Curriculum and pedagogical issues in translator training /education (The Arab Higher Education Context)

Apart from the Alsun school of translation in Egypt, translator training at the institutional (university) level in the Arab World emerged as a result of globalisation and changes in higher education after the eighties and early nineties. In the Gulf countries, these programs emerged in a mass scale after the millennium (some of them during the nineties). Nevertheless, there is worrying educational and professional issues that might result because of the lack of understanding of some of the major tenants of setting a professionally oriented translation program within a university context. These can be summarised as follows:

• Specificities of the local context (country, the profession, university, society, students and economy) will be taken into consideration when designing, developing and implementing (including assessing/evaluating) the program.

• Clear course and program outcomes (skills) need to be set and justified; faculty need to know exactly why they choose the skills ( or as it is the usual case : subjects or contents) to develp or knwoledge to taransfer/ content and  material/ as well as the methods of assessing the previous. Preferably, he or she needs to explain the link between content/activities/objectives/assessment methods to the students to involve them in the educational experience. Nevertheless, this specific point may be an issue for faculty who themselves lack subject specific knowledge ( Knowledge of the field in its academic aspect : knowledge of translation studies as a field of study and research, as well as knowledge of recent translation  approaches in the field). Sometimes, the lack of sufficient real world experience as professionals (in-house or freelance ) could also make things difficult to the success of the experience.

• Importance of a specific type of pedagogy for teaching translation/training translators.  The Lectures only mode is noy suficient  to achieve significant learning and performance outcomes in the case of a translation teaching context. Translation is a profession. It has standards that need to be taken into consideration, and there are requirements on a certain set of competencies that need to be  integrated in the curricula and faciltated . Therefore, we envisage  that the most suitable teaching method could  be a mix of training, teaching and education to respond to the complex type of translation and translator competence. Students in the program (usually English Department) will- at the end of the program- be not only L2 proficient but multifaceted communicators and agents of cross-cultural communication. Also, they will be exposed directly to society : interpreting in courts, hospitals, translation of official or non-official documentation to ' make things happen ' in society and between nations and people globally. Sometimes, and this is taking place widely during the 21st century, students could be entrepreneurial language service providers by setting their own tranlsation bureau . Therefore, the stake is more than finding equivalents between source and target texts or transferring meanings, but it is more than that. The agent( the translator) has a role to play as well in all these. His impact is hardly highlighted in the Arabic context, especially in a university context. Due to existing disciplinary ideologies in all departments (any departments -really), the priority was given to textual matters instead. Nevertheless, a well balanced approach is needed when teaching the translation phenomena. This in itself reflects the nature of the discipline  which is multifaceted and multidisciplinary, because of its youth. 

• When teaching theories of translation (or any theoretical component; TRANSLATION STUDIES ) in a translation program, it is important to bring into the equation practise as well. This is a very challenging point for the teacher/faculty. Nevertheless, the student could benefit better from the quasi-theoretical course and stay tuned and engaged if this link between theory and practise taking place in the classroom. Again, teachers' professional background could be very important in this case . That is why reviewing faculty's knowledge framework (professional, disciplinary and pedagogical) is of great importance to the success of the education experience in the program. This might be a tough criteria to abide by since Translation as a discipline is a recently established area in the academic context and there is a lack of Human resources properly trained to service in a university context. This problem becomes alarming now with the considerable increase in the numbers of many translation programs at university level. 

• As for practical courses, research in translation pedagogy has criticised the traditional method of teaching translation in a classroom context within higher education. Don Kiraly (1995, 2000, 2003) argued against the use of what Ladmirale calls (Performance Majistral) or ( lecturing) and the use of the ' read and translation' method, and the final 'correct' solution will be in the hands of the teacher ( the main and unique source of knowledge). Kiraly(2000) proposed the project based methods instead to reflect the real world practise of translation. Students divided in project teams assume various roles (translator, reviser, terminologist) when undertaking such tasks.  

• Educationally and professionally speaking, this  might be a sound approach, nevertheless I am not sure how often this new method is used in Arab based translation programs and whether it can be adapted smoothly in our context.

Arabic online content: Kingdom leads the way

Arabic online content: Kingdom leads the way

The LINK to the page : http://www.arabnews.com/arabic-online-content-kingdom-leads-way

This is a very revolutionary move. The approach is spot on. Indeed! it is time to change paradigms. 21st century imposed other types of knowledge patterns. Sources of knowledge are not always in books ( be it litterature, human sciences or else)...they may exist in databases and computers as well.

