Post-Covid curricular practices: Competency models instead of predominantly product, course or text book based models

Reviewing or developing programs in the higher education education always follows a highly bureaucratic product-based pathway: documents, checking and checking...and another checking, documents and documents checking...ect....or sometimes benchmarking or checking what others did so as to imitate them or copy / paste what they worked on with slight modifications. Not so!

In fact, doing the pedago-curricular engineering work, and work on collecting, documenting and saturating relevant and significant data is not a preferred pathway that higher education institutions would like to work on , especially in the public sector. Similar process is followed in the accreditation process.

Evaluation and modeling models in curriculum are various, yet, the most suitable approach for post covid and todays' context seem to be the one that takes competency  as a framework: what we privilege in curriculum evaluation or review is not:

- The shifts and changes in courses titles or contents

- The modification of the outcomes / objectives on paper

- The religious choices of specific textbooks  as a condition to breath and continue development

Instead, the first things to do, in our opinion, is to reshuffle the process: first document and identify practices corresponding to the disciplines at stake in the context ( especially if it has corresponding professional practice in the local and economy and society ), after that select these practices and classify them to develop standards of practice. All these information can be generated by the data collected through interviews, focus group, surveys..etc. After that, we sit down as a team and align the disciplinary knowledge with what we collected from the profession or real life context of the discipline or contents that are taught. Then, we select and categorize. Then we build the continents, activities, pedagogies, training modes, assessment methods aligning with the new engineered curriculum.

I hope this clarifies the point.

Linking research, training and practice ( profession)...in which way?

St. Arnault (1976) gave an amazing allegory to explain the relation between the three axes (research, training & practice): the three Russian Dolls allegory. The first fat doll refers to the researcher, the medium-sized doll refers to the teacher, while the small doll refers to the frontline practitioner. His wish was ( in the 1960s/1970s) that one day,  in a higher education context, he to have a profile that integrates the three dimensions: research, teaching, and professional acumen/agency. Ideally, the profile would allow the small doll to eventually become the fat one, representing a researcher who has experienced practice, taught that practice, and finally conducted research on that practice. According to Arnault, the positivist approach does not hold much value in an educational context, especially when researching professionally oriented disciplines, if the researcher lacks both professional and pedagogical acumen.

I think that a combination of all three dimensions would certainly be the ideal profile sought in a modern higher education context. This is like the case of a medical doctor who has been a practitioner for years and then taught medicine at the university in addition to his or her daily engagement in research. The same can be said about another faculty in engineering or sports sciences. A researcher who lacks practical experience and a tailored pedagogical approach for teaching their discipline appears ineffective in today's higher education context.

Lastly, a similar analogy can be applied to the competencies of translation and interpreting faculty. A hybrid profile with frontline expertise in the language industry, proven expertise in innovative training methods and pedagogy, and acumen to do applied research (evidence-based)—these three elements would make an ideal faculty profile in translation departments par excellence...Rare, but not always! This point has been discussed widely in a doctoral research paper submitted in 2017. Updated articles are in the pipeline.

One more point to explore is the fact that how we report that we include research or professional scenarios or practices in the teaching. In some institutions of higher education, this really needs to be rethought, as the focal point of integrating all of these in an ecosystem and an integrated approach, especially in professional open-ended disciplines, is not really made clear and used properly.

Improvement sciences and higher education pedagogy...

In 2021, I contacted the department of education at Western University in the hope to enrolled for my second PhD. At first I thought the ideas was crazy and unreasonable! Yet, I wanted to take the challenge despite all odds. What made me really want to go further is the new area of inquiry that was suggested by my future supervisor ...I  found it very interesting to explore: Improvements sciences in education. This new emerging field did really align with the orientation of my previous PhD ( Curriculum and pedagogical practice sin higher education). I felt I found the missing link.  That was what I really was working in my previous doctoral work: i.e.,  improvement per see of both pedagogical and curriculum practices in the higher education contexts in the state of Qatar ( and other higher education contexts in the region subsequently).

Few months later, sadly, due to extreme family responsibilities and pressures, I decided to place this adventure on hold. Now, I am thinking of either retaking the pathway or engage in an individual self-directed type of study and inquiry into the new field and  produce future articles in the area of curriculum and pedagogy improvements. 

