Communicative translation in foreign-language teaching and learning

Identifier:  TDX:2774

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2774

Authors:  Ayvazyan, Nune

Abstract:
Translation has been regarded as a communicative foreign-language teaching and learning tool since the late 1960s, although more empirical research is needed to test its effectiveness. Defining “communicativeness” as active participation in class, this research looks at how student participation rates (quantified as teacher-initiated or student-initiated interaction) change when translation activities are used in class, as compared to classes in English only. The experiment was carried out with 61 officially enrolled second-year students of English at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili who were taking a grammar course. The students were placed into two groups for their practice sessions, eight of which were video-recorded. The methodology was to alternate classes with translation activities and in English-only in both practice groups, so that all the students would undergo the same treatment. The types of exercises used in class were comparative grammar and liaison interpreting. Also, pre- and post-experiment questionnaires were distributed to find out what beliefs the students held about translation in foreign-language learning, which were then complemented by interviews from key participants. The findings show that in terms of teacher-initiated interaction, there was no difference between classes carried out with translation activities as compared to classes in English only. However, student-initiated interaction was higher in the classes with translation. Also, there was more student-initiated interaction during the activities involving comparative grammar than during the activities involving liaison interpreting. Students’ beliefs about translation in a foreign-language class were generally positive at the beginning and had not changed by the end of the experiment. The findings show that translation can be as communicative (or in certain cases even more communicative) than classes in English only, if we quantify “communicativeness” in terms of the amount of participation in class.