Trained Interpreters

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

Working with Interpreters

Please post your comments.

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 curriculum and pedagogies but rethinking , 'renewing' and 'remedying' them !

In the case of the Arab-based university translation programs, and as a result of our recent review of the literature on teaching and curricula design practises in translation programs  in the region (especially gulf countries), as well as my own experience as a practitioner (educator) in the field, led us to conclude that there is a disturbing and amateurish practise of planning courses and programs of translation within faculties where the program is installed. Furthermore, we realised that the classroom teaching practices (interventions in the classroom) needs to be reviewed and re-approached in a way that could match the way other professionally oriented programs were delivered/facilitated ( engineering, law, medicine) in higher education contexts.

We think that there is an issue with the above. Traditional curricula evaluation have always addressed 'content' issues and less has been placed on process(translator agency/competencies) or human capital issues (students, trainers, faculty) (Kelly, 2005, 2008). Besides, most of these evaluated programs were carried out by organisations or external evaluators that have little to do with MAIN FRAME discipline of TRANSLATION STUDIES and its various approaches and dimensions, the new sub-field of Translator Education and Training that is taking pace, and last the mainstream pedagogy and curriculum studies . In our opinion, these are the knowledge frameworks we would preferably seek into the entity which will give us feedback on our programs. 

The worst thing is that these programs are, according to our experience as trainers and faculty in the field, designed by internal faculty operating in different knowledge frameworks (linguistics, literature) and know little about 21st century translation industry, translator work patterns, employers' requirements, type of competencies that would lead students to employment ..etc. Consequently, the program suffers from disturbances either at the design/development or implementation/intervention levels ( including modes of assessments). Also, social and institutional criteria are rarely included in the design process (local issues, institutional criteria).

That is the point we addressed in our title as an issue . Hence, reforming could not be the answer, but perhaps 'renewing' (Kearns, 2006) and 'remedying' (Atari, 2012) could be the answer. Instead of relying only on our experience and what the literature said about the topic, we are going to undertake a ground research with the stakeholders (immediate and on-immediate) to determine their needs and perceptions about translation practise and how we - as training providers- could develop a framework for university trainers/faculty to undertake 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.

Translator Training at Arab Universities: A Research Note

The following is a passage from my ongoing PhD reflections on translator training and curriculum development for translation programmes at Arab universities, particularly in the Gulf. It draws together what the literature says about the state of the field.

The teaching and learning environment in traditional face-to-face translator training programmes in the Arab world has been portrayed as lacking pedagogical approaches congruent with the real demands of the translation industry and market (Al Qinai, 2010; Farghal, 2009; Atari, 2012). Translator training programmes do not integrate valuable vocational and professional components, a key requirement for the face validity of such programmes, and they remain confined to linguistically oriented models. This decontextualises translation assignments, which become unclear and serve purely philological or pedagogical purposes (Atari, ibid.; Buhmaid, ibid.; Emery, 2000). Course objectives, or 'intended learning outcomes', are also not clear from the lists of objectives drawn up by course designers or faculty (Buhmaid, ibid.).

Kelly (2005) highlighted that the assessments in any course outline should be aligned with the listed objectives. In more depth, Biggs (2007) referred to the principle of constructive alignment, whereby intended outcomes, activities and assessment tools should all be aligned. On the situation in Arabic-speaking universities, Atari (2012, p. 110), citing Buhmaid (1995) and Emery (2000), stresses that 'there is a lack of well defined and well-formulated learning outcomes, if existent in the first place'. This is a damning verdict on programmes whose responsibility, among others, is to educate and train responsible citizens who will one day make decisive textual and discursive choices within society.

Further, translation courses are embedded in English departments and tend to be taught mostly by faculty holding degrees in linguistics or English literature. Some have experience of translating but little knowledge of twenty-first-century industry working patterns; others have practised translation moderately, as amateurs or part-timers; and a large share of those teaching translation in the classroom have never been professional translators (Atari, 2012). It is also argued that there are insufficient competent translator trainers at Arab universities, which is a hurdle to advancing and improving translator programmes (Farghal, 2009). Given the impact of technology on teaching and learning, staff with an IT background, knowledge of translation as a subject in its own right and real-world professional experience would be a real competitive advantage for any department. Al Qinai (2010) had already noted the need for educators who can be on the ground themselves and carry out classroom research, to obtain the authentic feedback, insight and results that translator training communities, in Arab universities or elsewhere, would want to embrace.

