Translation in language teaching - an argument for reassessment.

1
Translation in language teaching - an argument
for reassessment.

• Guy Cook

2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
in-shâ'-llâh

• in if shâ' wish llâh God.
• If wishes God
• By the will of God
• God Willing
• Perhaps
• in-shâa al modarris (?? ??? ??????)if the
  teacher wants

5
Sil vous plaît

• If it you pleases.
• If it pleases you.
• If you please
• Please
• si le vin vous plaît (If you like the wine),
  etc.

6

• Historical
• Scientific
• Educational
• Pedagogic

7
Grammar Translation

• Vocabulary lists
• Grammar explanations
• Translation exercises
• Incremental
• Written
• Accuracy

8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
The businessman
Henry Sweet 1845-1912
The academic
11
Expediency, commerce and politics

• multilingual classes
• monolingual teachers
• single print runs
• national interests

12
English Language Teaching
Cross lingual Teaching (translation, L1
explanations)
Intralingual Teaching (aka The Direct Method)
1900
Form Focus (L2 explanation synthetic syllabus)
Meaning focus (analytic syllabuses natural
approach,,CLT task based teaching)
1970
2009
13

• Historical
• Scientific
• Educational
• Pedagogic

14
Another factor lending credence to the
noninterventionist case, in this instance by
default, is the diminishing credibility of many
traditional instructional alternatives.
Grammatical syllabi, linguistically simplified
teaching materials, explicit grammar
explanations, immediate forced student
production, pattern practice, translation, error
correction, and other widely used teaching
devices are often asserted by their advocates to
account for classroom language learning success.
Attested by the ratios of beginners and false
beginners to finishers, however, the same
phenomena are more frequently associated with
failure, suggesting that the successful students
may learn through them or in spite of them, not
necessarily because of them. (Long and Robinson
1998)
15

• Interference/ transfer
• Lack of automaticity
• Word-for-wordism

16

Unfortunately, empirical work on the effect of
translation exercises on L2 learners morphosyntax
is scant. Källkvist (2008)
To our knowledge, no research has examined the
value of contrastive FFI Form Focused
Instruction of vocabulary, such as interlingual
comparisons with learners L1, or translation.
Laufer and Girsai (2008)
17
You are right - translation is given little
attention by SLA researchers. The only exception
is that translation is sometimes used as an
elicitation tool to obtain L2 data. As such it
is viewed sceptically because it is likely to
encourage L1 transfer and thus to overstate the
role this plays in L2 acquisition. Translation
is seen as an aspect of L2 use rather than L2
acquisition.Rod Ellis (personal communication)
18
SLA researchers seem to have neglected the fact
that the goal of SLA is bilingualism Sridhar
and Sridhar (19865)
19
while in the classroom the teachers try to keep
the two languages separate, the learners in their
own minds keep the two in contact. (Widdowson
2003150)
20
How well do these analyses succeed in generating
precise predictions for patterns in language
learning? Can we use these predictions to
improve language learning? (MacWhinney 2006
734)
21

• Historical
• Scientific
• Educational
• Pedagogic

22
Educational Philosophies

• Academic
• Technological
• Social-reformist
• Humanistic

23
The reason for the large numbers of students
taking English was given frankly by a somewhat
disaffected instructor many of the students
proposed to end up working for airlines, or
banks, in which English was worldwide lingua
franca... You learned English to use computers,
respond to orders, transmit telexes, decipher
manifests, and so forth. (Edward Said 1993369)
www.nndb.com
24

• relationships
• families
• communities
• work
• international stage

25
However, speaking English enables parents to
converse with their children in English, as well
as in their historic mother tongue, at home and
to participate in wider modern culture. It helps
overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils
generational relationships. In as many as 30 of
Asian British households, according to the recent
citizenship survey, English is not spoken at
home. But let us be clear that lack of English
fluency did not cause the riots. (David
Blunkett What does citizenship mean today? The
Observer September 15, 2002)
26
ledio.veseli.org
27
www.thosebastards.com
28
www.vec.ca
29
One nation, one people, one language
30
One classroom, one learner, one language
31

• I dont understand when people are going around
  worrying about we need to have English Only.
  They want to pass a law we want English Only.
  Now I agree that immigrants should learn English.
  But understand this. Instead of worrying about
  whether immigrants can learn English. Theyll
  learn English. You need to make sure your child
  can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about
  how can your child become bilingual.

32

• Covert v Overt Translation (House)
• Invisible v Visible Translators (Venuti)
• Intervention (Munday)

33
Just translate!
34

• Historical
• Scientific
• Educational
• Pedagogic

35
I will say that I have taken a strong stand
against any use of the L1 in an L2 classroom, and
all my TESL students know that if they ever utter
a word of Bahasa Malaysia in the classroom I will
burst into their classroom and strangle them in
front of their students. (Interview data, Marcia
Fisk-Ong 2003)
36

• I haven't heard of any data-based L2 motivation
  studies that used L1 use in the classroom as a
  motivational variable.
• (Zoltan Dornyei, personal communication)

37

• .putting students at ease, conveying teacher's
  empathy and, in general, creating a less
  threatening atmosphere. (Canagarajah 1999
  132).

38

• At this point I was truly concerned about his
  feelings and unconsciously switched to English,
  the language that, quite frankly, was the most
  real for all of us (.....) The point is that my
  concern about my students as individuals, as
  human beings, at times transcends my concern for
  with L2 acquisition process.
• Edstrom (2006)

39

• The research evolved from the personal
  experience of my return to the foreign language
  classroom as an adult. (.) I attended Spanish as
  a foreign language classes at two universities in
  Texas, and although I made excellent grades, it
  was a disappointing, discouraging experience.
  (.) This began the very first day of class when
  the teacher spoke only Spanish. I felt I had
  walked into the second act of a three act play,
  or that I had gotten into the wrong classroom. I
  had enrolled in a beginning class because I
  wanted to learn the language, so of course I
  could not understand anything the teacher was
  saying, and wondering why she acted as if I
  should was worrisome, making an already stressful
  situation even more so. (....)
• (Brooks-Lewis 2009)

40

• As I became ever more uncomfortable with
  subjecting the people I was working with to
  experiences I had found disquieting and
  disillusioning I began to analyze my own learning
  experiences and those from teaching.
• (Brooks-Lewis 2009)

41

• confidence and organization
• explicit knowledge
• avoidance avoidance
• not falling for faux amis
• acknowledging student expertise
• linking new to existing knowledge

42
Translation and bilingual teaching

• has no sound scientific evidence against it
• makes pedagogic sense
• Is relevant and useful

43
Translation and bilingual teaching

• develops a needed skill
• promotes bilingual identity
• draws upon students knowledge rather than
  treating them as children
• promotes a conscious meta-knowledge
• acknowledges that languages reflect the values of
  their speakers
• is a natural, authentic, effective teaching and
  learning strategy for those aiming to become
  bilingual

44
Direct Method

• The Soviet Union of Language Teaching?