A question that bothers me when it comes to improvement in higher education is the ongoing traditional, standardized and working pedagogic-curricular patterns that still ongoing in such a context. With covid, things seem to be heading the right direction,  a case in point new post-covid mode of instruction, assessments and intervention modes.....The learning & teaching environments are changing. Thus, time , to engage in improving the curriculum and pedagogical practices. We need to lead inquiries into that . A new mindset of teachers, faculty, administrators  and trainers is needed....we might even move on the barriers of pedagogy and start thinking of using and implementing the concept of andragogy ( how adults learn in professional and self directed contexts).

In my case, advocating for a competency based of approach to curriculum development and design is in itself a request or appeal for or think the curriculum practices. I doubt this will be used and bought by mainstream public university settings (for the moment), but certainly the private college/university sector would be keen to explore the new approach such as the case of universities advocating for the predominant use of the experiential and field/profession/market related types of training and development/learning.

I certainly think that the concept of improvement should start from basic education and move on up the ladder to higher education. It is not only a tool or practice , but  a philosophy and a vision that need to be adopted and believed in. 

Fouad

Does Competency Based Education means the end of the empire of textbooks??!

I worked in 4 universities in the Middle East(Gulf region). In three of the four universities, I lived the experience of renewing our existing program or getting approved new ones. A common traditional feature that I always noticed, especially in EFL or translation courses/programs...even in education courses themselves, is the swift rush to recommend textbooks as if the entire knowledge frames exist in this one or two textbooks. I have never heard any of the institutions use the name competency or competence. Perhaps the competency model does not align well with traditional public-funded universities. They follow a curriculum paradigm that has been going on since over 150 years and inherited form primary and secondary education systems. Usually leading unemployment of the graduates and  to stagnation.

Competency Models need hard work, pedagogical engineering skills and ongoing updates. It is a model that prepares students for real, authentic, lifelong abilities . It is more dynamic and more rewarding for 21st type of generation. It stresses the link between society, economy and the educational institution. It requires teachers, instructors or faculty to design and prepare learning and performance environments customised to specific students needs, market demands and national priorities. It is a different world. More challenging. Without a real pedagogical know-how, teachers/ instructor /faculty will find it difficult to engage in a competency model.

In the case of EFL, authentic and customised life/ context/work oriented learning and performance environment enhanced with experiential and project based pedagogies seem to  be the way ahead.

Research is needed to revamp our curriculum practices and create significant learning & performance activities for our students. Linking and communicating with the world of practice through research and developments is a key requirement in this endeavour.

Teacher's knowledge framework???

 

Teacher knowledge and competencies are worth discussing, exploring and investigating. Nothing is taken for granted by just having a PhD or MA in a discipline. After COVID experience, a new type of knowledge and skills were added to the inventory of what instructors or future teachers at various levels of educational degrees need to appreciate and get trained in.

In any discipline , this is a requirement and professional development is then  needed for certain. Yes, research is very important when it comes to higher education, but also pedagogical and instructional abilities are necessary, especially in professionally oriented types of disciplines/ Vocational training. Neither lecturing nor mere repetitive and experiential learning alone would fill up the noticed gap. We  also need a cluster of other components comprised of knowledge skills and abilities as well.

Schuller(1986-1992) referred to the importance of the pedagogy and content knowledge. This is key variable to align with in designing and developing courses for sure. With the significant development in technologies in instruction, another paradigm emerged adding both the 'technology' and ' pedagogy ' components to Schulman's framework. That was was Sharma (2009-2012) referred to as TPCK knowledge ( Technological, Pedagogical, Content Knowledge) framework that teachers/ instructors/ faculty need to align with and impalements in either K12 or Higher Ed . This is a more comprehensive and efficient approach. Integrated , yet, comprehensive and sustainable.

See details about this theme in general education or in application to certain domains ( translation/interpreting/multilingual studies/EFL) in my next podcasts ( coming up).

The notion of competence in education/training: not abstract as it seems. Let us innovate/look forward instead.