Extracted from PhD work in progress.

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: Saudi Arabia Leads the Way

Arab News reports on a Saudi initiative to enrich Arabic digital content on the web: Arabic online content: Kingdom leads the way.

This is a revolutionary move, and the approach is spot on. It is time to change paradigms. The twenty-first century has imposed new patterns of knowledge. Sources of knowledge are no longer only in books, whether literature, human sciences or anything else; they also live in databases and computers.

I salute this endeavour by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If all Arab countries, and especially translation programmes and private and public bodies, follow suit and gradually implement the same strategy, we could achieve remarkable cultural, political and educational gains. We live in a knowledge-based society. Not content, but something bigger: knowledge.

New Workshop: Processing Translation and Revision Work Critically

Learn how to process your translation and revision work critically and constructively. To be delivered in class or online, using adapted pedagogies.

Summary

Have you ever wondered why you translate terms, phrases or texts intuitively, without knowing how you arrive at those decisions? Have you struggled to comment in an elaborate way on your revision tasks, or on terminology and translation choices, in front of colleagues or peers? Clients, and in-house employers when you work for them, may ask you to justify your choices on grounds other than intuition. Objectivising the subjective, the hidden and the intuitive is the purpose of this course.

Description

Experienced translators translate more intuitively and more quickly than novices or student translators. Yet translators rarely find the right jargon to justify their choices or to write conscious, justified comments in their revised or translated assignments, even though a professional translator or reviser may be asked to do exactly that by clients or colleagues. Critical thinking therefore deserves a place in translator competence. It also enhances professional status and earns respect: you become a thinker, a negotiator and a test engineer. This course takes you to that stage and guides you to think critically as you process your translation, post-editing or revision work.

Target Audience

Novices, translation students, and experienced translators seeking personal development.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• identify and critically judge text typologies in English and Arabic, and the problems that may arise in translation from the conventions of those texts and other contextual factors in both languages;
• write in the proper genre and style of the target text;
• justify their translation choices, for themselves and for others when asked. Every choice remains relative, since nothing is absolute in the real world: there are always many answers to the same problem;
• revise consciously and constructively the translations or assignments they are given, drawing on insights from both theory and practice.

Prerequisites

Sound knowledge of English and Arabic. Minimal experience in translation practice is required; translation students and soon-to-be translation students are welcome.

Programme

• Introduction to the field of translation practice and theory
• The importance of critical text analysis for translators and revisers alike
• Becoming an empowered translator through critical judgement of translations and revisions
• Owning the metalanguage to discuss translation problems with colleagues at work or peers in forums
• Operating beyond intuition and amateurism when facing clients, peers, or your teacher if you are still at university

Comments on this course outline are very welcome: fouadelkarnichi@gmail.com

Research on translator training, Part 2

Research on Translator Training, Part 1

Part one of a talk on research in translator training – a good overview of where the field's research questions come from.

Building Translator Identity in a Translation Programme

Translator identity and agency have been an ongoing debate in the literature on translator training in higher education. Yet a glance at the history of practice shows that society's image of translators has barely moved: an underrated group who merely "transfer" other people's creative work and get paid for it. No significant social status has been granted. Publishers still leave the translator's or reviser's name off the cover; the book appears under the publishing house's name with no trace of who translated it.

Whose Fault Is It?

The institutions? No. Society? No. It is the community of translators themselves who are responsible for their declining value. With globalisation and the internet, things are getting worse. Everybody is translating. Anyone bilingual, or anyone claiming competence in two languages, takes up translation, and that is where it starts.

In my opinion, the lack of proper training at institutional level, universities mainly, has contributed to this identity crisis, and it lets pirates and industry hyenas seize the opportunity to downplay translators and pay peanuts for their work. If translators were educated in the ethics and value of this honourable and ancient profession, we would be regarded like lawyers, engineers and doctors.

