Conflicts and tensions in departments when rethinking curriculum !

My journey into the universe of education studies and technologies since 2011 allowed me to identify and scrutinize many curriculum practices along the way. Having an interdisciplinary profile integrating translations and interpreting studies on one side and educational sciences on the other,  I encountered in the various English and translation departments I worked in the Arab context many problematic situations between colleagues over curriculum and didactic issues related to either translation, interpreting, literature or language teaching. Before, 2012, I had no such critical and polished view about such practices. Yet, in the last two and three years, I began to understand that the claims  raised in  research and scientific literature in the field of translator education, translator training and translation / interpreting programs made or, rather, make sense= at least to me. A valid and sound one I must say.

Of course, every department, college and university has its own inherited practices. No doubt. Yet, for international and national quality assurance and bench-marking purposes, there is an urgent need to develop and, in many cases, transform such cultures to achieve objectives or desired outcomes by national frameworks. The university is no more an independent ivory tower. It has a social and economic responsibility as well.  Under this perceptive, translation and interpreting programs, and others in the humanities or social sciences, have to deliver these socioeconomic outcomes, They are no exception. 

My conclusions, so far, are that the extreme majority of programs( I may say all of them to some extent) still practice the academic and theoretical model of curriculum theory. A typical curriculum practice that prioritizes content/courses over competencies ( knowledge, skills and behaviors/values). Such types of curriculum philosophies do focus on the types of courses to delete or add or merge with no reference to the involved knowledge/skills/behaviors that need to be accomplished at the end of the program by students to ease their insertion in the work place and society alike. The later mode of curriculum design  and development needs knowledge and expertise in instructional design ( or what is called in some countries : ' Ingenerie pedagogique' / literally means pedagogical engineering). It is not a conventional way to do curriculum as you can see. Yet, national ( and international) frameworks and orientations are heavily urging universities or any higher educational context to deliver  a more practical and market oriented ( in degrees) types of curriculum. These types of practices rely on the information collected from various stakeholders prior to aligning and modelling it inside a university context. Doing so at an early  stage of change management in a university context may create chaotic results at various levels of the institution, mainly faculty level, unless there is a bottom up decision ( rather top down) and political willingness to support the change gradually. This might be difficult where the status quo at faculty level has never been challenged or made to rethink their practices due to changes in higher education, internationalization, globalization and market needs for employability profiles.

The practical curriculum practices ( competence based) start their design phase on collecting data on specifically designed themes related to employability and sustainable abilities of students.These elements, however, are not considerably taken into perspective while operating within a theory or academic types of curriculum whereby faculty take prime role of deciding which 'courses' or ' contents ' rather than ' competencies' as a baseline for the design and development of curriculum. That is the fundamental disagreement point in many a departments that seek rethinking and re-conceptualizing their programs after being reviewed.

How to enhance employability and workplace practices in tranaltion/interpreting programs?

This element is very crucial in educational systems that strive to deliver significant outcomes in society. Employability is used in / by many institutions which strive hard to adjust its programs with the world of work. So, programs get reviewed internally and externally to improve contents, pedagogies and other educational practices. The quest for improvement is ongoing. And so it should in these complex and unstable times.

I presume in classical higher education contexts( particularly university level ) programs, concepts such as ' employability' ; 'workplace practices', 'technology', 'market', ' experiential learning and training' and professional practices' are less welcome and, usually, looked at with a suspicious eye, above all in the human and social sciences.

Yet, these 'ghost' concepts may be integrated in our programs smoothly should there be an intention / leadership to innovate and engage in professional developments schemes. For instance, one should :

- See case studies using professional training modes of instruction and see if he or she can transfer one or more of these practices into the discipline. These can be imported from Business and management sciences.

- Read about what is written on the didactics of his or her discipline. You cannot be good in pedagogy without being trained and constantly reflecting on your classroom ( online or in-class) practices. One could get inspired of active / action-based methods in teaching & learnings sciences that enhance learning/teaching companies and engage students accordingly.

- Take a course on Teaching in a university context itself or on Andragogy to see the dynamics of teaching adult students and how they learn. Andragogy is not pedagogy. Professionally oriented disciplines are not the same like traditional and human or socially oriented disciplines. In other words, involve and engage in the scholarship or teaching & learning.