Accreditation bodies always accredit a program according to some very specific guidelines and criteria. The field-specific reviewers scan and examine the program at the content level and  end up deleting, adding or recommending courses. The old fashioned curriculum evaluation was basically based on course content change and modification as if curriculum is all about playing chess with courses and recommending textbooks. May it is about be scanning objectives/outcomes for the most.

 Not so. There are other major factors, not only administrative but in relation with the ' alignment philosophy' as well as relevance of either contents or intended outcomes or any other type competencies ( intended skills, knowledge and abilities to develop in students ) to build. Yet, designing programs and learning outcomes based on the competence model is still a challenge to overcome in many higher education contexts. It is a question of funds/policy and change of mindset.

The challenge becomes more and more thorny in fields of human and socials sciences, since the competence model of program design & evaluation is most implemented in scientific programs whereby hands on skills and abilities can be clearly documented from the profession and then re-designed and modelled afterwards in  a curriculum that aims to develop primarily competencies and then get informed of relevant  content that could feed into developing these competencies( lets say in the field of agriculture, medicine, engineering). There is an entire mindset to work on , which is different from the usual curriculum building /designing/evaluation methods we are used to in Higher Education.

In relation n to translator education?

In this case, my first and foremost suggestion is not to stress only on the traditional trend : focus on the product/ Text side only. Let us also bring in translator competences. After all, who is the agent, producer and deliverer of the outcomes ( translated text/video/audio) ? certainly the human factor/being ( The translator, the subtitle, the interpreter). In fact translation competence is now becoming an outdated topic in applied translation studies. Let us move on ! PACTE group had been talking about this for many years and done a longitudinal research inquiry since two decades ago. Kiraly, Gopfeidig and Chesterman have added new competencies that were not included in the predominately cognitive model of PACTE. Also, we should be discussing translator competence, instructor or faculty competence in translation, competence in translation curricula...etc.

Internship? practicum? field work? ...in the context of social and human sciences.

Some programs in the social and humans sciences do have practicum or field training as part of their education pathway before getting a BA or and MA or , in some cases, a Diploma. This opportunity provides a chance for the learner/trainer/ novice teacher to gain work related types of competencies, although the time is usually not enough due to various reasons: institutional, planning, strategic..etc.

When I carried out my doctoral research inquiry/work on two university based educational programs in the state of Qatar, I addressed and explored the internship and field work dimension. At that time, the team was in the process of developing a guide and protocol document to ensure that the internship process ( that was for future translators/interpreters) did have an adequate training prior to their graduation.

Yet, the support provided to these students needed further work. It is not easy when the multilingual professional is under heavy pressure to deliver on-time projects and at the same time monitor students who have never been engaged in hectic professional environments. The competencies needed in that real life context ( usually psychological, non-linguistic, attitudinal, aptitudinal..etc type of abilities) combined with ( like in the vase of teacher education) managing and addressing the class for the first time as well as making sure that the pedagogical dimension is well taken care of.

In Canada, pre-service teachers or future multilingual providers or any other learner in a professionally type of program, do engage in dual education. Students take this type of internship whereby they alternate between work ( training) and studies. Students engage as both future professionals and ongoing student learners. This way, their learning becomes authentic and contextual : experiential. Hence, this type of work will certainly lead to pertinent outcomes. 

Based on the competency ( rather content based) based type of curriculum developments, the planning of training and teaching should prioritize the list of competencies ( knowledge, skills, and behaviour) that are prioritized in the learning/performance curve of the students. In this regard, new contents , innovative one, should be stressed since traditional content would , usually in the social and human  sciences, not fit in well with the competency model. When we say content we also need to add pedagogy and provision of thriving, relevant nd significant learning environment. It is not about a TEXTBOOK . It about a learning environment that should empower the learner. Textbooks are part of this complex  yet coherent and connected environment.

Experiential learning for liberal arts programs!!