What Kind of Learning Builds Identity?

Review and update both the curriculum and the pedagogy of teaching translation. For instance, embed a sound pedagogy (such as narrative pedagogy and multimedia) to teach the history of translation dynamically, through true stories and biographies of our forebears, Arab, Muslim or European, so that students can identify with them and build a self-concept as future translators. At the very least they will have something to be proud of, and it gives "face validity" not only to the profession but to the course or programme they are in. A programme with face validity is one where students know that what they are studying leads to a clear objective.

Recent graduates and working professionals should also be invited into class, in person or virtually, to update students on the realities of the workplace and the market. Their experiences and stories help trainees develop new identities, or seek one. Bringing in language service providers and employers adds value to the programme and gives students the desire to keep training and build a "can do" attitude.

History and Theory

A historical background matters greatly to the future professional translator: it raises their status and makes them conscious of the heritage of the discipline they have chosen. Teaching the history of translation to trainees and practising translators alike is a crucial step in building professional aptitude, since "they develop a self-concept as translators working in a specific historical situation", as their colleagues did over the ages (Mossop, 2003: 49). Alongside history, alignment with the current market and its requirements is a key factor in any university training or education programme. There should be a continuous narrative from past to present to strengthen that self-concept.

Theory is another factor. Ulrich (1996: 257) puts it this way:

"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 industry's negative attitude towards theory, we at the university should embed it and teach it intelligently, so that our students are ethically responsible and aware of who they are. They must be agents of their own learning and decisions, and see the moral dimension of their professional activity once they are in the marketplace. The industry will try to impose its industrial model, in place since the eighteenth century, but in a university context we need only court the industry and choose what is best for students and their psychological, social and personal development. Critical thinking is a virtue the industry does not prize: it wants students with skills but has no interest in their lifelong abilities and competencies. Providing this kind of education could perhaps cure the long-standing identity crisis of translators.

Pedagogy and People

Mentoring, project work, and case-based and problem-based methods should be embedded in the teaching philosophy. Apprenticeship-based methods should be applied from the first year of an undergraduate translation programme, not after it. Dynamic methods instil confidence, self-esteem and self-concept.

Still, where do teachers' abilities and competencies stand in this equation? We are left reviewing not only products (content) and processes (teaching and learning) but also human resources: teachers, faculty and students alike, their knowledge frameworks and beliefs, their learning and teaching styles, and their characteristics.

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

Knowledge Frameworks and the Hidden Curriculum in Translation Programmes

Kearns (2006, 2008, 2012) has written extensively about the persistent syndrome of the hidden curriculum in translation programmes worldwide. His questions remain pressing:

• Do the conception, development and evaluation of a translation course follow educationally sound and professional guidelines suited to the local context of students and institution? Who does this work?
• What frameworks do teachers base their programme planning and classroom interventions on?
• Do they draw on recent advances in translation studies and translation pedagogy?
• Do they consciously plan, design and develop their courses, or do they work intuitively, with no clear objectives?
• Is there a follow-up system to check whether intended outcomes were actually achieved?
• How does assessment fit in? Do they assess the product (the translated text) or the process (learning and performance)?

These questions sum up my concern here: the knowledge conveyed in a translation classroom by faculty (and students), and the issues of curriculum and course design, development and assessment.

The gap in the Arab world

My preliminary review of the literature in the Arab world shows that, apart from publications bemoaning the deficiencies of language students (usually EFL students) in translation, none has discussed the human factor in translator training programmes (faculty, teachers, students) at any depth or with qualitative rigour. The same has been reported elsewhere (Kelly, 2009). On teachers' pedagogical competencies and knowledge of the real world of translation (in-house or freelance), the very few committed Arab researchers in translation teaching (Atari, Farghal, Buhmaid) have repeatedly confirmed the problem.

Faculty in translation programmes deserve guidance and support to design their courses with reference to knowledge frameworks specific to the field: translation studies, the profession and its pedagogy. Relying predominantly on other, inherited types of knowledge (linguistics, literature) in a translation education context contradicts the originality and face value of a respectable translation programme.

