education initiatives expanding into Europe.

مبادرات التعليم العربية تغزو أوروبا | الشرق الأوسط

بيئة الترجمة في السعودية: عشوائية ومعوقات – The Translation Environment in Saudi Arabia: Disorder and Obstacles

An Al-Hayat article on the translation environment in Saudi Arabia – haphazard, under-regulated and full of obstacles. Much of it applies across the Gulf.

الحياة – بيئة الترجمة في السعودية.. عشوائية ومعوقات

واقع الترجمة في العالم العربي – The State of Translation in the Arab World

An Arabic-language video discussion on the state of translation in the Arab world.

Pixar's 'Inside Out': A Little Localisation Goes a Long Way

A Rubric blog post on how Pixar localised small visual details in Inside Out for different markets – a neat, teachable example of localisation beyond words.

Pixar's 'Inside Out' Shows a Little Localization Goes a Long Way | Rubric

Alignment in SDL Trados Studio 2014 SP1

An overview of the alignment feature in Studio 2014 SP1 – how to turn old translations into usable translation memory. Good material for a CAT tools class.

Translation Survey! We request your help! please devote 15 min of yoru team to fill up the survey.

Thanks

Create your own user feedback survey

How Do We Perceive Translation in the Arab World? A Research Questionnaire

How is translation understood in the Arab region, and how are translators perceived? A short questionnaire is gathering views for a research project, and your opinion counts.

Original post: How do we perceive translation and translators in the Arab world? (Research questionnaire)

Please take 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire at the link below. It is part of a research project on the notion of translation in the Arab region, and the results will feed into a chapter of the World Atlas of Translation (Benjamins). When you have finished, please press the 'Done' or 'Submit' button. Your opinion is highly valuable.

The link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tarjama

Many thanks for your cooperation. For any questions, please contact us:

• Fouad El Karnichi: fouadelkarnichi@gmail.com
• Salah Basalamah: salah.basalamah@uottawa.ca

Translation Practices in Morocco: A Historical View

An Arabic-language article from Al-Alam taking a historical view of translation practices in Morocco.

Read the article (in Arabic)

Translation in Language Teaching Is Not Translator Education

"Translation in language teaching has by no means the objective of educating translators; rather, it is an activity which might stimulate the cognitive potential of an adult or adolescent learner and is thus supposed to complement other activities, not to replace them." (Little et al., 2009, p. 2)

This quotation captures an ongoing issue in the orientation of many translation programmes I informally reviewed during my doctoral work. The stated objective of most translation programmes at Gulf universities is to prepare graduates for the translation market. Yet a language-oriented paradigm still reigns over the translatorial, mediation-oriented knowledge and competencies that future language mediators, translators and interpreters, will need when they enter the real world.

Translation Is a Discipline, Not a Language Exercise

Developing cognitive abilities is only one chunk of the complex set of skills, knowledge and abilities professional translators deploy, and which we should prepare our students to deploy. Translation is a disciplinary area of knowledge that has developed tremendously over the last three decades. The knowledge universe of translation as a phenomenon should be made clear to students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level: they should be introduced to the main constructs and concepts in the field and how they interrelate, and to their socio-economic and professional relevance.

Our survey taught us that the concept of translation needs to be re-examined among administrators, students and faculty alike in the region. Housing translation programmes in language faculties should be handled carefully; programme orientation and objectives must be rethought and not confused with the disciplinary boundaries of linguistics or literary studies. A thin, but complementary, disciplinary boundary needs to be drawn. As Durieux (2010) puts it, translation is about translations and translators; language studies is about the study of language.

What Programmes Need

Clarity about where we orient our programmes, and qualified human resources who can deliver praxis-oriented instruction, knowledge and skills, is a hurdle we must overcome. Wasting students' time on decontextualised knowledge, instead of profession-oriented skills and abilities that go beyond the cognitive and the linguistic, costs these programmes their socio-economic relevance.

We adopt a comprehensive, integrated approach to translator education in which all of the above elements are taken into account, in varying degrees, with the focus on the translatorial, mediation-oriented knowledge universe. A design-based model of instruction, centred on facilitating learning environments rather than transmitting knowledge, is ideal. Discipline-specific didactics and pedagogies should take precedence over the one-size-fits-all model higher education has promoted for so long. Lecturing is not the only way to enhance adult learning and transformation; there are active pedagogies that can empower students and instigate significant learning experiences.

Qualitative Analysis of Interview Data: A Step-by-Step Guide

A step-by-step guide to analysing qualitative interview data – I found it useful during my own PhD fieldwork, and I recommend it to research students.

Faking Morsi's Speech: When the Interpreter Rewrites the Message

A striking case for any interpreting ethics class: Iranian television deliberately altered President Mohamed Morsi's speech in its live interpretation.

التلفزيون الإيراني يحرّف عمداً خطاب الرئيس محمد مرسي

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Translating as Risk Management

A talk on translating as risk management – the idea that translators constantly weigh which risks to take and which to avoid, which is a productive way to teach decision-making.

Interpreting for Television

A look at interpreting for television – a demanding specialisation that deserves more attention in interpreter training.

Back to the Blog: Doctoral Progress and Fieldwork in the Gulf

It has been a while since I posted any reflections here. The reason is simple: my doctoral work has kept me busy.

Studying Translation in a Faculty of Education

Doing my studies in a faculty of education, rather than in arts and letters (a translation or linguistics department), is challenging. Colleagues in education place heavy emphasis on methodology and didactics, and there is no escaping it. It has been a privilege, though. I have gained something crucial that I can transfer to translation studies in general, and to applied translation studies in particular: training, quality and technology.

I have now finished my seminars and am preparing to submit my research proposal. Data collection should follow around the summer, then analysis, and then the thesis itself.

Oman, Then Qatar

Last year, while in Oman, I networked with key colleagues working in translation programmes at several universities in the country. I am pleased that they showed interest in the project and were ready to collaborate.

This year I am heading to Qatar to see whether I can widen the scope of my data. University-level translation teaching in Qatar exists in only two institutions, and at different levels: a minor in translation at Qatar University, and postgraduate (MA) study at the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII). Qatar therefore offers a different kind of practice and context. That is interesting in itself, because it lets me cover teaching and curricular practices in one or two countries. Qatar's experience in translator education is young, and yet it hosts the only fully accredited postgraduate translation programme in the region, at TII. That is worth noting.

Uwe Muegge: Cloud-Based Translation Memory Tools Are Changing the Way Translators Work

Uwe Muegge on how cloud-based translation memory tools are reshaping translators' workflows – and, by implication, what we should be teaching.

'Cloud-based translation memory tools are changing the way translators work' by Uwe Muegge

Translation Trends for 2015

A short forecast of translation industry trends for 2015 – interesting to revisit now to see which predictions held.

The Lone Translator No More

An ITI piece on the end of the lone translator – collaboration, networks and teams are now part of the job, and our training should reflect that.

The lone translator no more (ITI)

ترجمة الأفلام بدون برامج – Subtitling Films Without Software

An Arabic tutorial on subtitling a film yourself without specialist software – a low-barrier way to introduce students to audiovisual translation.

شرح كيفية ترجمة الأفلام أو أي مقطع فيديو بدون برامج – How to Subtitle Any Video Without Software

A second Arabic tutorial on subtitling films or any video clip without software – a companion to the previous post.