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The use of translation in the teaching of English for international communication:
To be used or to be banned? That is the question

María Eugenia Falabella *
Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana (FUNIBER)

 

Resumen

Palabras clave Translation, english teaching

 

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Unfortunately, during the last years, the use of translation in the teaching of English as a language for international communication has not been considered favorably.  From the 70s, with the advent of communicative approaches and with all what the communicative theory of language and theory of learning have meant, the technique of translation has been regarded as a sort of reminiscence of the antique and pretty dreaded Grammar-Translation Method, so famous in the 1850s. Let us remember that through this method, students were asked to apply the rules of the foreign language in the translation of isolated sentences from the mother tongue to the target language. Inasmuch as this was the way translation was considered in those days, many contemporary adherents of communicative approaches consider it as a mere mental activity, which offers students no more than some kind of mathematical training far away from the idea of true communication, idea that is at the core of communicative approaches. On top of this, the use of translation in the EFL classroom has crashed against another idea, being this one that of learning the L2 by following an immersion methodology. The tenets backing up this approach to language teaching refer to the arguments of making use of the foreign language till the extent of totally prohibiting the use of the mother tongue. In other words, giving the student an extraordinary amount of exposure to the L2 to later pave the way for the assimilation of the new knowledge would directly lead him or her to step-by-step production.

“Classrooms in state schools all over the world were converted into English speaking communities, so that for 50 minutes, three times a week, students could be immersed in the English Language.
In these English classrooms, the mother tongue is not welcome, the mother tongue is banned.
For students, the English language classroom is an unnatural space. They are asked to attempt to communicate with their classmates in English, even though they can communicate very effectively in their mother tongue. For them, the English language classroom is not real life; it is a theatre, in which they are asked to pretend that they do
not know L1.” (Dawson, N. 2010: 1)

Over time, recent research has shown that in fact, if both, the teacher and the students do not consider translation as an end itself but as a means to an end, the development of communication is not going to be blocked but triggered. In consequence, translation –along with other disregarded techniques, such us dictation, reading aloud, the putting of practice of different and varied drills, among many others to be brought in mind- should be considered as another technique or tool within the communicative framework, having being confirmed that these ones –and focusing on translation in the EFL classroom, the topic of this paper-, has become a profitable and blooming aid to become an effective communicator, these days, in this global world. What we, educators, should always summon up is that though the technique is the same –I mean: translation is translation- there has been a change of paradigm as regards its use, as regards how to apply it into the EFL classroom setting. As Duff (1989) says, teachers and students now use translation to learn, rather than learning translation. In fact, this last one would be a topic for another area different from the one that gathers us all here, that is to say, the teaching and the learning process of a language different from the mother tongue. Considering Kaye’s beliefs and conceptions:

“Modern translation activities usually move from L1 to L2, (although the opposite direction can also be seen in lessons with more specific aims), have clear  communicative aims and real cognitive depth, show high motivation levels and can produce impressive communicative results. Many ELT teachers and theorists now see the validity and value of translation as an activity in communicative classrooms (although few course book writers offer ideas and materials for this area)” (Kaye, P. 2009)

I personally believe that after all the introductory interpretations and notions offered along with the preceding passages, it is appropriate to go a bit deeper not only in the analysis on the use of translation in the class scene, when dealing with English as an international language, but also, trying to give reasons for its consideration as an auspicious tool that may help communication. 

To begin with, the idea of being able to communicate in the foreign language, so popular within the framework of in CLT, or Communicative Language Teaching, is related to the concept of developing Communicative Competence (Hymes, 1972). “Communicative Competence is the knowledge which enables someone to use a language effectively and their ability to actually use this knowledge for communication.” (Johnson & Johnson. 1999: 63) In the 80s, Canale and Swain enlarged the meaning of this term, claiming that it is made up of sub-competences, namely: the grammatical competence (the mastery of the linguistic forms); the socio-linguist competence (the ability to use language appropriately); the discourse competence (using language coherently and cohesively); and the strategic competence (the ability to compensate for breakdowns in communication).

