Language, Linguistics and Translation Seminar - Dr Mira Kim

An autonomous project-based approach to advanced language learning

All welcome! 

While the imbalance in translation students’ language competence in their respective working languages has long been a topic in the field of translator education, little experimental or classroom-based research has been undertaken on this issue to date (Kim 2012).  Highlighting that ‘given the prominence in translating of language skills, relatively little has been written about language teaching for translators’, Malmkjær (2004: 4) calls for research to ‘mold language teaching in such a way that the needs of prospective translators are catered for directly’. With this background in mind, I developed a course in 2011 for MA students in the interpreting and translation studies program at the University of New South Wales entitled Advanced Bilingual Enhancement. This course has since been offered every year. Drawing on socio-cultural theory (SCT), the course aims to provide an opportunity for students to individually address their own linguistic needs. Thus it does not allow students to sit back and passively wait for knowledge to be transferred to them but requires them to identify the specific linguistic skills they want to develop further. Based on a needs analysis conducted at the outset of the course, students develop their own autonomous language project and implement the project over a few weeks before reporting their achievements  to the class at the end of the semester. In this talk, I would like to introduce the course design, explain its rationale and discuss pedagogical benefits and challenges on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected over three years. The discussion should benefit any language teachers and particularly those who are interested in developing methods for advanced language learners.

References

Kim, M. (2012) ‘Research on Translator and Interpreter Education, in C. Millan-Varela & F. Bartrina (eds),The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 102-116.

Malmkjær, K. (ed.) (2004) Translation in Undergraduate Degree Programmes, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.