Best Practice 22: A Note on Translating

Best Practice 22: A Note on Translating

A teacher’s role is to encourage students not only to speak but also to think in English. While this can be very hard, thinking in two languages simultaneously (which is what happens when students engage in word-for-word translation) is very hard. Here are a couple of examples that might help prevent students from

doing this:

1.False friends (cognates). The Spanish word “sensible” (sensitive) is identical to the English word but clearly means something else entirely.

2. False equivalency. The Spanish “trabajo” can, depending on the context, mean both “work” and “job” – translation can actually cause more confusion than it relieves.

DO: Feign/admit ignorance of the student’s language.

DO NOT: Give direct translations for new vocabulary (see BP21 for

further explanation).

DO: Encourage the students to guess the meaning of new words or

to ask each other for help.

DO NOT: Let students translate new words back into their native language. Such definitions obscure the fact that there often are not perfect translations for words or phrases.

DO: Provide examples of idioms and other expressions that are impossible to translate word for word. (Regional foods, such as molé, are an ideal examples for lower-level students.)