“Linguistic competence includes the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, semantics and phonology that have been the traditional focus of second language learning.
Discourse competence enables speakers to engage in continuous discourse, for example, by linking ideas in longer written texts, maintaining longer spoken turns, participating in interaction, opening conversations and closing them.
Sociolinguistic competence consists of knowledge of how to use language appropriately is social situations, for example, conveying suitable degrees of formality, directness and so on.
Strategic competence refers to the fact of being able to sort problem when communicating, thus being an effective communicator.”  (Hinkle, E. 2011: 546)

It has been thought that in order to become a competent communicator, that is to say, to master all the above sub-competences, students have to only use the foreign language, leaving aside the mother tongue. “There is a widely held belief that the best way to learn a foreign language is to go and immerse yourself in that language, to study with a native speaker teacher, live with a host family which doesn’t know your language and learn to survive in that linguistic environment.” (Dawson, N. 2010: 1) Nevertheless, it is now known that through the appropriate and adequate use of doses of translation during the foreign language lesson, students can negotiate meanings and concepts. “In this process, teachers and students try to convey information to one another and reach mutual comprehension through restating, clarifying, and confirming information. The teacher may help students get started or work through a stumbling block using linguistic and other approaches.” (http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/key_terms.html )

Through a meaningful exchange of ideas in order to check the meaning of words, phrases, etc., as the one shown in the example below, students will be avoiding, among other things, the fossilization of their interlanguage (Selinker, 1972),   that is to say, of the student’s linguistic system, which is emerging, approximating to the target language, though not fully proficient, yet, moving, step by step, towards the mastery of it, of that L2:

A: How do you say………..in English?
B You say……………

A: What’s the meaning of………………in Spanish?
B: It means…………………

As we clearly see in the dialogues above, there is an appropriate use of translation, without abusing it. The interlocutors, who could be a teacher and a student or two students, are discovering how to deal with a difficulty in communication when a pitfall comes across. Moreover, they are activating their previous knowledge in their mother tongue, relating it to its potential equivalent in the foreign language, which means we, teachers, would be helping them fostering their mental activity, their capacity of thinking critically and reflectively, falling into place of the way the two languages work in context.  Apart from this, undeniably, making use of translation in cases as the ones shown allows the class sequence and dynamics run smoothly, avoiding potential misunderstandings that could even lead to a state of total demotivation, ending up in disruptive behavior, for instance. Usually, we claim that our students’ declining discipline is the consequence of the freedom found at home, with parents who feel themselves not able to do anything with their kids. How about thinking about our classes and the way we plan our teaching sequences?

Lastly, if we ban the use of the L1, but at the same time we expect our students to be involved and solve really complex comprehension tasks when not having the necessary competence in the foreign language to do so, for sure, the outcome will not be the desired one. “Using L1 in the English language classroom should not be used to make the students think less. The use of L1 should encourage students to think more about L1 and English and how the two languages operate and describe the real world.” (Dawson, N. 2010: 3)

Just in order to round off this point and to fully contextualize it, let us remember that the idea of arousing the act of negotiation of meanings in the EFL classroom context, even through the pertinent and opportune use of translation as a tool is backed up by the interactionist view of language learning. In plain words, this view considers language as the means for interacting with other individuals, either in the oral or written medium. To initiate and to maintain conversations, for instance, would be the heart of the matter of this view, if considering and oral exchange and/or encounter. (Richards, J & T., Rodger. 1986)

Continuing with the analysis of the topic chosen for this paper and connecting the upcoming passages with the already developed ones, let us emphasize that  translation may help communication in an ELF setting when the teacher comes across difficult vocabulary to be explained.

