translation

TRANSLATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION: A NEGLECTED DIDACTIC PROCEDURE

Throughout decades of foreign language (L2) teaching, the role of the first language (L1) in the classroom. A long-term and wideranging debate persists regarding practical and theoretical question about significance of the L1’s obvious influence on the L2 being learned.

1.      Historical use of the L1 in L2 instruction

For more than a century most approaches to L2 instruction recognized the L1’s role in L2 language pedagogy, but most methods dictated that it shoul be prohibited in the classroom. Only the Grammar Translation Method of the early 20^th century fully embraced the use of the L1 in the L2 classroom. Subsequent methods that appeared around the mid-20^th century obligated the near total use of the L2 to teach the L2. The procedure of contrastive analysis was employed to identify the L1 structures that interfered with L2 production so that errors could be eliminated throughout practice (Brown 2000). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, New approaches to language learning also considered the use of the L1 as undersirable.

2.      Language learners and interlanguage

The contrastive analysis position offered more sophisticated description of the connection between the L1 and the L2. Studies indicated that in addition to negative language transfer, benefit from being exposed to the structural similarities of both language.These research result softened the absolute contrastive analysis position and led to a broader study of error analysis. A new term interlanguage was coined to define the complex developing system of the learners L2 that was influencedby positive and negative transfer from the L1, in conjuction with their developing knowledge of the L2 itself (Brown 2000).

3.      An electic approach

Many of these elements come together in Communicative Language Teaching, an approach that incorporates effective L2 communication, meaningful activities, and high motivation achieved through attention to learners needs and preferences. Many teachers recognized that the L1 in the classroom is a positive representation of interlanguage. The language teaching community still have reservations about using the L1 in the L2 classroom, objecting to it on the grounds that it limits exposure to the target language, and keeps students thinking in their L1.

4.      Current use of the L1 in the L2 classroom

Teaching method today consider materials and activities that are relevan to students and take their needs and learning styles into account in order to achieve higher motivation. The L1 in the L2 classroom, it is important to find out how students themselves feel about it. Other instances when the use of L1 may be useful include:

1.      Explaining the meanings of unfamiliar words and expression

2.      Clearing up difficult grammatical issues

3.      Teaching pronunciation

4.      Explaining reading strategies

5.      Giving instructions for tasks

5.      Translation in the L2 classroom

A special classroom use of the L1 is the translation of L2 texts into the L1, a procedure that has been neglegted, possibly because of its association with the old Grammar Translation Methods (Owen 2003; Tuck 1998). Translation can also be used as a productive means to learn new L2 vocabulary. There are many other activities to use with translation that successfully raise about the L2. The following principles support the use of translation for L2 acquisition:

1.      Translation uses authentic materials

2.      Translation is interactive

3.      Translation is learned-centered

4.      Translation promotes learner autonomy

For these reason and more, translation is now considered an acceptable procedure for the Communicative Approach to language teaching (Bonyadi 2003).

6.      The purpose of post-reading activities

Post-reading activities give students the opportunity to review, summarize, and react to raeding passage. The following techniques are often used for this purpose:

1.      A multiple-choice question is a statement or question usually followed by four option.

2.      A true or false question contain a statement that learners mark as either true or false.

3.      A short answer question requires the learner to produce a brief response to a question.

4.      Summary writing requires the students to express in writing a texts main ideas and conclusion in a specified number of words or paragraphs.

7.      Translation as a post-reading procedure

A particular way to use translation is as a post-reading procedure to evaluate students comprehension of a text. The specific details and main ideas of a translated text, especially those that may not have been correctly understood by students.

8.      Translation covers all textual elements

Translation necessitates the close reading of the entire passage, which provides valuable information for the instructor. Translation can improve comprehension since it encourages the students to read a passage carefully and precisely at the word, sentence, and text levels. Appropriately designed tasks for different ages and proficiency levels can help learners become familiar with different features of literary, scientific, and technical texts.

9.      Translation does not production in the L2 require

At beginning levels, techniques such as multiple-choice and true or false question are good tasks to assess reading comprehension because they do not require oral production of responses in the L2. The kind of response students give, and the quality of the response too. The L2 can lead to production problems and therefore not accurately assess a students actual reading comprehension. These problems are avoided in translation, which does not require production in the L2.

10.  Translation provides a data source for other testing techniques

Another benefit from translation is that it can provide the teacher with a pool of incorrect words, phrases, and sentences for multiple-choice distractors, true or false incorrect statements, and short answer question. The test developer often resorts to guesswork in determining what might be misunderstood in a reading. A supply of incorrectly translated words, phrases, and sentences, teachers do not need to resort to testing spelling and punctuation, or eye-tricks and invalid items that tap language skills other than comprehension.

11.  Exsample of a translation task

The data was gathered from a group of third semester Arabic speaking university students majoring in English who translated a text of 15 sentences from English into Arabic as a post-reading task. The following ten incorrect renderings in Arabic:

1.      Both of them join the main road.

2.      Both of them touch the general government.

3.      Both of them require a strong relationship with people.

4.      Both of them have contact with the public transport.

5.      Both of them are connected to the main roads.

6.      Both of them are related to the public places.

7.      Both of them require a communication with people.

8.      Both of them involve close friction in general.

9.      Both of them require closed communication with the nation.

10.  Both of them lead to closure communication with people.

The translation problems as local errors, which minimally interfere with comprehension, and global errors, which strongly interfere with comprehension (Brown 2000). In addition to class discussion and group activities, there are fruitful opportunities for demonstration on how to use dictionaries, synonym finders, and other resources.

12.  Important guidelines for using translation

The following guidelines are important for teachers who paln to use translation in the classroom:

1.      Understanding that multilingual classrooms are not ideal.

2.      Plan for revision.

3.      Learn error analysis.

4.      Limit error correction.

5.      Use translation judiciously.

6.      Give positive backwash.

Conclusion

L2 learners customarily rely on their L1, aspecially in acquisition-poor environments where exposure to the L2 is confined to a few hours per week of formal classroom instruction. For amny teachers and students, the use of L1 is a learning and communication strategy that can be used in the classroom for various purposes, such as to explain difficult concept.