Translators or Instructors or Both
By Carol Ann Goff-Kfouri,
Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in
the Department of English and Education
at Notre Dame University.
Academic Advisor
to Translation and Interpretership students.
nccjk@inco.com.lb
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There is no doubt in anyone's mind today
that the professional translator/ interpreter is an asset to the university classroom.
Professionals "know what's going on" in the business of translation; they have
access to state of the art technology. More often than not they are also enthusiastic role
models students might emulate.
The presence of a
syllabus does away with the question often asked by untrained instructors, “What will
I do in class today?”
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Nevertheless, it must also be said that
as professional as these teaching translators may be, they are not university instructors
per se and in general have had no pedagogical training other than the training they
received as students in the classes they themselves took. According to Gerding-Salas
(2000), translation theorists have been emphasizing for years that it is not enough to be
bilingual in order to be a translator. May I add that it is not enough to have a degree in
a subject matter in order to be called a "teacher." With this in mind, is it
logical for university administrations to force translators who wish to teach to obtain a
teaching certificate in addition to their existing degree? This is not always possible nor
is it reasonable. What is reasonable however is to offer on-the job training workshops to
those translators who do decide to teach so that they become familiar with the principles
of classroom instruction.
The aim of this article is to give an
overview of three critical aspects so necessary if an instructor is to facilitate learning
in his or her classroom and to provide a mini-workshop for those translators who wish to
teach in the future. Three of the major components to be covered in this article are:
syllabus writing, lesson planning, and cooperative learning. It should be noted that these
three elements are among the most critical; testing and evaluation, as well as teaching
methodology are equally important elements which must be dealt with separately.
Syllabus Writing /Lesson Planning
A syllabus may be defined as the map of
one's course. It serves both the instructor who thus has a clear vision of the overall
course; it also serves the student by laying out his or her responsibilities by clarifying
the elements to be taught and encouraging autonomous learning. The presence of a syllabus
does away with the question often asked by untrained instructors, "What will I do in
class today?" "Which text will we work on?" With a well-planned syllabus
the answers are obvious. They are also obvious to the student who is informed in advance
of the class content and is responsible for his/her work. Syllabi must be regularly
updated and department heads must insist that each instructor who teaches the particular
course review their contents and contribute suggestions for renewal before the course is
taught again.
The elements of a syllabus are the
following: heading, major textbooks, or texts to be covered, course objectives,
methodology employed, attendance requirements, means of evaluation, the weekly/hourly
distribution, and list of supplementary readings.
The heading should include the
instructor's name, office number and hours during which the student may consult with him
or her. The major textbooks to be used in the class should be indicated on the syllabus;
some instructors also indicate where the texts may be bought.
The course objectives are extremely
important in that they indicate what competencies the students will have acquired at the
end of the course. Samples of course objectives are the following.
- Students will have acquired the basic
principles and vocabulary necessary for English/French legal translation.
- Students will be able to write commercial
correspondence in English (memos, letters, reports)
- Students will practice expository and
argumentative writing in both English and French.
Instructors may decide to include one
objective or as many as five or six. The decision concerning the number of objectives to
be included in the syllabus must be made on the basis of course length, student level and
whether the course is an overview or a major course.
The methodology should also be very
clearly indicated in the syllabus. Students should be informed as to whether the course
will be carried out as a lecture course, in a workshop format, or will the assignments be
done cooperatively or individually. Examples of methodology statements are the following:
- Students will be expected to work in teams
of three to four on five assignments.
- Very little lecturing will be done during
this class; students will be asked to read before the class session and will be allowed a
question period at the beginning of each session.
- This class will be organized in a workshop
format; students will be informed of the text to be treated during the class hour and must
come to class with a proposed translation ready to exchange with a partner for peer
review. After discussion, a model translation will be agreed upon at the end of each
session.
Both the objectives and the methodology
sections of the syllabus require much thought, as the course content is dependent thereon.
Since university attendance requirements
may vary, it is the instructor's duty to inform the student of the particular requirements
concerning make-up assignments, and the number of sessions a student may miss. Some
universities actually require a student to drop a course if, for example they have missed
more than six class hours. It is important that the student be aware of the rules at the
beginning of the course rather than be surprised by them when it is too late to change.
The evaluation requirements should be included in the syllabus for the same reason.
Students should be informed at the beginning of the semester on to how their final grade
will be calculated. This is quite simple. For example, many translation instructors divide
their grades as follows: Quizzes 25 %, Midterm Exam 20%, Class work 30%, Final Exam 25%.
In this manner, class work and quizzes
(announced and unannounced) given during the class hours themselves account for 55% of the
final grade. A student who does his or her work competently during class hours will surely
succeed. A student who is often absent and does not actively participate will not.
The weekly distribution of work is also a
necessity in a clear course syllabus. Most university courses are divided into 15 weeks,
each with two or three class sessions depending on the instructor's schedule. If an
instructor plans to cover all five major types of expository writing, he or she will be
able to devote 3 weeks to each type. In this way, two class sessions can be devoted to
writing workshops, one for a graded essay, and the others for various other purposes. Here
is an example of a three-week class distribution whose objective it is to teach the
methodology of comparison contrast writing in the English language.
Students may also benefit from a list of
supplementary readings at the end of the syllabus. Pertinent web sites and library
resources on reserve encourage the students to do research on their own and become capable
of learning how to learn. The supplementary readings list also emphasizes the well-known
fact taken for granted by university instructors, but not by beginning university students
that learning should not be limited to the material covered during one class hour; it must
be supplemented by outside research and documentation. This is particularly pertinent in
translation studies where documentation skills are critical to success.