A few years ago I worked at a university in the Middle East and at that time the department (of English) was going through the accreditation process. From what I heard the university or accreditors demanded from the literature or linguistics units to demonstrate how experiential learning could be applied in their courses. Faculty in the liberal arts had a real challenge to face by then. Usually, experiential learning takes place in scientific disciplines or professionally oriented programs ( engineering, medicine). Yet, having that new 'intruding' paradigm into an unusual terrain ( liberal arts) was not easy. Courses that cannot integrate the experiential learning dimension are prone to extinction and maybe the closure of the unit ( literature, poetry, drama). I had a broad idea of how experiential learning could be applied in educational and training contexts such as translation, interpreting, business studies, engineering, and medicine. This is because, in addition to my experience with applied languages, I worked with peers during my doctoral studies in the research lab who were working on the disciplines above. At the end of the day, in education development studies we get the tools/techniques and then we collaborate with subject-specific experts to get the job done and fulfilled. In a classroom or lecture theater, the context is typically confined to a fixed space and limited time. Beyond the classroom, learning can be acquired through other sources like visiting a heritage site or museum, being immersed in a good book....or being in the workplace itself. My other colleagues teaching drama, poetry, and literature were bewildered as to how to integrate experiential learning into their courses. Since what the university wants is the economic/social relevance of the courses or the program. I made some inquiries at the international level. I found a professor at one of the universities in Canada who published three articles about this innovative model of teaching 

COVID-19 and the Global Education Emergency: Planning Systems for Recove...

Using PLR Articles To Make Videos For Affiliate Marketing

They have been saying that the online model in education does not hold...!!

This year I had the chance to develop, create digital content and teach two of the most thriving courses in translation technologies and one course in advanced interpreting fully online. This is for an MA course in one of the best e-universities based in the gulf region ( In partnership with Colorado State University).

I lived the experience from scratch. It started from the program pre-approval stage until where we are now. We are now running our second semester and we have two other semesters left to deliver the first cohort . The contents of this program were very innovative and some of them new in the region. The program as it seems has been so far successful and many other students are in the pipeline to register for next year. Sounds promising.

In the Arab region, especially in the gulf area, translation departments/ units are not used to host and teach courses like localization, online interpreting, fully fledged  e-courses on translation technologies, revision, project management...etc. So, these are top notch innovations in graduate translation contents/ curriculum. Yet, for such types of courses, students need to log into blackboard Collaborate( the chosen LMS platform) and take the courses on a weekly basis. They have a live lecture to attend, interactive by default, and then various types of assessments were provided to assess students understanding.

Diversification of means of assessment is a key elements that makes the difference here. And that is why credit should be given to the synchronous online teaching and learning model. Believe me there is learning/teaching and transformation taking place. Triangulating assessments tools, student/content, student /instructor , students/student and instructor/content interacting online and delivering assessment on time ( strict deadlines) is a clear sign of educational practices that can create impact. 

So, why shouldn't we consider these learning/teaching experiences viable? based on what? may be its ideological, selfish and narrow minded interpretation and perception of what e-learning means.....with COVID in the pipeline, I think it cannot be denied that the e-exercise/test if designed  properly it should certainly be counted and considered. Further, institutional support need to be offered for instructors to develop abilities and pedagogies specific for the online environments.

last question: what we assessing? content or understanding? I think it is time to assess the product ( content) and focus on assessing the level of understanding ( deep or surface) ( Bart, 1995)

Teacher reflection in action ( while interacting with learners and the entire environment)

https://youtu.be/g7qZhl5QTSA

Assessing online ....and formative assessment.....Yes! extremely significant ...covid 19 uncovered it...let it be!

Please listen to the importance of formative assessment in the below videos  (see link below). An assessment that has been badly used and purposefully ignored by education institutions. I wonder why?? Perhaps tough on instructors since it needs hard work and long commitments in providing continuous feedback for students....Yet, this might be torturing for teachers who have large classes. For administrators and educational managers, it is  not beneficial cost-wise, since this will push them to limit class sizes, although they always boasted about student focused approaches..etc, which does not make sense in reality: how can an instructor provide 100% commitments to all his students ( too many) via  using active pedagogies and , subsequently, require the use of formative assessment. It is time for higher education instances to rethink their assessment tools and methods and humanize education experiences for all our future generation.