I salute this endeavour by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enrish the Arabic digital content on the web. If all Arab countries - especially translation programs as well as private and public instances- get to follow and gradually implant the same strategy, we could achieve  remarkable cultural, political and educational gains...We are LIVING in a knowledge based society....Not content, but bigger than that...KNOWLEDGE.

 

Fouad

New workshop on translation : when theory meets practice...but, how ?

Learn how to process your translation and revision work critically and constructively

TO BE DELIVERED IN-CLASS OR ON LINE USING ADAPTED PEDAGOGIES.

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Ssummary: Have you ever thought of why you intuitively translate terms, phrases or texts without knowing how you happen to take such decisions? Have you ever had issues to comment in an elaborate way in your revision tasks or about terminology/translation choices in front of your colleagues or peers?...After all, sometimes clients or even when you work in-house, you may be requested to justify your choices based not only on intuition but also on other factors. Objectivising the subjective, the hidden and the intuitive is the purpose behind presenting you this course.

Description

Experienced translators may do their translations intuitively and quickly than a novice or student translator. However, it is not often that translators may find the appropriate jargon and words to use to justify their choices or write conscious and justified comments in their revised or translated assignments? A professional (translator or reviser) may be asked by clients or colleagues at work to do so. Hence, it seems a valid point to add the critical thinking issue to translator competence. Besides, having that ability may enhance professional status and earn you respect since you become a thinker as well as a negotiator and test engineer. This course will take you to that stage and guide you through to think critically when you process your translation, do post-editing or revision work.

Target audience

Novices, students of translation or experienced translators seeking  personal development.

Learning objectives

At the end of this course students/participants will be able to :   

• Identify and judge critically the text typologies in English and Arabic and problems that may arise in theTranslation process due to conventions of those texts and other contextual factors in both languages;
• Write in the proper genre and style of the text you translate into;
• Justify your choices in translating the text (for yourself and for others if you were asked to). Your choice remains relative, since nothing is absolute in the real world. This means that there are always many answers to the same problem;
• Revise consciously and constructively the translations or assignments you have been given based on insights from both theory and practice

Prerequisites

Sound Knowledge of two languages: English and Arabic. Minimal experience in translation practise is required. Translation students or soon to be translation students are also welcome.

Program

•  Introduction to the field of translation practise and theory
• Importance of critical text analysis for translators and revisers alike
•  Developing abilities to become an empowered translator through critical judgement of translations and revisions 
•  Own the metalanguage to use to discuss translation problems with colleagues at work or peers in forums
•  Operate beyond intuition and amateurism when you front clients, peers or your teacher if you still at university

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Comments on the above course outline are very welcome:

Fouad EL-KARNICHI

fouadelkarnichi@gmail.com

Skype: fouadelka

Research on translator training, Part 2

Research on translator training, Part 1

Building Translator IDENTITY in a translation program? ...some reflections and suggestions

The concepts of translator identity and ’agency’ has been an ongoing debate in the literature about translator training in higher education. A closer look at the history of translation practice would show us that the image that society has given translators remained the same: a bunch of underestimated group, all they do is to ''transfer'' other people’s creative work and get paid for that. No significant social status has been given or else. The editors have been (and still) not putting the name of the translator or reviser on the cover of the book. The latter gets published under the name of the publishing house and no sign of the original translators' name.

However, whose fault is this? The institutions? No!. Society? No!

It is the community of translators themselves who are responsible for their degrading value. Nowadays, with the globalization and Internet use, things are getting worse. Everybody is translating! Every bilingual or anyone claiming competence in two languages involves in translation...that is where it starts! In my opinion the lack of proper training at an institutional level (universities mainly) contributed to this identity crisis that lets pirates and industry hyenas seize opportunities to downplay the role of translators and pay peanuts for translations. If those translators were educated about the ethics and value of practicing this honorable and ancient profession, we would have seen ourselves looked at like Lawyers, Engineers and Doctors. 

But, what type of learning material and contents we need to enhance that type of lifelong abilities?

