Preparing Trainee Translators for the Job Market

Competence-based learning contrasts radically with content-focused education. Today's undergraduate programmes take a multidisciplinary approach that imbues learning with input from the professional workplace. This chapter describes possibly the first social network analysis of trainee translators participating in an intensive, randomised teamwork experience centred on project-based, cooperative learning. An online survey gathered data and perceptions of the teamwork experience and of interpersonal relations. Participants describe friendship relations, the quality of their peers' performance in professional roles, and their preferences with regard to the roles, and these are contrasted within the teams. These indicators of intra-team cohesion are compared with course-final achievement. Results indicate that the strengthening of friendship ties accompanies greater cohesion in teams and may be associated with higher achievement. This suggests that a multidisciplinary focus on teamwork competences enhances learners' professional prospects.

Co-Writing and Cross-Cultural Networking

This chapter is a teaching case study which draws on Kolb's experiential learning model and Latour's Actor-Network theory, specifically, the ideas of learning as a process rather than as an outcome and of technological space as a cross-cultural network actor. The authors report on a collaboration between undergraduate-level students at a US university and graduate-level students at a Russian university within the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project originated to set up international academic collaborations. The chapter provides a theoretically grounded description of the project's successes and failures as well as guidance for teachers wishing to use experiential learning through networking as an instruction tool.

Collaborative Student Translation Projects

This chapter describes how Project-based learning (PBL) is a training method proven to make learning experiences memorable, motivating and meaningful. This article summarises the responses given between 2015 and 2016 by members of the European Masters in Translation (EMT) Network to a detailed questionnaire on the way in which collaborative translation projects are conducted throughout the network. These responses have also been enriched with the outcomes of follow-up discussions led by the EMT Working Group on Collaborative Learning and e-Learning, as well as 1.5 million words' worth of collaborative localisation projects organised in the University of Leeds Centre for Translation Studies between 2012 and 2017. The result is an inventory of approaches and best-practice tips organised into five major sections covering the main aspects associated with designing, implementing and promoting collaborative student projects in translation and localisation.

Reconsidering Interculturality in Online Language Education

This chapter considers interculturality in language education using the example of online intercultural exchanges between Danish and francophone university students. The focus is on an intercultural approach in foreign language education that stands apart from the perspective that emphasizes “facts” about a “target culture.” The approach consists of the co-construction of intercultural competences by students in online interactions. The methodology of tracing evidence of intercultural competences in online interactions is questioned, in the sense that the author seeks the complementarity of different processes to trace manifestations of intercultural competences in online pedagogical interactions. This contributes to the description and evaluation of intercultural competences as a complex construct in the field of intercultural education.

Translating and Networking in Virtual Learning Environments

The chapter describes the experience of three projects carried out at the University of Latvia and their contribution to developing student skills for working in virtual networks. The research is carried out against the background of the rise of a community-based model in translation and increased involvement of virtual networks of translators in solving translation problems and the discussion of broader issues of the profession. The chapter describes the three projects, provides the approach and rationale for their development, dwells on problems faced in the projects and their solutions, as well as shares the lessons learned and recommendations for those who are interested in similar projects. As translation plays an important role for the development of society, acquiring skills for working in virtual translation projects is a key for translators to continue being masters of their profession in a changing world.

Meta-Knowledge on the TAPP and ORLIMPA Projects

This chapter describes how within the framework of distant collaborative projects between European and American universities, combining the activities of technical communication and translation, Paris Diderot students are required to write a blog, to analyze not only the final product but the process they went through. These blogs constitute a source of meta-knowledge about all of the activities taking place over the course of the project. The Paris Diderot students have the task of translating a text designed by technical communicators. However, the final project, the translation, does not reflect the different facets of the project. Asking students to produce a blog in order to gain feedback about the project is rich in learning because students and professors can concurrently analyze the strategies of collaboration employed, the method of translation, the project management and tools used, as well as the creativity of the students and finally, the lessons drawn from these experiences. It is concluded that these elements constitute meta-knowledge as objects of research.

Fostering Audience Awareness and Iterative Collaboration for the Creation of Promotional Texts

This chapter presents a comprehensive account of an online collaborative project designed to develop students' rhetorical and linguistic skills in a trans-cultural perspective. This project guided a group of college-level English learners (native speakers of Italian) towards the production of pre-trip promotional materials for the Molise region in central Italy. Thanks to the feedback offered by the American students, the Italian students critically examined the effect of their stylistic choices and the ways in which these choices positioned audiences for particular purposes, revealing and/or shaping attitudes, values and perspectives. The authors believe that the project can be replicated by instructors who are keen to add an intercultural component to their courses.

Virtual Networks in English-for-Specific-Purposes Education

This chapter reports on an international telecollaboration involving translation of published materials by students in a journalism course in Greece, followed by review and editing of the translations by students in an international technical writing course in the U.S. A key component of the collaboration was dialogue between the two parties about how best to render the meaning of the text in the source language when translated into the target language. Analysis of the collaboration's results revealed that three types of comments were found in the students' correspondence: translation decisions affecting the English used, translation decisions affecting the journalistic style, and translation decisions related to cultural references in the source texts. The comments helped students minimize misunderstandings and clarify meanings that arose in the drafts and enabled both parties to achieve clear, well-written texts. The collaboration increased students' language and trans-cultural awareness and contributed jointly to producing work at the level expected by professionals.

Translation Learning Environments for the Future

This chapter describes how recent years have seen a growing interest in so-called collaborative translation. This is the subject of an open debate in translation studies, where matters such as translator training in social translation or the motivation of volunteer translators are all widely discussed. This chapter recounts a teaching experience performed at a key stage of a localization course. It describes the social constructivist methodology used and the findings obtained from a qualitative analysis to bring collaborative translation into the classroom and to introduce students into new translation models and practices.

Code Glossing as a Strategy for Writing and Translation

This chapter describes how in pedagogical multilingual writing and translation projects, such as the Transatlantic and Pacific Project network (TAPP), a recurring problem in the creation of cognition has been how to explain cultural and system differences that appear in terms, acronyms, and other contexts of different languages, both in text writing and in the translation of texts. Based on empirical data, the authors analyze differences by taking recourse to concurrent text corpora. The application of English, Portuguese, Spanish and Danish corpora demonstrates solutions and tools such as code glossing for writers and translators.