Marbelle Yuleny Rodriguez

Translation Does Not Help Students to Develop Communication Skills

Translation is an important part of English language teaching, but it has been put aside, thanks to the methodologies, strategies, skills and resources that have been created and developed for the learning of this language. Since it does not contribute to a total learning, because it does not help students to develop their skills, such as writing, reading and speaking, since reading in English has been a little complex, due to the texts, words and long sentences that are there find in the middle of this learning. Since for a student, who is learning a second language, it is impossible to read texts or extensive words; but strategies have been created, and methods to address the problem of reading difficulty. Such as training students in intensive reading, scanning the texts, summarizing them, verifying them and monitoring the comprehension that students have, about certain texts, and the translation does not allow the student to act with autonomy; denying students that they know the two simultaneous ways of processing a text: from top to bottom and from bottom to top, to memorize the words, to analyze and interpret them.

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And in writing we find something very similar, this being a fundamental skill, since each letter and word is what leads to the productivity of speaking, having a series of rules, which must be respected, in order to have a good writing, where you can practice, with summaries, sentences, phrases. Being like objective to gather some skills for an excellent writing, appeasing the errors and the bad design of a good text, but at the moment of using the translation, it refuses to students think that the words and structures are English, that they do not need to translate, since you can think in English, and have a focus for a few hours that everything is in English. Therefore, increase the students' awareness of the nature, in order to have a perfect communication.

“The studies that have tackled commonly made criticisms (e.g. translation teaches learners about language, and doesn’t really help them learn how to use it, or that it fosters the excessive use of the mother tongue) have demonstrated that these objections are justified only if translation practice amounts to the regular combination of grammar rules with translation into the target language as the principle practice technique. They have also shown that if properly designed, translation activities can be employed to enhance the four skills and develop accuracy, clarity and flexibility (Duff 1989:7). As regards the use of the native language, its effect on language acquisition has been the subject of many debates lately. Addressing the issues connected with it is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it suffices to say that teachers should constantly bear in mind that in an EF situation L1 ought to be employed judiciously” (Popovic).

References

Irena Darginavičienė, V. N. (n.d.). USE OF NATIVE LANGUAGE IN LEARNING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. [PDF] Retrieved from http://journals.ku.lt/index.php/tiltai/article/viewFile/1104/pdf

Kavaliauskienė, G. (2010). THE BUCKINGHAM JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS. Retrieved from SKILLS OF READING, WRITING AND TRANSLATING IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES: http://www.bjll.org/index.php/bjll/article/view/21/54

Popovic, R. (n.d.). The place of translation in Language Teaching. [PDF] Retrieved from https://www.sueleatherassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Article_translationinlanguageteaching.pdf