What is it? Translation, explicitly or implicitly, has been a constant
presence in the teaching and learning of languages throughout the ages. It
may therefore seem surprising that it should find a place in a report on
innovative pedagogies. While translation has indeed been used for centuries
for the purpose of language learning, there is no doubt that recent
approaches in the area of language and translation pedagogy have helped
re-conceptualise – and re-operationalise – translation in radically new
ways. For decades, translation had been identified with the grammar
translation method, and decried as incompatible with a communicative
approach. In the last two decades, however, we have seen a thorough
re-examination of the role of translation in language teaching and learning.
A range of factors have contributed to this trend, among them, the
questioning of the monolingual principle in language pedagogy, extensive
developments in the area of audiovisual translation, exciting innovations in
the field of professional translation didactics, the huge success of
translation-based digital platforms such as Duolingo, and, crucially, the
introduction of the notion of mediation in the Common European Framework of
Reference for languages (CEFR, 2001), later expanded in the Companion volume
(CEFR, 2018).
A Reflection of English Teaching