Answer: review and update the curriculum as well as the pedagogy of teaching the subject (Translation). For instance, embedding a sound pedagogy (like narrative pedagogy and using multimedia) to teach the history of translation in a dynamic way via focusing on true stories or biographies about our ancient colleagues (Arabs, Muslims or Europeans) to allow students to identify with these people and build their self concept as future translators to be. At least they will have something to be proud of, and this would give them '' face validity'' not only for their profession but also for the course or program they are in. A program that has a face validity means that students 'know' that they are studying what the course / the program is about, because it leads (for sure) to a clear objective. Also, recent graduates or other working professionals should be invited toc lasses or virtually to update our students of the realities of the workplace and the market at large...sharing their experiences and stories would certainly help trainees to develop new identities or seek to develop one. Also, brining in language serve employers or providers can also add value to the program and provide students with desire to continue training and build a 'can do' attitude .

We believe that a historical background is of great importance to the future professional translator to enhance his/her status and be conscious of heritage of the discipline he /she has chosen to engage in. Also ,teaching or learning the history of translation by both translator trainees and practicing translators is a crucial step into building professional translation aptitude since ‘ they develop a self concept as translators working in a specific historical situation’ like their fellow colleagues did over the ages . Brian Mossop (2003:49). In addition to the historical elements, modern day alignment with what the market needs and the translation market status  and requirements are also key factors to enhance in a training or education program in a university context. There should be an ongoing narrative starting form the past up to the present top enhance that self concept.

The importance of theory is another factor I may add. In this regard Ulrich (1996: 257) stipulates that:

“Members of all professions have a historical and theoretical component to their expertise. It is only against a theoretical background of translation that effective decision making and production can take place (…) the problem arises, therefore, of how to integrate a course on translation theory within the curriculum.”

Despite the negative attitude from the industry of translation towards theory, we, at the university should embed it and teach it intelligently to allow our students to be ethically responsible and aware of who they are. It is important that they will be agents of their own learning and decisions and depict the moral dimension of their professional activities once they are in the market place working .Certainly the industry tries to implant their industrial model which started since the 18th century, but in a university context we need only to court the industry and choose what is best for the students, for their psychological, social and personal development. Critical thinking is a virtue that is not privileged by industry. The latter wants students who have skills, but disinterested in their lifelong abilities and competencies. Providing such type of education could perhaps cure the disease of the long standing IDENTITY CRISIS for translators.

In terms of pedagogy, There should be mentoring , project work, case based as well as problem based methods imbedded in the approach of teaching (teaching philosophy). The teaching method that focuses on the apprenticeship principles should not be applied after the 1st year of an undergraduate program in translation. Dynamic methods implants confidence, self esteem and self concept. Still, the question remains where is teachers' abilities and competencies stand in this equation? . Hence, we are left with not only reviewing products (contents) or processes ( teaching/learning) but also human resources
 ( teachers/faculty and students alike). To review their knowledge frameworks(beliefs) and learning/teaching styles as well as characteristics.

Fouad

The International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL)

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATION PROPOSALS

ON TEACHING AND ADMINSTRATION TOPICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) invites you to submit a proposal for a presentation at its 2014 International HETL Conference, to be held in Anchorage, in partnership with the University of Alaska Anchorage, June 8-10, 2014.  Proposals are solicited on all topics related to higher education including those involving new technologies and globalization related issues. Both scholarly and practice reports are invited. Proposals are especially favored on the conference theme: Impacts of Social and Mobile Media on Higher Education. As in our January 2013 conference at the University of Central Florida, participants will be from the gamut of academic disciplines across the arts, sciences, and professions, as well as from other administrative and staff functions delivering and supporting new technologies and approaches to learning. As with every HETL conference, we support participation from around the world. Please submit your proposal for a presentation before the July 26, 2013, deadline or simply join us as a conference attendee by registering. No proposal is required if you are attending but not presenting.   

To submit a presentation proposal go to https://www.hetl.org/2014-anchorage-conference-submission-form/ . Go to https://www.hetl.org/events/2014-anchorage-conference/  for more details on the conference.

It’s More Affordable than You May Think

The Anchorage area has many features that you will find interesting, including glaciers, majestic mountains, and a wide diversity of wildlife. The average June temperature is 16C/62F with sunny days. Airfare to Anchorage is more reasonably priced than we anticipated. For example, we discovered by checking Kayak.com that roundtrip airfare from New York to Anchorage around the time of the conference might be about $350, from London $1000, and Tokyo $1100. We anticipate that hundreds of rooms at the University of Alaska will be available for well under $100 as well as rooms at partnering hotels in Anchorage.