The hype about and spread of fear about ' common exams' ; ' mid-terms' ; ' finals' ....ect need to be stopped. Instead, we need to train and recruit responsible, well trained and ROUNDED faculty  with SOUND ethical and professional stamina. A PhD in ' X, Y. Z CONTENT' will never be a fair and sufficient standard to rely on. Genuine professional, pedagogical and curriculum 'know what' and 'know how' is key in this endeavor. Only those who have the pedagogical know how and the real feel of what practice ( profession) means could design these innovative, practical yet well monitored assessment tools and methods. Still, higher education policies need to be changed as well: reduce number of class sizes, rethink recruitment standards and discard non-sense  whimsical, amateurish and  selfish political considerations in the recruitment phases. Also, faculty should be considered as professionals and not puppets or  mere teachers/transmitters of  of textbook content!!!!, who can teach ' whatever course' or ' 'handle whatever class size'.

Here is the link folks:

https://ep.jhu.edu/faculty/learning-roadmap-for-new-online-instructors/assessing-student-learning-online

Tools and resources for translation and terminology

Translation technology and terminology

Using Memsource application to work on terminology building ( Video included)

1-      How to download Memsource software to your mobile application

https://help.memsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004017132

2-      How to create a term base to add/ import terminology files (watch video inside the article)?

https://help.memsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001725111-Lesson-3-How-to-Create-and-Use-Term-Bases

1-      How to download Memsource software to your mobile application

https://help.memsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004017132

2-      How to create a term base to add/ import terminology files (watch video inside the article)?

https://help.memsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001725111-Lesson-3-How-to-Create-and-Use-Term-Bases

Links to important resources in translation, terminology and interpreting

1-https://www.lexicool.com/arabic-dictionary-translation.asp

2-https://en.glosbe.com/

3-https://www.microsoft.com/enus/language/Search?&searchTerm=software&langID=39&Source=true&productid=0

Tricks and tips for freelance translators

http://www.thoughtsontranslation.com/

Acronym finder and translator 

https://www.acronymfinder.com/

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.

Discussing course/program developments in an other way. The 'how to'?

Many authors with long work experience in teaching translation/interpreting in the Arab world (Atari 2012,  Ferghal 2009, Taibi 2016, Mehrash 2003) alarmed the community on the big gap existing in not only curriculum design but also development and implementation in the case of translation/interpreting programs.  In our review of literature and practices in the region, we observed that the curriculum practices in many translation units/departments at many Arabic universities are carried out exclusively by a committee whose baseline /core scholarship is barely in the field of translation studies, and barely have 'pedagogical 'know how' and 'know what' in their discipline specific didactic. Arguing about either moving, adding or deleting courses is an old pattern of curriculum development and discussion. You can notice that when discussing with colleagues  little reference is given to:

- What the scholarship of training , learning and teaching in a university context says
- What the scholarship on translation and interpreting pedagogy says ( that included findings from recent studies on similar issues in other countries)
-What the profession or market needs ( results from surveys, interviews, focus groups)

- Students profiles and needs ( results from surveys, focus groups, interviews)

- Employers needs( results from surveys, focus groups, interviews)

- What translation pedagogy says about curriculum practices at various levels of curriculum development , design and implementation in various countries and cultures. What are the principles and criteria to based one's decision on the 'how' and 'what' in a classroom context?

Our dear colleagues argue out of mere inherent experience, intuition and relying on ad hoc criteria. No frameworks to refer to and no evidence to base the arguments on. Things need to change. curriculum review or discussions need to be taken seriously and proper training in teaching and learning scholarship, including curriculum theory and practice should be given to these colleagues to align their reasoning with evidence based arguments.

Curriculum practices in a higher education context may be divided into three models : the theoretical and academic ( what we do in our universities since more than 90 years), the professional approach and the eclectic approach ( which we should do in a university context with more focus on the professional part in postgraduate programs ) ( see calvo, 2011 ).

When discussing curriculum parctices , reference to scintific literature as wellas department or personal specific needs is important

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

Raja Meziane - Allo le Système! - FreeStyle [Prod by Dee Tox] - English ...

TRANSLATING A DIALECT VIDEO SCRIPT OR CAPTION. CHALLENGES!

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