It is supposed that when our students do not know a word in the foreign language, the teacher has to explain its meaning in English. This solution, which is a sort of negotiation of meanings, is not wrong unless we are dealing with too abstract words or concepts, or even idioms, for instance. In those cases, a simple translation would save time, favouring the smooth flowing of communication –as is has been already explained in the above section-, as well as reassuring both the teacher and the students about the fact that concepts have been fully understood, specially, if we are teaching beginners –kids or adults- or young learners. What is what we, educators, should always consider when dealing with language and or languages all at once?

That when translation time comes up, the focus should undoubtedly be on the translation on meanings and not in the translation of isolated words. And, why? Because language is discourse, and for understanding this, not only is it necessary to refer to the passages explaining the concept of communicative competence and negotiation of meanings, but also to go deeper, referring to Widdowson’s words:

“What we do when we produce discourse is to provide as many clues as we think necessary for the satisfactory conveyance of our meanings: we do not express everything we mean. Indeed, it is probably impossible to do this even if it were necessary. But it is not necessary. We inevitably rely on common knowledge. We make assumptions about what the person we are addressing can infer from what we say. If we judge correctly and make the right assumptions, then the person being addressed will be able to reconstitute our meanings on the basis of the clues we provide and with reference to the knowledge he shares with us.
Of course, this knowledge does not necessarily mean that what the discourse producer creates will be the same as what the discourse receiver recreates. Apart from the fact that the latter may miss or misinterpret certain clues, his purpose in processing the discourse may not require him to recover all the meaning that the producer intends. These points have relevance for the definition of the language skills.” (1978: 31-32)

Moreover, translation is one of all the tools we can take profit from in EFL situations where monolingual classes and the use of the mother tongue is almost unavoidable. As it was stated throughout the development of this paper under analysis, as teachers, we need to understand that when we talk about translation, we do not mean just to transfer the meaning of one word or phrase from the source language to the target one. Translation goes beyond the boundaries of word or sentence level (word to word translation does not usually work due to the fact that each language is a complete system in its own)

Translation encompasses the idea of understanding, the ultimate goal of interpreting messages within a particular cultural context (Widdowson, H. 1978), pushing students to think about aspects of both, L1 and L2. In consequence, we should consider it hand in hand with the teaching of social and cultural aspects related to the target language, as well as the linguistic ones, in comparison to those of the mother tongue. Human beings have language as their ultimate tool for communicating among themselves, and that's why it bears a complex relationship with culture and identity. Claire Kramsch (1998: 3-5) adheres to this concept, considering that language “expresses cultural reality” since it is the main means whereby culture is passed on from generation to generation. All this means that translation should be seen from the perspective of interdisciplinary approaches to language teaching, through which it is used as a process, as a means to an end, rather than as the product of the activity itself. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind what Atkinson (1987) once said, that in cases where English is a foreign language and not a second one, the key point is to use and not to abuse the mother tongue.

Last but not least, translation may help communication if we bear in mind that for many learners, it could be a kind of learning strategy, that is to say, those methods and or techniques any student uses to learn and that can be socialized and shared, implicitly, during the usual development of the lesson, or explicitly, through the conscious planning of the appropriate teaching sequence to deal with them. “Strategies are the tools for active, self-directive involvement that is necessary for developing communicative activity (…) Strategies are not a single event, but rather a creative sequence of events that learner actively use.” (Oxford, R. 1996: X)
Not all the students do learn in the same way. Some of them need to listen to the new item many times before using it communicatively; others need to carry out practice activities to try what they have just learnt; and others, mainly teenagers and adults, who already have a vast knowledge of their own world in their mother tongue, may need translation.

Through it, they would be constantly contrasting and comparing the way the two languages –the mother tongue and the target language- work, improving the awareness of all the differences exiting between the two languages, L1 and L2, thus, making him or her realize that in general, there is no one-to-one equivalence between two languages but just certain features in common.  This awareness-raising activity would help students for example, gaining confidence in the foreign language, and in consequence, fostering their communicative competence, as well as getting students to start thinking about languages as separate, complete systems rather than words that can change from one language to another.

