European Commission DG Interpretation Podcasts

The podcast channel of the European Commission's DG Interpretation – a steady source of listening and shadowing material for interpreting students.

European Commission – Interpretation (podcast)

تحميل الجامعات مسؤولية ندرة المترجمين الفوريين – Universities Blamed for the Shortage of Interpreters

An Asharq Al-Awsat report laying the shortage of conference interpreters at the door of the universities – a charge our programmes need to answer.

تحميل الجامعات مسؤولية ندرة المترجمين الفوريين

مطالب بتبني القطاع الخاص ترجمة العلوم التطبيقية والتقنيات الحديثة – Calls for the Private Sector to Fund Scientific and Technical Translation

An Asharq Al-Awsat report on calls for the Arab private sector to take on the translation of applied science and modern technology.

مطالب بتبني القطاع الخاص في المنطقة العربية ترجمة العلوم التطبيقية والتقنيات الحديثة | الشرق الأوسط

مؤتمر أبوظبي الدولي الثالث للترجمة – Abu Dhabi Translation Conference Calls for More Translation from Arabic

News from the third Abu Dhabi International Translation Conference (Kalima), which called for more translation from Arabic, not just into it.

مؤتمر أبوظبي الدولي الثالث للترجمة يدعو إلى زيادة الترجمة من العربية

University Graduates Lack Basic Literacy Skills

A Language Portal of Canada headline on university graduates lacking basic literacy skills – if that is true in Canada, we should be asking the same question of our own graduates.

University graduates lack basic literacy skills – Language Portal of Canada

Google Docs as a Collaborative Translation Platform

This is an interesting video, and a useful one for trainers and teachers who are embarking, or willing to embark, on using technology and e-tools to support their own and their students' training needs.

Google Docs can serve as a platform to import, store, process, edit and post-edit translation documents. The most interesting part is that it can also host collaborative working environments, in or out of class, in virtual or online settings, which enhance learners' transferable and generic skill sets.

What Is Interpreting?

A clear introduction to what interpreting is, from the UK's National Network for Interpreting – a good first reading for new students.

What is interpreting? (National Network for Interpreting)

Rethinking Private Higher Education

A University World News piece on rethinking private higher education – relevant to the growing private HE sector in the Gulf and MENA.

Rethinking private higher education – University World News

Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity, Learning and the Curriculum

Sir Ken Robinson on creativity, learning and the curriculum – a reminder that curriculum design is about people, not just outcomes.

MA Translation Studies by Distance Learning

A presentation of an MA in Translation Studies delivered by distance learning – a model worth studying as online translator education grows.

Do Online Students Cheat More Often?

An infographic asking whether online students cheat more often than their face-to-face peers – a question every online or blended programme has to face.

Do Online Students Cheat More Often? (e-Learning Infographics)

Noam Chomsky on Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Noam Chomsky, in 2013, on Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed – essential viewing for anyone who thinks about education as more than skills delivery.

The History of Learning: An Infographic

An infographic tracing the history of learning – a quick visual primer for education discussions.

History of Learning Infographic (e-Learning Infographics)

Andragogy: The Adult Learning Theory in an Infographic

An infographic summarising andragogy, the theory of adult learning – a useful reminder that our translation students are adults and learn as adults.

The Adult Learning Theory – Andragogy – Infographic (e-Learning Infographics)

Trained Interpreters

A short video making the case for trained interpreters – why professional training matters when the stakes are high.

Working with Interpreters

A short guide to working with interpreters – useful for clients, and just as useful for students learning what to expect on the other side of the booth.

Teacher Training Centres: Why Universities Need Them Too

The Ministry of Education plans to launch a teacher training centre. Read the news item here:

Ministry of Education plans to launch teacher training centre (Edarabia)

A further thought

Recent trends in higher education emphasise the need to extend initiatives of this kind to the university context as well. Many Western universities have already done so; in Arab contexts, the work has yet to begin.

