- The return of translation
The return of translation
‘Translating,’ wrote Guy Cook (2010) recently, ‘should be a major aim and means of language learning, and a major measure of success… […] This argument is a major break with tradition. (Cook, p.xv) The postings in this blog all support Cook’s first statement, but his suggestion that this is a ‘major break with tradition’ is questionable. In 2003, Widdowson wrote that ‘translation has been too long in exile’. V. Cook and L. Cameron (both in 2001), Gabrielatos in 1998, Paul Nation in 1997, Medgyes in 1994, H. H. Stern in 1992, Rinvolucri in 1990, D. Atkinson and Julian Edge in 1987, Ian Tudor in 1986, Rod Bolitho in 1983 and Wilga Rivers in 1975 (among many others) all echoed this sentiment. In short, there is a long and healthy academic tradition of arguing for the use of L1 in the foreign language classroom. For an excellent survey of the field, check out Hall & Cook’s state-of-the-art survey article, ‘Own language use in language teaching and learning’ in Language Teaching, 45, (2012) pp 271 – 308.
Despite my quibble, Cook has a point. As he points out, it ‘has been treated as a pariah in almost all the fashionable high-profile language teaching theories of the 20th century – so much so that towards the end of that century, other than at university level, it was no longer discussed in the academic literature as a serious candidate for aiding the learning of a new language.’ It continues to be ignored in many teacher training courses and its ‘potential as a resource has been cramped and distorted by the guilt and prohibitions that have accompanied its use’ (Luke Prodromou, intro to Dellar & Rinvolucri, p.5).
Classroom translation practices have often been held up for ridicule, referred to as dull and demotivating. Nord (quoted by Zojer in Witte et al, p.42) has coined the phrase ‘And now who will take the first sentence’ to describe the bundle of bad practices involving translation that are cited to show us how things should not be done.
But there are plenty of alternatives to such ‘bad practices’ – as I hope to show below.
Source: Copied from the link below on May 10th , 2013 at 11:52 pm
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