Just not to leave my comments into the theoretical ground, I would like to mention some of Jim Scrivener’s exercises from his famous book “Learning Teaching” (2005). One of them is called “English Whisper” and it goes in this way:

Seven students have to form a row. The first student in it takes a card with a typical phrase in English, like for example: “Could you spare a moment, please?” He has to whisper that phrase to the second student, but this second student, in turn, has to whisper that phrase to the third student in their mother tongue. The game goes on in this way, until the end of the row. Finally, both the first student and the last one say their phrases aloud, the further in English and the latter in the mother tongue.  In this way, students will be comparing and contrasting languages communicatively and meaningfully, as well as in a funny and amusing form.

As claimed and even exemplified till now, the use of translation is surrounding by a bunch of benefits, and I’ll come back to them. However, we cannot be blind at the pieces of criticism that we can encounter. The heart of the matter would be to be able to develop a critical and reflective point of view to argue against them or to show agreement.

Let us picture in mind a usual First Certificate class.  This imaginary group could be made up of fifteen students, more or less, aged between fifteen and eighteen years old. As most of them, probably,  have been attending English lessons for a period of ten years, for sure, they would be really used to attending lessons twice or thrice a week during ninety minutes each.

Have you thought about the disadvantages and drawbacks of using translation with such a group, a group which is about to sit for one of the most famous international examinations? Well, there are some and here I go to deal with them.

Usually, the scenario for these classes characterizes by finding colorful, lively posters and banners with the phrase “Don’t break the rule!” That expression refers to the idea that it is completely forbidden to speak the students’ mother tongue, during the lesson, for both, the students and the teachers. When asking why, that is to say, what the reason underlying this rule is, the headmistress as well as the coordinators would probably answer that this is the only possible way a student learns to speak a foreign language and to think in English, too. I believe that the following quotation sums up the ideas put forward by this imaginary institute: “The main objection to translate as a teaching device has been that it interposes an intermediate process between the concept and the way it is expressed in the foreign language, thus hindering the development of the ability to think directly in the foreign language” (Rivers & Temperley. 1976: X)
Now, the question is: is it possible to think in a language different from your mother tongue? Some authors are in favor of this position, claiming that learning a language is not just to learn how to read, to write, to speak or to listen to it, but also to learn how to think in it, that is exploring the field of “inner speech” or silent self -directed speaking, which enables the faculty to think words and is the main instrument for verbal thought.

On the contrary, other authorities consider that “inner speech” originates throughout the development of L1 social discourse in childhood, nurturing our cognitive structures in such a way that it is impossible to think, to deeply reason in the target language –this is, somehow, the position taken by Paul Seligson (2013), for example, who has stated this is one of the many myths when coming to talk about the use of the mother tongue in class.- Clearly, there is room for more research, mainly in the field of SLA, and probably the answer is to be found the philosophical field…

So, coming back to the drawback shown, as it is seen,  as a teacher in that situation, I could be  between the devil and the deep blue sea, due the fact that though I know about the advantages of using translation, I could  be severely punished if I am heard using it during my classes. Don’t you feel identify with this description? Don’t you think it is more common than expected, unfortunately? Food for thought…

Another argument against the use of translation in an imaginary setting as the one depicted is connected to its overuse. If the teacher abuses the device of translation instead of using it, it could become a problem. In most of the countries around the world and as set in the title for this paper, English is a foreign language, a lingua franca, a langue for international communication. “English has become the world lingua franca. Projections are showing us that in the next few years “there could be around 2 billion people learning English in many different contexts around the world” (Graddol, 2006: 100). Due to this fact, the only encounter many students have got with the target language is either at school,  at the private institution they go to learn English, or in a scene which is not a native-like one. “English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising” (Graddol, 1997: 2) In consequence, if as a teacher, I spend most of the lesson speaking Spanish, what is the aim of being a teacher of English? Getting balanced is the key point as you may see.

At the same time, many could be the arguments in favour of the use of the translation technique in the imaginary working situation and with the imaginary group described some passages above. I’ve mentioned many, already, so now, let us put them within a certain scene.

