Building translation competence of translation students through supporting courses: A suggested writing course at the university level

Abstract

Building translation competence is an issue of key concern to translation programmes at university level. To achieve this objective, a host of factors should be considered. This study aims at suggesting a writing course which is supposed to be a supporting course to the major ones on practical translation at the Department of Translation, College of Languages, University of Duhok in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The study dealt with the problem of teaching the writing course among other courses with no relevance to the building of translation competence. To design a relevant writing course, the study posed two questions which are related to the reason behind teaching writing in the department in the first place and how this course should be taught. The researcher defined her writing course objective through examining the department’s mission, vision, and objectives, as well as institutional and non-linguistic constraints. The approach decided on is Task-Based Language Learning together with its theory of language and theory of learning. The study also tackled the instructional design in terms of syllabus, types of learning, and teaching activities. Finally, the procedure explained how the theoretical issues can be put into actual practice in the classroom. The study questions were answered. Writing is taken to be a supporting course that aims at building the student’s bilingual sub-competence and extralinguistic sub-competence with the ultimate objective of building translation competence with the help of the other major courses on translation.