Translation as a tool
for second language teaching
"Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture."
Anthony Burgess
Translation was used
since many decades ago in classic language teaching as “Grammar and translation
method” and in the XVIII and XIX centuries, its principles were adopted by
modern languages teaching. Despite of its benefits in language teaching and
comprehension, it was recently devaluated in the 70s for some professionals; specially
the ones who were on the side of the “direct method” because of its possible
interferences of L1 in the mental process of L2. Since we are talking about
translation in language teaching, we must differentiate translation as an end
itself as a means to an end. We can understand the first one as the tool that
students in formation to be translators must use, because it is a way of
implementing in practice the theory that they had to learn. And the second one
is related to second language teaching and the study of different linguistic and
literary matters.
In my PWP I will
focus on the last educational view of translation: Translation as a means to an
end, due to its significance in our field. We, as future foreign language
teachers, should know why translation has been displaced from second language
teaching despite of having been used firstly for this purpose. I will state the
point of view of some authors who defend the use of translation in second
language teaching and on the other hand the ones that question its use in the
classroom.
My intention with
this work is to defend translation as a significant tool to our field because of
my personal experience in language learning and the use of translation as a
tool. I pretend this work to be of interest of foreign language teachers and
future teachers, and learners due to the approach in translation as a means and
not as an end. That is to say, the use of translation will help students to know
the interaction of L2 with L1 which will help to understand better some formal aspects
of both languages, and also it is a good way of appropriate expressions and
vocabulary. Another important aspect is the fact that L1 does not affect L2
learning, in fact there is a prior knowledge (L1) and it is logical that the
student will use it when a situation is unsuitably presented. There are other
aspects that I will talk about later.
REFERENCES:
PEGENAUTE, L. (2003-2004). La traducción como
herramienta didáctica. Contextos, 107-126.
Online version: dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/98042.pdf
Hello Yorick.
ReplyDeleteI see some strong point in your paper, for instance when you make allusion to the Grammar method and the direct method and their importance to English learning-teaching process. About this, just to mention my point of view, there is not ideal or perfect method, even if we talk about post-method era.
PARAGRAPH I: I found son inaccuracy in this part: “We can understand the first one as the tool that students in formation to be translators must use, because it is a way of implementing in practice the theory that they had to learn.”
PARAGRAPHE II: Translation as a means to an end, due to its significance in our field. We, as future foreign language teachers, should know why translation has been displaced from second language teaching. In this part I think the word “due” isn’t appropriate. Another thing important is to find out enough data to state that translation has been displaced… Thus it’ll be easier to defend this idea or paradigm.
PARAGRAPH III: … because of my personal experience in language learning and the use of translation as a tool. In my opinion something is missing in this part to complete the clause.
… and learners due to the approach in translation as a means and not as an end. It seems like something is missing in this part too.
In sum, I think your paper contribute positively to our field, albeit it will be a strong paper if you try to be more precise, give some examples of the topics and.
As long as this is your first draft I thing that you’re on the right way. Later version will surely be better by far.
Success.