Though many teachers may argue that by this stage, that is to say, at a First Certificate level, translation is not necessary at all due to the great amount of communicative competence students have gained till now, I do not think so. I am quite sure that even at this level, translation is a very useful tool. At a First Certificate stage, students come across a great deal of more idioms and phrasal verbs than in the previous years, which are of difficult comprehension. Because of this, and taking into consideration that this group would be about to sit for their final international exam, I consider that translation would be extremely good for those students to give them the right meaning of the new items introduced, when necessary, without blocking communication and the negotiation of meaning, as theoretically argued, here, in this work. Clearly, in this way, we would be considering translation within what has been described as interdisciplinary approach to the teaching and the learning of a foreign language. In other words, translation would not mean to transfer the meaning of one word or expression from the mother tongue to the foreign language. Translation would mean to understand messages within a certain context and a cultural framework.

It is quite important to compare and contrast linguistic structures during the lesson, and to check students’ options and to discuss them with the teacher and with the rest of the students because, even though a text or an expression may be correctly translated from one language to the other, the resulting text may be not appropriate for the student’s cultural situation and social context. Paying special attention, no doubt, all this relates to the famous distinction between usage and use proposed by Henry Widdowson in 1978. For him, a learner of a foreign language may produce correct sentences (usage) which are not appropriately used taking into consideration a certain context.

Another point to take into account is that one related to the students’ age. Let us remember that the group I have imagined and figured is made up of teenagers. As such, they are extremely ashamed and do not like being exposed to the rest or made their mistakes a public matter. They are less prone to take risks in the foreign language in comparison to younger students. If I avoid the use of translation to negotiate meanings with them during the lessons, a terribly negative atmosphere may be created, demotivating students, increasing their affective filter (Krashen, S. 1985) thus, blocking the development of the students’ interlanguage. So, it is quite appropriate to use translation in a situation as the one described. What do you think?

In conclusion, the idea of considering translation as an incorrect technique when teaching English as a foreign language is a mistake.  Of course it will become a sort of lethal weapon if it is not used but abused. Nevertheless, it is time to begin to consider it as another useful tool in the foreign language classroom, which may foster, facilitate and help the development of communication in our students. I would like to finish my exposition with Widdowson’s ideas about the topic under analysis: “I want to argue that translation…can be a very useful pedagogic device and indeed in some circumstances …translation of a kind may provide the most effective means of learning (1978:101)”

 

Bibliografía

Atkinson, D. 1987. The Mother Tongue in the Classroom: a neglected resource? In ELT Journal 41/4

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Dawson, N. 2010.  L1 in the EFL classroom: The truth. Harrogate Project 2010.

Graddol, D. 1997. The Future of English? London: British Council.

Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. London: British Council

Hinkel, E. 2011. Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Volumen 2. Routeledge

Johnson, K. & H. Johnson. 1999. Encyclopedic dictionary of applied linguistics: a handbook for language teaching. Blackwell Publishing

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Kramsch, C. 1998. Language and Culture. Oxford: OUP.

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Oxford, R. 1996.  Language learning strategies around the world: cross-cultural perspectives. Oxford. OUP

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Rivers, W. & M. S. Temperley.  1978. A practical guide to the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. Oxford. OUP

Scrivener, J. 2005. Learning teaching: a guidebook for English language teachers. Macmillan

Seligson, P. (2013). Interview with Paul Seligson, to Liverpool Online, found at http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2013/sessions/2013-04-09/interview-paul-seligson. Lastly retrieved: May, 22nd 2013

Teaching Foreign Languages K-12. Glossary. (On line) Retrieved from:  http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/key_terms.html

Widdowson, H. 1978. Teaching English as Communication. Oxford. OUP

 

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* María Eugenia Falabella: Egresada de la Universidad de Jaén y docente universitaria del Campus FUNIBER. Actualmente también colabora como Directora de Tesis de estudiantes de la Universidad de Jaén.