Our colleagues in the humanities and other disciplines ( apart from educations sciences) always seem to look down upon any pedagogical element in their practice; yet, it is a fact that nowadays in higher education, that this specific element becomes necessary. Things have changed in the world of the ivory towers!!!  ' the professional', ' the pedagogical' and the 'technological'  will prevail...much more after COVID time! . Content does not have the monopoly and prestige it used to have along the previous 200 years or so! since the emergence of the new university model of education.

A case in point, and this could apply to any other field, In the field of translation & interpreting, we witness the same scenario. Kiraly ( 1995, 2000, 2006, 2016) made a huge revolution in the field of applied translation studies . He made sense to the teaching and learning ( pedagogy) of translation. Before him, there were no such systematic ways of organizing translation classrooms.

To use or not to use dictionaries in translation exams?

The debate over whether to use dictionaries in a translation test in a classroom context is still a hot topic in many a foreign languages or English departments in the Arab context ( not translation departments or schools). In other contexts with long traditions in teaching translation, this topic is non-existent, including department where translation is a minor ( see minor program in translation practice at McGill University- Canada). They probably went through this and dusted it in the bin few decades ago. Deja vu. In fact, it all boils down to the way in our context our colleagues from neighboring disciplines, especially EFL, perceive translation as an academic activity and as a practice. It is all about perception. 

As long as translation is perceived as a means to improve students foreign language competence, the same argument will hold. Worst case is when these colleagues stress in committees on how to carry out exams without the use of the dictionaries as if the  translation test is an exercise of text comprehension or vocabulary. Not quite! Translation needs to be conceived as a profession and practice. A practitioner needs tools to work and think. So does the translator: he needs his/her tools to solve the linguistic/cultural/communicative/ethical problems through translating them into another languages after fixing and going through many hurdles.

The use of the dictionary itself  ( monolingual or bilingual) is prone to scrutiny as well : Are these students use the tool efficiently or not and do they manage to finish their exam on time or not?. Information mining and seeking and being fast and efficient is also a skill to integrate in assessment. these are key professional and life long abilities to not to neglect. Granting a mark to a students based on whether he translated the correct meaning of the ' word' is not enough as a standard to measure performance.So, here, we are measuring , in addition to the final product ( the translated text) the process ( the use of a tool to decide on choosing and selecting the appropriate terms to fix the problem : understanding the text in order not only to understand it per see as it is in the case of language learning, but also to transform and use it for communicative purposes...for social purposes for instance). Furthermore, choosing the material ( the text) is another critical step to handle by faculty teaching the course. This is a very important phase whereby the instructor needs to select strategic material containing patterns and structures that students need to reformulate to show their level of mastery of the translation or transfer mechanics. Whether they used the correct word or not comes second.  Her is where the problem lies: can you choose texts with these variables to measures targeted types of skills, knowledge and abilities??. So, let us not hide behind the curtain of NOT using dictionaries for whatever reasons.Such type of material selection is strategic and , even students, use their dictionaries, would not harm final outcome: be able to communicate and reformulate structures and ideas fluently, idiomatically, context relevant, and ingeniously.In this case, ' vocabulary' matching game comes- as i mentioned- second in the list of priorities.

The intention is to see if students are able to transfer and transform structures at the textual and generic levels to produce healthy and communicative pragmatic texts as well as  keeping a smooth flow of the information. Translators communicate primarily structured information and not only words or correct vocabularies . The term 'information' was ignored on purpose or not in the many traditional literature in translation studies. They use instead the 'source versus target text' or ' transfer of meaning' kind of contexts. In other words, anything they can explain using concepts or constructs from linguistics or language studies or from comparative literature and rhetoric. Sometimes, often rather, students do not find adequate equivalents for their terms or phrases in the dictionary; so , here they resort to many other variables such as context, audience, purpose ...ect. 

