7. The Necessity of Viewing Translation as a Learning Process

1. Translation instructors can use parallel texts. It is a basic pedagogical principle that one should show learners how to do something before asking them to do it themselves. In translation one of the best ways to do this is to give students a parallel text which allows a contrastive analysis of the two languages. It shows how the translator has set about his/her task and reveals interesting discrepancies, even mistakes, which are a source of fascination to students, and prompt questions such as: Why has this been done? Why would a literal translation not have worked? What is missing?

Apart from lexical and grammatical points, students can look for differences in tone, style and register.

If the teacher takes the L2 text back in at the end of a class spent working on the parallel texts, students can be asked to translate the English version into the foreign language and to hand it in for marking. This removes some of the worst pitfalls: the things that it is unreasonable to ask learners to do on their own. Marking involves a lot less red pen, the process is less de-motivating for everyone, and feedback using the original L2 text can focus on students’ alternative renderings, thus emphasizing that there is always more than one correct version. This reinforces the message that translators should do their best to convey the meaning.

An alternative approach is to take the work in to check that it has been done, and give it back to students together with the parallel version. They discover that their version is different from the original. Then, students may be asked to find out how and why it differs. This leads to much valuable discussion on a range of language issues.

2. Instructors can use two L2 versions. Students can be asked to compare two translations of the same text, focusing on, for example, lexis, grammar or even idiom. This is a demanding task which is probably best suited to final-year students but it offers the opportunity for more sophisticated contrastive analysis and thus has great teaching and learning potential.

3. Instructors can use group preparation. In other words "shifting from teacher-centered orientation in classes to a more workshop-like one would help the trainees to solve their problems with peers and with supervision of their teacher."

Autonomous learning skills must be grounded in collaborative social experiences in the construction of meaning. I thus place considerable emphasis on group learning, on shifting the focus of attention in the classroom away from the one-way distribution of knowledge in the traditional classroom, towards multi-faceted, multi-directional interaction between the various participants in the classroom situation. Autonomy from this viewpoint is both a group phenomenon as well as an individual one.

 As an alternative to ‘cold’ translation, instructors should choose a portion of English text and put students into pairs. They underline any structures they think are going to be problematic in the TL and circle any vocabulary they do not know. They then get into fours and pool their suggested translations. Finally, the groups are brought together for plenary discussion. Vocabulary can be shared on an overhead visual projection. If students come up with three acceptable ways of translating a particular expression, they should all be listed. The same procedure is followed with structures. The text is then set for homework. When conducted with dictionaries on the table, the exercise can further be used to teach good dictionary skills.

The advantages of group preparation are:

• Knowledge is pooled

• Everyone has a chance to produce a decent piece of work, therefore increasing motivation among even the weaker ones in the group

• Students are faced with alternatives, and selecting the most appropriate is an invaluable learning process

• The weaker benefit from collaboration with their more able peers

• Marking time is reduced as the teacher applies less ‘red pen’

• Lesson preparation allows individual diagnosis of errors: the relative lack of ‘red pen’ enables both teacher and students to focus on specific areas of weakness.

 4. Instructors should bear in mind that students should never ever be given a de-contextualized piece of writing. They need to be told where the text has come from, i.e.: If it is part of a larger work, Where it comes in the work, What has gone before, What comes after it.

Furthermore, students should be told the imagined purpose of their translation i.e. a) Why is the translation needed, what use will it be put to? b) Who will be using the translation? With greater experience of translation, students can be encouraged to seek the above information themselves and to act on what they discover.

Some Suggestions for Teaching Methods

Instructors of translation can require their students to do exercises such as translating a piece of writing before the lecture. In class, they would then explain the translation theories and skills relevant to the exercise. This can be a useful and effective method, but would be difficult for most instructors, since it requires that they be familiar with translation theories and skills themselves, and be able to combine these theories with translation practice. That is to say, they must be highly qualified translators first of all, and be able to explain translation theories and skills vividly and clearly so that their students can understand and assimilate these explanations. This is a challenge for all translation instructors. The second alternative is to explain translation skills first, and then giving an assignment. After correcting the rendered texts, instructors would give a lecture again to highlight misunderstandings, mistaken translations and to point out the correct translation. Another alternative is to require students to compare the correct translation with their own exercise in order to find their mistakes, analyze the reasons for these mistakes, and improve the translation themselves. The instructors can also discuss excellent passages from translations done by famous translators with their students. The instructors must emphasize the importance of translating whole paragraphs or texts. They can provide articles of various styles in order to enrich practical translation abilities and stimulate the interest of students.

