Perceptions of Second-Year English Major Students at HUFI towards Cooperative Learning in Translation Course

Abstract

English majors at HUFI have to take a class on translation in their second year and the students of translation would do well to learn why different translation methods are used, as it is an important skill to be able to choose the best method for a given text. This study takes a co-operative learning approach to the question of how to educate future translators. Initial research has shown that when trying to translate from Vietnamese into English, students frequently employ inappropriate translation strategies. HUFI uses a method called "Co-operative Work Procedure" to implement an involvement in the teaching of translation in a translation course. This study was conducted by asking 100 2nd English major students to fill out an online survey of their opinions on whether or not they want to work in groups when doing translation work, and on some positive and negative feedback when they are asked to learn in groups or pairs. The research revealed that it was suitable for them to work in groups in the translation class and they really enjoyed working in larger groups of three to four members than smaller groups of two to three ones. However, from the students’ points of views, the students felt that the class became so noisy and some of their groupmates even did not contribute to the work of the group. The findings of this study could be considered by the teachers of translation for choosing one of the most appropriate teaching translation methods, which is called "Co-operative leaning".