The application of consciousness-raising in teaching translation in a Vietnamese tertiary English language program

Abstract

The study explores the application of consciousness-raising (CR), an effective teaching method in language teaching, into teaching translation. In language teaching, CR involves an attempt to draw students’ attention to textual features. Studies present diverse evidence for the effectiveness of CR in language teaching. The current study incorporates CR in workshops on translation and investigates whether students are aware of specific aspects of the translation process after the workshops. The methodology was based on a contrastive examination of a qualitative analysis of students’ written and spoken reflections on the translation tasks and students’ translation solutions both before and after the workshops. The study demonstrated that after the workshops, the students commented on some text features that had been introduced which they had not expressed awareness of before the workshops. The students also showed an awareness of some translation strategies, such as foreignisation and domestication, that were taught during the workshops even though they did not use all of these when completing the post-workshop translation task. Students noticed and applied features that were less complex and more salient. This paper presents the practical implications of the study for translation material development and curriculum design within the research context as well as similar language programs.