All in  all, letting translation students do their tests without a dictionary is not tenable . We need to put a thing line between what does it mean to learn a language and be able to translate. Sometimes, students, although they use dictionaries , they provide  bad translations. One trick they are taught to do : First, do terminology and glossary,  then start reformulate the text or translate. Yet, students do the same method they do in language learning: looking for meaning of words in each sentence and translating that sentence simultaneously. This will create problems such as translations  and strict adherence to source text structure. Yet, this problem could be healed in the classroom through effective and engaged instructional and monitoring or mentoring efforts from the trainer.

Last, imagine an engineer, architect, mechanic...etc once they spot an anomaly, or where the problem is in the material or case ( i.e ' a difficult word' in their text: material, building), what do you think they would do to solve it? of course , use material and tools. Well! the same thing applies for the language service provider ( translator or interpreter).

After my graduation years ago, I went to take translation tests at many local , regional and international places. I always take a bag of paper-based glossaries and all sort of dictionaries to my exam. All other candidates did the same. Full stop! It is a normal practice outside the EFL universe!

Fouad

Using exclusively textbooks or designing powerful learning environments? that is the question.

Institutions ( departments, universities) prefer their faculty and instructors to use textbooks to deliver courses for students. As we know, this aligns with the traditional teacher centered approach that is no more accepted in educational contexts, especially college and university level instructional contexts.What a hypocrisy? The question remains, though, why this practice is still going on?

Perhaps, in the first place, the misunderstanding of learning dynamics and the strive to maximize student intake in many university contexts to either maximize profit ( private sector) or align with governmental orientations to enroll nearly all students in classes ( Saudi Arabia regional universities :those located in the peripheries of cities).

Consequently, instructors have no other solutions than using the textbooks and transmission methods regardless whether students achieve acceptable levels of learning and be able to gain and acquire market ready abilities to enter smoothly the workplace....or not!

Yet, in a student oriented context of learning and teaching , the focus is on building, preparing, designing, and  constructing thriving learning environment to engage students and trainees in the educational experience. Students number should not go beyond 18 students in a classroom to achieve these types of outcomes...some times less ( Such as the case of interpreting).

Another reason that could be added is that some of our colleagues, and this is the case not only in the Arab higher education context, but even in other countries with a long tradition in university teaching and research, find this method simple and easy and , most likely, the same method inherited from their instructors while studying. In fact, pedagogical know what, know how and know why is necessary to achieve quality outcomes in an educational program!. Further, alignment with updated productions from scholarship of the discipline and that of teaching and learning is key to deliver unique learning experiences. Yet, when it comes to coordinating courses, miscommunications and misuse of course syllabuses can be noticed due to the fact that some colleagues are current and pedagogically savvy, while others are still hanging to the way things were done before by their instructors or believing in concepts that are by now outdated and need to be re-thought. The victim remains the student of course!Translation and interpreting research and practices moved quickly in the last three decades!!

New innovative ways of providing instruction using key pedagogical principles as well as educationally sound tools would certainly add value to the instructional mission as well as student learning and performance. Things could be more interesting when students see the relevance of in class practices when they take internship in the workplace. So, aligning in-class practices with professional needs and practice is crucial in some of the programs delivered in a university context, a case in point are those programs delivering graduate or may be ( even) undergraduate courses and programs in translation and interpreting.

To end up, we need to use powerful learning environment in our professionally oriented types of programs ( Translation and Interpreting) to maximize students experience and guarantee a smooth integration into the profession....and why not become effective and productive reflective researchers as well as.

Fouad

Teaching Audio-visual Translation : A true story at one of the universities in the Gulf.

Discussion on course contents and design

( Course name : Multimedia Translation II)

One of the best ways to promote the field of translator education and translation studies in general is that our community of practitioners ( academics, professionals, practitioners, future academic or professionals...etc) should engage in a discourse via the use of social media resources and the internet, in addition to networking in meetings, conferences, online forums ...etc. This solidarity and exchange of ideas, experiences, suggestions, initiatives and innovative approaches in either teaching, the profession or research would certainly help to empower members of the profession ( teachers or practicing professionals). Here is an example of an exchange between me and a colleague who had been assigned  a course I was teaching the previous semester ( Multimedia Translation II/ or Advanced Audiovisual Translation). I was teaching in that university for one semester as a visiting lecturer and I was the first to design and teach the course for that department. Myself, it was the first time I taught such a course. Here is what we discussed:

Him :

".........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 to him was :

"

 I invested quite a large amount of time and efforts to conceptualize the course in such as way. I took into consideration the student profiles/needs as well local and regional practices (profession) that I documented already in my ongoing doctoral study. The class size was another element which conditioned the design of such course  and with such activities, teaching modes and assessment tools (i.e favoring a workshop, coaching and training mode of instruction instead of predominantly providing lectures). Two out of the four enrolled students wished to study in the TII doing a Masters in AVT next year. This was also taken into perspective in the design phase. 