Instructors of translation can employ the following techniques in order to make translation teaching a more fruitful procedure:

a) Translation Dossiers

Instructors of translation should encourage beginners to keep a translation dossier. Although students are encouraged to learn vocabulary systematically, in translation work they tend to do translation after translation, and there is often little evidence that they are actually learning: similar problems come up repeatedly but they usually do not make a note of them. To address this problem, students should use a dossier arranged under alphabetical, structure or key word headings. Here they can record systematically possible translations of or strategies for coping with expressions/phrases which recur in their translation work.

b) Annotated Translations 

From time to time students should be explaining in writing the reasons for their translation. This forces them to focus consciously on the act of translation. Not just to put A into B, but to reflect on why they have done it. If they have chosen one of five possibilities in a dictionary, why have they chosen this one? This is a valuable exercise to do occasionally because it makes students realize that they should be reflective translators. If they just do translation after translation, hand them in for marking and receive a bit of ad hoc feedback in class, there is no real evidence that students are learning and that they are progressing in their translation work.

c) Correcting a Translation

It is a good idea to ask students to correct an inaccurate translation which, depending on their proficiency, can be at a simple factual level or may include idiom, collocation, metaphor, etc. This can be an excellent source of discussion on finer linguistic nuances. The task can be varied by using an incorrect translation alongside a ‘correct’ one, but not telling students which is which.

d) Translation-task Issues 

To avoid literal and ‘safe’ translations, it is important to direct students’ attention away from grammar and lexis towards whole-text and translation-task issues. Ways to do this include:

• Instructors of translation can give students a specific brief which requires clear explication of cultural references or events.

•  Students can be asked to translate a passage for inclusion in a specialist English-language journal and to adapt their translation to the particular ‘house style’; this might be a suitable task for final-year students.

e) Research Tools

To encourage students to adopt a pro-active approach to translation, instructors should encourage them to consult as wide a range of reference sources as possible in their translation work, including: a monolingual target-language dictionary, bilingual dictionaries, a thesaurus, English dictionaries, and samples or models of writing for the particular genre or text type they are working on (e.g. if they are being asked to translate an advertisement article for a Ukrainian newspaper, they should get a feeling for the appropriate style by reading a few examples of the relevant genre in Ukrainian).

 f) Quality of English 

One of the major challenges for anyone teaching translation at universities is to help students with poor English. This is likely to be a particular problem for instructors who are non-native speakers of English. Apart from enlisting the help of a native English colleague, instructors can encourage students to employ self-help strategies here; for example, by asking fellow students to read their final draft and to discuss any problematic stylistic features.

Classroom facilities and teaching aids that could enable the teacher to diversify teaching techniques are almost non-existent. Research in teaching pedagogy shows, however, that a combination of the lecture method, which is a passive mode of instruction, and other active modes such as discussion, role-playing, audiovisuals, etc., can facilitate the transfer of knowledge and acquisition of skills. Nevertheless, the selection of appropriate teaching methods depends on other resources, such as classroom facilities, available equipment, availability of time, and above all the skill of the teacher in using these resources.

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Lecture 7. Teaching Translation (part 3)

1. Translation Evaluation in Educational Settings for Training Purposes

2. Importance of Testing

3. Translation Evaluation Highlights

4. Changing Paradigm

5. Translation Competence

6. Translation Competence Evaluation

7. Evaluation Framework

English is considered as the source language from which trainee translators render SL texts to Ukrainian as the target language. Richard's comparison of new and old paradigms in assessment are addressed in translation evaluation. Finally, an evaluation framework is proposed as a suitable tool to help assess translational texts in Ukrainian.

In educational settings translation evaluation is one of the most significant issues which must be addressed duly in order to determine the level of competence achieved by the translator, but besides measuring translation competence, evaluating the target text helps identify areas in which competence is still to be developed. We may argue that it is impossible to evaluate or study translation competence without considering translation product. By evaluating a target text, here a text translated by a translator from English into Ukrainian, we may perform a macro-level analysis, evaluate the translating process to a considerable extent.

Anglophone tradition outlines to propose a model for evaluating translational texts in Ukrainian at three consecutive stages. Firstly, in order to evaluate students' abilities to produce and then edit a text in the TL (students' translation performance), it is suggested that students' translations must be evaluated by an assessor whose native language is the language to which students have translated the ST. In this case the evaluator has no knowledge of the SL. At the second stage, a bilingual evaluator is asked to compare and contrast students' translations and SL texts. Finally, the results of the stages 1 & 2 are compared to arrive at an objective evaluation grade.