A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

Languages
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carries much potential for learning in the form of more sophisticated contrastive analysis.
Setting up these tasks is not easy, but a bank of texts can be built up based on versions
produced by two different language assistants or exchange students. It is also sometimes
possible to find two L2 translations of English literary texts. (This exercise can, of course,
work well the other way, comparing and contrasting two L1 versions of an L2 text.)
3 Collaboration
As an alternative to ‘cold’ translation, students may be asked to prepare a text in pairs by
underlining any potentially problematic structures and circling any unknown vocabulary.
Ideas are then pooled in fours, and groups subsequently brought together for plenary
discussion. Vocabulary and structures can be shared on an overhead projector or IWB, all
acceptable ways of translating a particular expression can be listed and dictionaries
consulted collectively to further good reference skills. The text is then set for homework.
The advantages of this approach are that the weaker benefit from collaboration with more
able peers and marking time is reduced as less correction of common difficulties is
required. The diagnosis of individual errors with ensuing provision of targeted advice
thus becomes much easier.
These approaches to translation emphasise process, focus attention on how to translate
and employ assessment and feedback for the purpose of learning. They thus avoid the
tendency in some modern language programmes to use translation as a continual testing
mechanism.
Many of the points discussed in this chapter are illustrated in the description of a
language course aimed at bridging the gap between the skills of school leavers and the
needs of university language studies (Case study 3).
Case study 3: First-year language course for (specialist)
post-A Level students of French
Background
A decade ago, the Department of French Studies of the University of Birmingham
introduced a new first-year language course, which aimed to build on skills
acquired at A Level by using ‘real-life’ situations, exposing students to authentic
materials while encouraging accuracy and promoting autonomous learning.
Discovering where the students are
A diagnostic test was introduced so that tutors and students could obtain a
snapshot of the latter’s competence in key grammatical areas. It became clear that
our cohorts were far from homogeneous and this, together with student feedback,