Tessa Woodward: Is There Still a Role for Translation in Language Teaching?

In this interview clip, Tessa Woodward asks whether translation still has a place in the language classroom – a question that keeps resurfacing in translator education too.

Guy Cook on Translation

Guy Cook makes the case for bringing translation back into language teaching – worth watching alongside the Tessa Woodward interview.

Rethinking the 'Introduction to Translation' Course

Almost every undergraduate programme in the Arab world, and elsewhere, has a core course called 'Introduction to Translation'. It has been taught the same way, with more or less the same content, for years. It is time to build it differently.

The Course as It Stands

The course usually teaches students the practical side of translation: principles, techniques and strategies, with minimal theory, which is left to another course called 'Theories of Translation' or similar. Since most students in a language department may end up majoring in linguistics, translation or literature, the syllabus suggests that the main thing they should do is practise basic, pedagogical translation. In terms of scholarship, we find the usual suspects: the textbooks of Mona Baker, Hatim, Munday and a few others such as Ghazala, most of them representing the linguistic (functional or text-linguistic) paradigm, plus traditional references such as de Beaugrande and Catford for basic elements and techniques.

If we approach the course from another angle, adding updated scholarship, innovative pedagogy and insights from the profession, we find ourselves in front of a very different map of the same course. Whatever the level of the student enrolling, we should not follow the old tradition. The field has changed at every level. Translation and interpreting practice have changed too, and keep changing, under the pressure of technology and globalisation.

I say this knowing that no extra load can be added to faculty beyond their usual teaching; otherwise any attempt to improve the course and its pedagogy will fail. Teaching a course properly requires a lengthy pedagogical engineering process that creates vibrant, stimulating learning and performance environments, and the instructor must be closely acquainted with the knowledge framework of the course.

What the Course Should Be About

Translation has become a matter of building complex sets of skills, knowledge and behaviours. Introducing students to translation must cater for all of these, rather than relying on a narrow set of textbooks to disseminate a narrow set of information. The course should be about:

• Introducing the universe of translation, theory and practice, through real examples in print, multimedia, oral, narrative and journal media.
• Developing the student's self-concept, since they are studying a discipline represented by a professional body in society. That includes teaching key historical elements, preferably through multimedia resources, to educate the future translator and welcome them into their new community: first of learners, then of professionals.
• Raising the critical issues and current practices in translating texts of various genres. Students should ideally do this in groups. It is a challenging task, but faculty with up-to-date pedagogical know-how and know-what can do it.

How? You need to know how to integrate both traditional and new scholarship into the course, and you need the pedagogical skills to engineer it and set up significant learning and performance environments.

From Linguistic Transfer to Competence

'Introduction to Translation' should not teach students to translate according to an exclusively linguistic conceptualisation of translation dating from the seventies, eighties and early nineties. It should embrace the newer concept of translation: competence. How, then, can we educate, train and teach new entrants to the discipline at the same time? The course should be hybrid and diverse, giving students a broad picture of translation as an academic field and as a profession. Faculty need to use their pedagogical and updated disciplinary knowledge to engineer this crucial course. There is no point adding further courses on techniques, strategies or even theories of translation.

Teacher knowledge and beliefs about the field and the practice are crucial. What we usually witness in universities is faculty relying on a subjective perception of what belongs in 'Introduction to Translation', rather than on updated scholarship, established practices, and innovative or adapted pedagogical insight.

A Note on Delivery

Pedagogically, the course can be taught in a diversified, mixed-method way (Anderson, 2000). In year one, for instance, classroom time can be used for discussion and for lectures on the specific concepts students need to grasp and appropriate about translation as a phenomenon. Faculty can deposit selected content, multimedia files and their own recorded lectures or explanations on Blackboard or Moodle so students can prepare beforehand or refer back afterwards. Or deposit the lecture and its activities three days ahead, give students time to read or listen, and use class time for discussion and explanation that deepens learning. Mind-mapping in the classroom is also very useful: it helps students visualise theoretical information, make sense of it, and retain it.

The video below could be included as course material: https://twitter.com/AbdulrahmanTR/status/914028750857281537

Translator Education and Training in a University Context : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Highlights on pedagogical concerns in translation ...

Translator Education and Training in a University Context : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Highlights on pedagogical concerns in translation ...: In this communication, I would like to share with you some reflections on a series of recent interviews I had with potential employees (... Please post your comments.

The Big Picture View on the Translation Industry

A big-picture overview of the translation industry – useful context for students who need to see the market they are training for.

عصور الظلام في أوروبا والنور في الشرق في عشر دقائق – Europe's Dark Ages and the Light of the East in Ten Minutes

A ten-minute Arabic video on the period when Europe was in its Dark Ages and the East was a centre of learning – a reminder of the translation movement that carried that knowledge across languages.

Dark Ages, Time for Light – عصور الظلام أزمنة للنور

A companion piece to the previous video: the same period, the same story of knowledge moving East to West through scholarship and translation.

Declared, Hidden and Operational: Three Curriculum Cultures

University curriculum practice has largely replicated the traditional curriculum development paradigms of primary and secondary schooling, above all the rational, theory-based approach. Its focus is content and academic knowledge, with at best an average and often a marginal place for vocationally or professionally oriented content and competencies.

In Gulf and Arab higher education (North Africa and Morocco, for example), this traditional approach has become standard practice (Atari, 2012; Gabr, 2001, 2007).

Three curricula in every department

Curriculum development recognises three predominant types of curriculum practice:

• The declared curriculum: the official, announced curriculum of the institution. It is what is on paper, usually produced by a committee that undertakes no exploratory or experimental research before making curricular or pedagogical decisions.
• The hidden curriculum: the internal departmental politics surrounding particular tracks or programmes and their constituents (content, courses and faculty).
• The operational curriculum: what actually takes place in the department or the college at large.

Competencies first

Today's curriculum approaches, even in academic university settings, rely fully or partly on the competency model instead. Competencies, meaning an integrated set of knowledge, skills and behaviours, come first. Then content and textbooks, if available. If not, competent faculty draw on their pedagogical skills to design appropriate learning and teaching environments for the newly chosen content.

This model answers national visions that link outcomes to the job market, and it delivers sustainable outcomes and performance. It is an arduous, time-consuming process. But its practicality, and its responsiveness to international accreditation standards and requirements, cannot be denied.

Setting Up as a Freelance Translator

A practical talk on setting up as a freelance translator – the kind of career guidance our graduates rarely get inside the curriculum.