Research shows that significant learning and performance outcomes can be achieved when the human factor, teachers and trainers as much as students, is taken seriously. Such an effort should draw not only on translation studies but also on curriculum studies and mainstream pedagogy, in particular the professionalisation of teaching, and especially in professionally oriented translation programmes.

Saudi Arabia to Translate International Court of Justice Rulings into Arabic

A great move from Saudi Arabia: an agreement to translate the rulings and bylaws of the International Court of Justice into Arabic. It benefits practice, the profession and society alike.

Read the report (in Arabic)

Not Reforming Our Translation Curricula but Renewing and Remedying Them

Our recent review of the literature on teaching and curriculum design in Arab, and especially Gulf, university translation programmes, combined with my own experience as an educator in the field, has led us to a disturbing conclusion: course and programme planning in translation is often amateurish. Classroom teaching, too, needs to be reviewed and re-approached so that it matches the way other professionally oriented programmes, such as engineering, law and medicine, are delivered in higher education.

Where the Problem Lies

Traditional curriculum evaluation has always addressed content, and paid far less attention to process (translator agency and competencies) or to human capital: students, trainers and faculty (Kelly, 2005, 2008). Moreover, most programme evaluations have been carried out by organisations or external evaluators with little connection to the parent discipline of translation studies and its approaches, to the emerging sub-field of translator education and training, or to mainstream pedagogy and curriculum studies. In our opinion, these are the knowledge frameworks we should expect from any body that gives us feedback on our programmes.

Worse, in our experience as trainers and faculty, these programmes are designed by internal staff operating in different knowledge frameworks, linguistics or literature, who know little about the twenty-first-century translation industry, translator work patterns, employer requirements, or the competencies that lead students to employment. The programme consequently suffers at the design and development level or at the implementation level, including modes of assessment. Social and institutional criteria, such as local issues and institutional requirements, are rarely part of the design process either.

Renewing and Remedying, Not Reforming

That is the issue our title names. Reform is not the answer; 'renewing' (Kearns, 2006) and 'remedying' (Atari, 2012) may be. Rather than relying only on our experience and on what the literature says, we are undertaking ground research with stakeholders, immediate and non-immediate, to determine their needs and perceptions of translation practice, and to work out how we, as training providers, can develop a framework that lets university trainers and faculty take sound approaches based on informed decisions and data.

The Hidden Curriculum in Translator Training

This week I have been reviewing Kearns' (2006) PhD thesis on curriculum issues in translator training in Europe, and particularly in his own teaching setting, Poland. Comparing his insights with the situation in the Arab world, I found many similarities in course content, teaching methods, and the ideologies of institutions, departments and faculty within translation programmes.

What Kearns Means by "Hidden Curriculum"

One striking concept is the "hidden curriculum". Kearns uses it to describe any translation or interpreting curriculum not grounded in:

• curriculum studies and theories in higher education;
• the disciplinary issues specific to translation, with translation studies, theoretical and applied, as the frame of reference;
• the professional dimension of translation;
• a pedagogical approach suited to professionally oriented disciplines such as translation.

Kearns deplored the continued use of unplanned, impressionistic and reductionist curriculum design and development strategies in translation programmes. Any faculty member in a department, whether or not competent in the knowledge domains and practices above, can come forward and presume to design curricula for that department.

A Quality Assurance Problem

This violates the quality assurance criteria prescribed both in higher education standards, which set out the knowledge frameworks and competencies required for teaching scholarship, and in the professional standards of the translation profession, such as the recent European standard EN 15038. Many curriculum designers have used that standard to develop quality-based, professionally oriented translation and interpreting programmes within an academic context.

Takeaway

We need to redesign, develop and continually monitor the pedagogies and curricula of translation programmes. Their epistemologies, ideologies and teaching approaches must rest on consciously planned criteria drawn from mainstream pedagogy and curriculum studies, translation studies and professional guidelines. Only that can secure the outcomes today's translation market demands. At the same time, we must stay watchful not to be carried away by the industry's unstable requirements: we hold to our principles as academics, with a fair measure of flexibility towards what employers are looking for.