Dr Sonu Gohil
A focus on teaching and learning English in terms of language functions, rather than in terms of grammar and vocabulary alone, can go a long way as far as tertiary level is concerned. The medium to cater to these needs should be such that it not only helps in learning a language but also develops communicative competence of the learner. Thus, one of the effective and fairly possible fundamentals of learning a new language is translation. As Alan Duff (1989) says, “Teachers and students now use translation to learn, rather than learning translation.” As a discipline, translation is only recently being introduced in various universities and institutions. However, translation practice is almost as old as the birth of language, which means that it dates back many thousands of years; but the importance of translation has increased truly in today’s fast-changing world. Modern translation activities usually move from L1 to L2, have clear communicative aims and real cognitive depth, show high motivation levels, and can produce impressive communicative results.
As far as translation materials are concerned, they must be interesting and varied, covering a full range of styles and registers. The students should be led to consider the expressive possibilities of the target language and to discover that it is not always possible to attain exact equivalence. In this way, they will learn to evaluate possible versions to see which most fully captures all the implications of the original and will find out that they need to look beyond single words, chunks of sentences, or even complete sentences to whole stretches of text as they make their decisions. Ultimately, they will learn to translate ideas, not words.
A course can be prepared consisting of translation exercises and tasks related to receptive and productive skills. Instructional materials can be based on all the four skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – along with language forms such as vocabulary.
For preparing materials and in developing and selecting activities, the following principles can be kept in view by the course designer:
If the learners come across an activity they have already done numerous times, they will not be motivated to do it. Thus, the prime motto of the course should be to keep them interested, thereby involved, till the end. It can be assumed that most of the learners have not come across an opportunity to try translation before as it has never been a part of their syllabus or formal study. Thus, it becomes necessary to show them the importance of translation and benefits of the course and that they should be encouraged to communicate in English while carrying out the activities in a group as well as with the teacher.
To learn something it is important to use it practically through a task. Thus, learners’ need for expression should be given adequate importance. There are two benefits of a learner-centred activity: 1) Learners gain optimally when they are involved completely in an activity and 2) Effectiveness of the course can be measured through the level of learners’ engagement in the activity.
Creative translation may work as an effective tool in language learning as it helps to cultivate higher order thinking among students at tertiary level. The process of translation lends itself to exploring and experimenting with a language, which develops students’creative and critical thinking. Translation activities comprising innovative techniques such as brainstorming, problem solving, group discussion, and group assignments help students to move from lower order thinking to higher order thinking. The acceptance and usage of innovative translation activities will assist the teachers and trainers to make the process of language learning worthwhile. Preparation of more translation teaching materials for various levels of proficiency needs to be undertaken. The above mentioned ideas for classroom activities can be replicated in different courses such as Bachelors of commerce/science/business administration, not only in the last year of college but in the first and second year as well.