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Teaching approaches: translation as a languagelearning tool

Author: Tim BowenLevel: starter/beginner, advanced, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate Type: reference material

An article discussing the benefits of translation as a language learningtool.

Translation has not always enjoyed a good press. Indeed, at the height of what wecan call the "communicative" period, it was actively discouraged by manypractitioners and regarded as a hindrance to second language fluency rather than anaid to language learning. In the brave new world of the Communicative Approach,translation (and the use of the mother tongue in general) came to be regarded as arelic of the past, a symbol of the bad old days of Grammar Translation, an echo of

those long forgotten secondary school lessons when paragraphs of English prosewere translated into Latin for no apparent purpose other than as an intellectualexercise.

Such a view, however, takes no account of individual learning styles. Some learnersappear to need to be able to relate lexis and structures in the target language toequivalents in their mother tongue. This also gives them the opportunity to comparesimilarities and contrast differences. Put simply, they need the reassurance of theirmother tongue in order to make sense of the way the target language operates. In

the case of teachers, an ability to translate into the mother tongue of the learners canoffer a convenient and efficient way out of a tricky situation why bother to spend tenminutes trying to explain the concept behind a particular utterance when a simpletranslation can achieve the same goal in seconds? For example, it is quite difficult toget across the meaning of useful, everyday expressions such as "As far as . isconcerned, " or "On the other hand . ". Learning target language equivalents tokey phrases like these in the mother tongue can be an extremely effective way tobuild up a good working vocabulary. Translation can also be extremely creative. It isnot only the translation of words from one language to another but the translation of

ideas, concepts and images.

Some of the resistance to translation amongst certain teachers might stem from thekind of exercise they were required to do when language learners themselves. Dull,overlong, uncommunicative texts that were difficult to translate into the targetlanguage did little for motivation. But why should translation involve whole texts?Surely it is more relevant (and practical) to start with short, communicative pieces oflanguage. When teaching grammatical structures, it can be very useful to check withyour learners that they have fully grasped the concept of the language taught by

asking them to translate into their mother tongue. As a checking stage, this couldusefully come at the end of the lesson. The structure used in "If I had worked harder,I would have passed the exam", for example, is relatively complex and a quicktranslation check can avoidmisunderstandings.

An illuminating exercise is to divide your class into two groups, give each group ashort text (3 4 sentences) to translate into the target language Then get the groups

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