 We look forward to seeing you in Anchorage!

Patrick Blessinger and Charles Wankel, St. John’s University, New York
Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association

patrickblessinger@gmail.com

The issues of Knowledge Frameworks and Ideologies in a translation program?? What is it?

Kearn (2008, 2006, 2012) had widely discussed the ongoing syndrome of the ''hidden curriculum'' in translation programs worldwide. He kept asking ' How is the conception of the translation course, its development and evaluation follow certain educationally sound and professional  guidelines that suit the local context of the students/institution ? who does that? what framework(s) they base their plannings (for the program) and interventions (in the classroom)? Do they refer to  the recent and ongoing advances discipline of translation studies and translation pedagogy? do they consciously plan, design and develop their courses(teachers) or they do that intuitively and instinctively with no clear objectives to achieve? is there a follow up system to check whether these intended outcomes were indeed achieved by faculty? How do assessment fits into this? do they assess the product (text translation) or the process (learning/performance process) ????

The above questions summarise my query for this communication : The knowledge that is vehiculed in a translation classroom by faculty (including students), and the curriculum/course design and development(including assessment ) issues.

From my preliminary review of the literature in the Arab World, and apart from the publications bemoaning the 'dificiencies' of the language students (Usually EFL students) in translation, none of these works have discussed widely and qualitatively the human factor in translator training programs (faculty, teacher, students). This case has been reported in other parts of the world as well (Kelly, 2009). In the case of teacher's pedagogical competencies and knowledge of the real world of translation (in-house or freelance), we have seen various confirmation of this issue by the very few and tiny committed Arab researchers in the field of translation teaching (Atari, Fargal, Buhmaid).

 It is important that faculty in translation programs receive the guidance and support they deserve to design their courses referring to knowledge frameworks SPECIFIC to the field : Translation Studies, the profession, and its pedagogy. Sticking to other 'inherited' types of knowledge (linguistics, literature) and sue them predominantly in a translation educational context contradicts the ORIGINALITY and FACE VALUE of a respectable translation program. 

Again, the epistemological (ideological) element is of crucial importance in such a PROFESSIONALLY oriented program within an academic(university ) context. There should not be a 'hit and miss' policy when it comes to setting up translation programs. It is a respectable discipline that has confirmed its presence worldwide, although in most of cases it has been catered and shelved under language departments, wider conferences, symposia, organisations, articles , journals and books have been published by various authors worldwide. People (administrators, faculty, industry, other stakeholders) who are directly/indirectly involved need to take the issue of building translation programs and selecting adequate human resources seriously to achieve quality based performance outcomes: students being trained to find a job in translation, teachers (through an action based type of pedagogy) would be able to improve their abilities and do better each semester after receiving students feedback, and the market (local employers) will also be content with their new employees (students).

To sum up, if we work on fixing the issues '' What type of knowledge should be privileged in a translation program/classroom ?'' and '' How can we get rid of the predominance of the ' hidden curriculum' syndrome where everyone (mostly lacking translation specific curriculum/ pedagogical as well as REAL WORLD translation knowledge) tries to design and teach translation courses for students who cannot see the face validity of the courses they taking? (why I study theory? why I study contrastive studies? why I translate these texts and not those? How is what I am studying now will benefit me in my translation career  ( the 21st century job market) ???

Fouad

Highlights on pedagogical concerns in translation programs at universities in the Gulf Region.

In this communication, I would like to share with you some reflections on a series of recent interviews I had with potential employees (universities) in three universities in the Gulf zone. I was pleased to hear the panelists asking very intriguing questions that gave me an idea of the increasing interests in the region for translator training. Even, in one of those universities, the HoD asked very interesting questions about my PhD research endeavour since it was related to teaching (with technology), which I appreciated a lot.

The common  questions I received by the three universities were:

- What is the difference between teaching EFL/ESL and teaching Translation?

- How do you design and develop a course in Translation for future translators?

-How do you teach theory of translation? How to do facilitate this course : lecturing or else?

- How do you integrate technology in teaching a translation course?

- How do you evaluate your students' learning and performance (translation students) ?

- How to do you organise your training/teaching for consecutive interpreting?