The ICT element was integrated in a way to align with the hands-on and coaching mode of instruction described above: I used many open e-resources that I placed on blackboard for students to refer to in order to solve  terminology and documentation problems.  I used videos to explain to students the mechanism of subtitling. At first, I did not use the subtitling software, but used educational videos to first demonstrate how manual subtitling works, and then introduced software  to train them on how to do caption (or do transcription) and then subtitle the caption. Students liked cartoons. So I used some of these (Ara/Eng) as well as some news reporting and documentary type of discourses where speed is regulated. I focused more on enhancing students instrumental and reflective competence and I provided them with the technical material highlighted above, and some of the knowledge on audiovisual translation from the literature in the field such as  ( Diaz, 2007).

Another phenomena that is related to audiovisual translation is audio interpreting or even video interpreting (remote interpreting). This is an ongoing practice in the profession and I felt that students needed to be introduced to that. Multimedia translation is a diverse phenomena and it is not only about subtitling as students think. To back up that practice, I referred to recent publications in the field and best practices published in professional associations sites and formal consortiums or forums.

Your plan sounds rational and clear. You may follow that mode of conceptualizing your course. The way I see it is that it makes sense for an undergraduate  minor program. You focus on comparing media samples, case studies as well as highlighted strategies and techniques. You are a translatologist and you certainly know what you will provide for the students. Such material and content you mentioned would be another way to facilitate the course, although it is different from mine.

 Did you check with Porf XXX if she addressed that point in Media I?. I remember that she mentioned that she tackled that type of  declarative knowledge in Media I and she worked mostly on written texts (newspapers, advertising, ads). But, please check with her first. What I did in Media II is to extend the course and enrich it via enhancing two practical and missing points: profession and technology element. Being a minor course, I only introduced students to these areas with no further in-depth and details that could be done, for instance, in a major or professionally oriented BA or MA program. You may also try to diagnose students needs. This might help. Only if you think you want to do it.

I think I spoke too much here, but I hope that you have a clear picture of the mechanics and ideologies ( pedagogical rational and intended learning outcomes/ skills) orienting the design of such course. It is up to you to model the course the way you prefer. Your proposal sounds great and it makes sense. But, please check with Prof XXX about the course ( Media I) to avoid redundancy or misalignment. "

Fouad

Standardised exam syndrome in a university context....A practice to revise and rethink!

Standardized and collective exams in a university context is a practice borrowed from assessment or curricular practices at secondary levels, as per many research results in education sciences. It was the practice in universities in Europe till late 70'. Many university administrators in various departments, in higher education contexts in the Arab world, are still borrowing secondary or preparatory/ language centers' assessment/testing practices to be implemented in a university context. Due to the mass or sections syndrome, administration prefers to administer those exams collectively. Yet, this practice is didactically and pedagogically ( even etymologically) not sound and leads to negative learning results / outcomes. Micro learning is much preferred at this level of education, since it leads ti completion of the learning task due to the fact that students can easily follow up the stream of thought about a concept in literature or any types of declarative type of knowledge / the techniques and topological patterns of a translation in a translation context or application of concepts  their dynamics in the case of applied linguistics or may be theoretical linguistics as well. If other instructors or faculty involve in standardizing the exam , then students wont produce the same quality outcomes due the lack of the 'close continuum' of the stream of though and reasoning.There is a kind of interruption in achieve this ideal learning and outcome. At the final stage of exams, it is a different story.