No more hit and miss

The epistemological, indeed ideological, element is crucial in a professionally oriented programme within a university context. There should be no hit and miss policy when setting up translation programmes. Translation is a respectable discipline that has confirmed its presence worldwide, even if it is mostly shelved under language departments; conferences, symposia, organisations, journals and books abound. Everyone directly or indirectly involved, from administrators and faculty to industry and other stakeholders, needs to take the building of translation programmes and the selection of adequate human resources seriously. The pay-off is quality performance outcomes: students trained to find work in translation, teachers who improve each semester through action-based pedagogy and student feedback, and local employers content with their new recruits.

Takeaway: two questions need answering. What type of knowledge should be privileged in a translation programme and classroom? And how do we end the dominance of the hidden curriculum, in which people who mostly lack translation-specific curricular, pedagogical and real-world knowledge design and teach courses whose face validity students cannot see? Why do I study theory? Why contrastive studies? Why these texts and not those? How will what I am studying now serve my translation career in the twenty-first-century job market?

What Gulf Universities Ask About Translation Pedagogy

I recently interviewed with three universities in the Gulf region, and the questions the panels asked told me a great deal about where translator training in the region is heading. In one university, the head of department even asked searching questions about my PhD research on teaching with technology, which I appreciated enormously.

The Questions

All three universities asked versions of the same questions:

• What is the difference between teaching EFL/ESL and teaching translation?
• How do you design and develop a translation course for future translators?
• How do you teach translation theory: by lecturing, or otherwise?
• How do you integrate technology into a translation course?
• How do you evaluate translation students' learning and performance?
• How do you organise training for consecutive interpreting?

These are specific and intriguing questions, and I was genuinely pleased to hear them. As a researcher, I now know where the tendencies are heading in the region's translation programmes, and I will keep readers of this blog abreast of current orientations in the Arab world, particularly the Gulf.

A Discipline Still Misunderstood

One further conclusion: stakeholders' perception of translator training in the region, with a couple of exceptions, still misreads the complexity of the discipline and the profession. Training a qualified, professional translator, interpreter or reviser transforms not only the individual, as with language students, but also, and mostly, society and the economy. A translation programme capable of delivering that kind of output needs competent faculty and well-designed, well-developed curricula and pedagogies.

Students Are Not Daft

Finally, students, our clients, are digital natives. They consult social media and online forums to see what is happening in their discipline and future profession, and they will quickly spot the absence of fresh, market-oriented content and of qualified faculty who can respond to their aspirations. Student demographics and translator working patterns have changed. New content and pedagogies are needed to meet those needs and those of the professional and local context.

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.

Notes from Acfas 2013: Six Issues Facing Translator Education

From 6 to 10 May 2013, Université Laval in Quebec hosted the 82nd Acfas congress, which brings together French-speaking universities from around the world. I presented a paper on enhancing educational technology in translator training to improve teaching and learning outcomes, and came away with six issues worth sharing.

The Experience

It was a great experience. I enjoyed being among my peers, exchanging ideas and debating questions about translation studies, technologies for translators, the translation industry, and translator education and training. I also met and networked with many colleagues in Canada, professors and PhD students alike. It was a pleasure to get to know them in person rather than only through their articles in international translation journals.

The event boosted my confidence (especially in presenting in French), put my progress in context, and served as a self-evaluation test for my ongoing learning pathway.

Issues That Caught My Attention

• It is not enough to be proficient in your subject field. You also need to convey and monitor other kinds of knowledge: pedagogy and andragogy, and how to use technology in your teaching, given that we live in a knowledge-based society.
• Virtual and distance learning in translation programmes is a trend of the future.
• Innovation in curriculum and course design is needed, including new types of content.
• Multilingualism matters, and so does translating into the non-mother tongue (L2).
• The university has a social mission in training translators: educating socially functioning citizens who can use their abilities throughout life, not merely convert words and structures.
• The translator's role vis-à-vis technology: we need to emphasise the translator's agency as a decision-maker in the industry, not just a word engineer.

These were the major points raised and discussed in the two days of sessions I attended.