As you can see, these are very specific and intriguing questions. With all honesty, I was pleased that these questions were asked . At least, as a researcher, I know where the tendencies are heading in translation programs in the region (My research paper). For the readers of thsi blogue, I would like to keep you abreast of the current orientations in the Arab world (Specifically the Gulf region).

One more conclusion I would like to add is that the stakeholders' perception about translator training in the region (apart from few ...very few ( a couple) universities) still misinterprets the complexity of the discipline and the profession.Training a future qualified and professional translator (interpreter, reviser) would lead to transformations not only at the individual level (like in the case of the language students), but also ( and mostly) at the social and economic levels. Therefore, to have an adequate program of translation that could deliver that type of outputs needs competent HUMAN RESOURCES(Faculty) and OPTIMISED/WELL DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED Curricula and pedagogies in place.

Last, we need to be aware that students (the clients) are not daft. They are digital natives and they consult social media, online forums to see what is happening in their dicipline and future profession. I am sure that they will pin point to the absence of FRESH and MARKET oriented contenst as well as qualified human resources who could respond to their aspirations. Students' demographics, in addition to TRANSLATOR WORKING PATTERNS, have changed..........So, beware !!. New contentcs and pedagogies need to be catered for to satisfy these needs as well to those of the professional and local context.

Fouad

Translator Training in Higher Education : Pedagogy, Practice, Research and Educational Technology: BA programs (Translation Majors) in the Gulf Count...

Translator Training in Higher Education : Pedagogy, Practice, Research and Educational Technology: BA programs (Translation Majors) in the Gulf Count...: Few months ago, and as part of my ongoing PhD research enquiry, I was surveying the universities which deliver degrees, diplomas or certi...

BA programs (Translation Majors) in the Gulf Countries

Few months ago, and as part of my ongoing PhD research enquiry, I was surveying the universities which deliver degrees, diplomas or certificates in Translation (and languages) in the Arab world. I was checking their websites and see : 1) if they have a course outline displaying the objectives, types of activities and assessment methods designed by faculty (or the institution ) to that specific course in translation (or interpreting); 2) if they have them, I went to examine these elements (objectives, activities and assessment methods) to check if there is an alignment between them or not (in other words: if faculty or any stakeholder involved in this course design is/are consciously and aware of the various dimensions and implications of these designed elements). Above all, implications on students learning outcomes ( I mean meaningful and significant learning outcomes, such as applying what they learnt and creating something out of it on their own).

First round of this informal survey led us to conclude that :

• Apart from very scarce universities/colleges in the Gulf countries, most of Translation or English and Translation departments have no anounced Course Outlines on their websites at all (Check Atari ( 2012); Buhmaid (1995)) on that matter. We believe, and for the sake of enhancing quality teaching/learning in the program, to display CLEAR and FUNCTIONAL/DOABLE course outlines that will give an idea about the type of teaching philosophy/approach adopted in that specific education context for translator training and weather teaching is teacher or student centred. This is an important criteria nowadays in Higher Education. Translation is a very mutifaceted discipline and it makes sense to design appropriate domain specific pedagogies to be taught and learnt.

• The contents of the surveyed translation programs seem to be geared more and more into teaching( rather than training or coaching). It is OK to teach first and second year translation students lecture based contents, but not the third year or finalists.This could be a case in the Arab World, but here in Canada soon after semester 2, students engage in the real world of translation and receive a mix of teaching at the university and training at their place of internship. Context may decide the type of pedagogical  planning we need to decide on .

•  I also noticed the amount of theory taught in the contents of these programs. This will not be helpful in the case of training future translation professionals. There is a lack of real world factor in those programs ( I hardly saw courses on ''Research methods and Documentation for translators'', '' terminology extraction '' , ''language technologies'', '' revision", '' courses on professional aspects of translation'', '' project management for translators''........................etc. It is high time to renew the contents.

• As per the pedagogical part, I am not sure yet whether  teachers (faculty) base their classroom intervention on educational approaches/models specific to translator training/ translation teaching at all ( like socio-constructivism (Kiraly, 2000, 2003), constructivism) or active pedagogies to organise practical translation work like the Problem Based Approach PBL (Cormier, 2007), or the Project Based Approach (Gouadec, 2007; Kiraly 2003, 2012).

Due to space limits, I will limit my preliminary remarks on the above four points. Perhaps I can leave the remaining points to be discussed in another post.