Abstract

This paper reviews three attempts to incorporate technology-enabled online volunteer translation communities into language teaching in formal education. Through taking part in these communities, participants can develop many important skills, including digital, participatory, and information literacy, alongside improving their language skills and acquiring knowledge of translation and subtitling. Despite the challenges, an open pedagogy that connects learners with communities outside the classroom offers valuable opportunities to engage learners in meaningful tasks that add value to society, and relates well to a project-based, situated, and experiential pedagogy. Through an action research process, several activity designs for using TED Translators in language and translation education were implemented, evaluated, and refined to offer learners and teachers effective ways of engaging with this rich resource. An overview of the opportunities and challenges is presented, including ethical considerations of using open online communities in formal language education.

Highlights

  • There is great potential in the learning opportunities afforded by these communities as part of learner-directed informal learning and in more formal educational contexts (Wikipedia Education Program, 2012)

  • Besides the chance to engage students in a meaningful, real-world task that makes a visible contribution to society, working with these open communities fits well with an open pedagogy (Beetham, Falconer, McGill, & Littlejohn, 2012) based on project-based, situated, and experiential principles (González-Davies & Enríquez-Raído, 2016; Kiraly, 2016)

  • This brief paper examines the potential of using these communities in formal educational contexts whilst acknowledging the challenges, as the rigid schedules of formal education rarely match the more relaxed and unpredictable rhythms of volunteer activities

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Summary

Introduction

Technology has made possible the creation of online communities in which participants engage in voluntary activities to produce and consume content. Besides the chance to engage students in a meaningful, real-world task that makes a visible contribution to society, working with these open communities fits well with an open pedagogy (Beetham, Falconer, McGill, & Littlejohn, 2012) based on project-based, situated, and experiential principles (González-Davies & Enríquez-Raído, 2016; Kiraly, 2016). This brief paper examines the potential of using these communities in formal educational contexts whilst acknowledging the challenges, as the rigid schedules of formal education rarely match the more relaxed and unpredictable rhythms of volunteer activities

Ways of working with TED Translators
Results and discussion
Conclusions
Full Text
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