In some universities, it is also common
to add a section on research rules and regulations to the syllabus; students are informed
of the professor's policies concerning plagiarism, for example. Other universities request
that instructors also clarify the form and format required in research papers. Basically,
a well-organized, complete syllabus will set the tone at the beginning of a semester or
academic year and will help the student to see that your main goal is to encourage
academic competence in the subject being taught.
Lesson Planning
It is very clear that once an instructor
has a clear syllabus at the beginning of the course, the weekly planning process is
simplified. However, it is not enough to know what material will be presented during a
class period; it is necessary to plan how this information will be presented so as to make
it effective. In order to do so efficiently, the Teaching Process Model may be used
(Cangelosi, 2000). The Teaching Process Model emphasizes that all instruction should have
four basic components: the needs of the students should be taken into consideration, the
lesson objectives should fulfill all or part of that need, activities or tasks should be
designed so that students acquire the ability to perform and finally, each lesson should
have an element of evaluation incorporated within the lesson. Instructors are also
encouraged to organize their lesson plans in a pro-active manner so that students are
given the opportunity to carry out tasks during the contact hour. Pro-active, a term,
which is used quite frequently in pedagogy, simply means that instructors should endeavor
to vary the activities planned for the class hour. Even highly motivated university
students have a limited concentration class and are unable to sit for 75-minute sessions
and listen to the lecture of one person. In fact it has been reported that students
actually retain only 20%-60% of material given during lectures (Green, 2000). It is for
this reason that it is suggested that activities be varied between active and passive so
as to ensure optimal concentration. Thus a collegiate atmosphere where active
participation is encouraged would be ideal. A sample lesson to cover a 50- minute session
entitled, "Current Events for Translation Students" could be organized in the
following fashion.
- Why does Canada
want to be involved in European arms agreements?
- What role does
Canada presently play in world politics?
- What role does
the Canadian public believe they should play in world peacekeeping? Why?
Instructors using the material
indicated in the lesson above would re-consolidate and review during sessions that follow
this particular one. The texts that had been used as an informative means only could also
be translated; the television documentary could be used as an exercise in consecutive
interpretation. Students could be asked to choose one of the main terms employed in the
texts and to do supplementary documentation on the subject. A lexicon could be developed;
the possibilities are endless. In fact, experienced trained instructors are able to make
use of one text or one film in a myriad of ways. Organized lesson plans do not necessarily
imply an enormous quantity of learning material; it does mean using the material to meet
objectives fully.
Cooperative Learning
Due to an increased emphasis on teamwork
in all domains, curriculum developers have been insisting on the inclusion of cooperative
learning in most learning settings as well. The rationale behind this is indeed logical;
due to the increasing numbers of highly educated individuals in the business world and in
all other specialized work settings, many companies are finding it advantageous to include
more and more employees in the decision-making process. Many managers feel that the
contributions of each individual's work will enrich the final result. Responsibility for
decision-making is thus shared. The translation profession is no longer such an individual
endeavor as it was in the past. Today's translators must be able to consult efficiently
with specialists; discuss appropriateness of terminology with fellow translators and
present their translations effectively to the client. All these activities are carried out
in a more professional manner if the translator has acquired the habit of working with
others smoothly.
The main forms of cooperative learning in
an educational setting are: pair work, small group, large group and, particularly
important to translation classrooms, the workshop.
It is certain that instructors have a
tendency to shy away from group work in their classrooms due to the following perceived
drawbacks: instructors feel that less work is accomplished in a group format; there is a
higher noise level; some instructors believe that results taken in tests by individuals
after the group work have not been conclusive. If correct techniques of group work are not
applied, these perceived drawbacks quickly become reality. It is presently believed that
students interiorize the information acquired in well-organized group work quite
efficiently.
The correct technique begins with the
recognition of the three phases of any group work: pre-group, during-, and post-group
work. In the pre-group work phase, the instructor presents the material to the students: a
principle, a theory, or a concept. It must be added here that there is some discussion as
to whether students should be encouraged to discover facts themselves rather than be told.
It is this author's belief that basic theory, of translation, for example may be explained
to the students, and then practiced in a cooperative learning setting. Most university
instructors run on a tight schedule and literally cannot afford to give time to an
extraordinary amount of discovery learning. This does not mean that the social
construction approach cannot be used in the classroom; it cannot always be used. In the
second phase, students apply the information learned within the group format, and during
the third phase, the student is evaluated individually or is held accountable individually
for the work carried out in the group. The second principle is that students must be given
a role to play or a specific task to carry out during the group activity. This activity
must contribute to the work of the entire group. From a translation educator's point of
view, this would mean assigning one member the role of documentation; another would be
responsible for terminology, the actual translation, the editing, etc. The essential idea
is that the work of the group cannot be completed without the cooperation of all its
members and that all members are responsible for all the components in the final
evaluation. The third and final principle is that instructors should train their students
in the procedures of cooperative learning by first beginning with simple tasks in pairs,
followed by small group work and finally larger groups of 5-7 students, when applicable.
Conclusion: Professional
translators who wish to share their competence and their experience with university
students should be encouraged to do so; on-the-job pedagogical training is one way of
ensuring they enter the classroom equipped to do so efficiently.
References
Cangelosi, J. (2000). Classroom
management strategies, gaining and maintaining students'cooperation, 4th
ed. London: Longman.
Gerding-Salas, C. (2000). "Teaching
translation: problems and solutions" Translation Journal 4, n.3.
July, 1-11.
Green, T.D. (2000). "Responding and
sharing: techniques for energizing classroom Discussions" The Clearing House.
73, 16, July, p.331.
This article was originally published at
Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
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