Vertaistuesta virtaa opetukseen

Abstract

While translation research has frequently listed what competences translation teachers should possess, little attention has been paid to how teachers can acquire such competences and develop them further. To address this gap, the present article first charts the competences required and outlines the forms of support available for developing teaching skills, focusing on peer mentoring and virtual/blended professional communities. The article then introduces an interactive wiki database of teaching methods for Finnish translation teachers and analyses it conceptually, as an example of a blended community for peer mentoring. The analysis explores how the database contributes to sharing tacit knowledge, to what extent the benefits and risks of a blended community apply to the database, and what its future looks like. The results indicate that the database shares many characteristics of peer mentoring and a blended community. As such, the database is less susceptible to issues of trust or free-riders than a purely virtual community, but its future may also be contingent on opportunities for real-life workshops and the members’ interest in them. At the moment, however, the future looks promising.