translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

include cognitive, affective etc. strategies in their permanent
repertoire of language learning and using strategies;
- I needed to triangulate written evidence of the diary type
and protocol type to study the degree to which implementing these
types of strategies can be conducive to enhanced success in language
learning and using, which was the main point in that experiment;
- hence, it is obvious that the results obtained might seem to
have a ‘mediated’ character, as they were not the objective recordings
of the students’ thoughts , but the product of the students’ capacity to
materialize in writing their thinking and other processes while
translating. Therefore, in the case I present here the protocol was not a
think aloud one, but rather a jot-down-your- thoughts sort of document.
The use of the protocol in the teaching of translation skills was part
of a larger experiment conducive to the author’s research on innovative
language learning and using strategies in the teaching of English to
engineering students. That was conceived as an optimization action meant
to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching/learning of the foreign
language in the concrete educational context. The main lines of research
were intended to:
a) verify the usefulness of the strategic competence concept, by
correlating it with the language learning and using strategies;
b) see whether there are ways and means of enhancing the effectiveness
of the language teaching/learning process by introducing a cycle of
activities with the following main purposes: enhancing the degree of
awareness and acquisition, in a motivated and participative manner,
of the language learning and using strategies by the learners;
c) support the students in identifying, maximizing and refining their
own strategic repertoire of language learning and using after the
conclusion of the course in faculty as well;
d) identify within the current stage in the teaching of English certain
pedagogically justified means of developing the students’
communicative competence by explicitly and systematically including
language learning and using strategies within the teaching of the
main skills;
e) determine the extent to which by the teaching of a coherent
systematic set of language learning and using strategies
incorporated in the English for Science and Technology module we can
positively influence the students’ progress as to their communicative
competence in English, by making full use of the connections
established among teaching/evaluation/optimization, thus
justifying future pedagogical options;
157