If we take many of the  the English departments in the Arab region for example, or an entire faculty of languages and English  we see that it is inhabited by  three non- mutually intelligible types of disciplines  : Linguistics,  Translation and literature..in addition, of course, to the Language institute/Center. Despite this, the way the administration leads the exam is the same ( can you place questions in Drama, research methods, technical translation  or general translation, or interpreting techniques...in the same way you assess language or preparatory year students?). The knowledge/ content framework, pedagogies and practices ( professional practices in the case of translation ; interpreting) are definitely not the same. Then, why applying a model of assessment (usually a result of industry/factory line of production model) on all classes?? .

Students are compared to a chain of production line. They are placed in lanes and lines. We are not looking at their learning , but we are waiting for them to come at the end of the line to submit their copy and  NOT to manifest in various ways their level of learning and performance, but to submit to us a paper in which they wrote what they memorized by heart. Just the idea that he/she will be in a mass production area or line scares him and let him devour  ( or not) the content. It is not that 1 hr which will determine the REAL HIM/HER ( EVIDENCE OF LEARNING), but a series of formative and sumative assessment methods DURING THE ENTIRE SEMESTER. The mid, even the final, exam should not always be  UNIFIED. It depends on many variables, such as the nature of the discipline at stake.

Hence, knowledge and skills about the design of university assessment is lacking. In a university context, the assessment is discipline specific. In translation or interpreting, the discipline has a professional vocation; therefore the assessment should be geared towards assessing skills, knowledge, behaviour and values ....and not only what they study in their textbooks ( content). We cannot only evaluate students on what they study in their textbooks and administer standard exams to annihilate what is remaining from their learning experience.

Education needs proper investment: recruitment of competent faculty that have pedagogical knowledge about their discipline ( and the profession/practice as deemed possible) to take the burden of designing   sound exam methods that could lead to outstanding and lifelong outcomes. Certainly not the mass/ line/ lane model.

 So, we see and judge that our faculty colleagues need to do that task -at least during their MIDs 1 and 2 and may be the final as well ( case of translation and  interpreting), because if we claim that student translators will be able to operate confidently in the profession upon their graduation, then we need to prepare activities , knowledge content and assessment methods that could address how to improve students performances at the levels of  knowledge, skills, and behaviour/values.The standardized exam is not a model for that type of assessment I am afraid.

In good practices around the world, especially in a higher education context, the hot topics now are about disciplines-specific pedagogies/didactics/ assessment methods. We cannot mix all in one pot . These areas of knowledge are FUNDAMENTALLY not the same. Of course, in poor practices, such as the case of some universities in the Arabic context, we still think that to teach in a university context ( English department and else) we only need to have :

- Text book X

- Lecture till chapter x,y,z.....To do MID1 /2 and then Finals in a mass. Get coordinators to coordinate between faculty and get questions for the exam.

- Call the army of invigilators to invigilate the villain students.

- They call all faculty during the exam time 'instructors' to diminish from their status and professional profile/ stand as if they were objects or chess pieces that they could move or mobilize when and where they want to. A full, associate and assistant professors are all rushed out to do at least 4 or 5 invigilation in a very miserable, stressful, unhealthy, unethical and non-pedagogical environment ( there are university contexts where they do this).

Approaching exams in such as way leads to :

- Killing the mission of the university, since such a way of assessment goes against students success and learning of life long, durable, social and interpersonal skills and abilities that often are stated in that university's mission statement/objectives/ outcomes. Institutional inconsistency is unacceptable.

- Undermining, diminishing and demeaning the professional status and abilities of faculty, who are placed in the position of 'guides' , 'servants' , teachers of textbooks' and exam correctors...the same method applied in primary or secondary curriculum practices. They forgot that faculty ( especially those graduated from good international institutions) have their academic freedom they gained form their long doctoral training and ability to engage in knowledge production; therefore, these powers get scrapped once unhealthy administrative and assessment practices are implemented unscrupulously. Faculty barely manage to produce a decent/empirical article in a year, due to this type of academic practices. They become mere teachers of textbooks to facilitate the task of administrators to organize their preferred practice : factory/army and counter assessment type of evaluations inherited from the early practices of curriculum ( beginning twentieth century) at secondary ( or may be ) primary schools.

FELKA

كتب في علم الترجمة - أرشيف المترجمين

كتب في علم الترجمة - أرشيف المترجمين

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