translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

f) show the need for training of the foreign language university
teachers with a view to introducing language learning and using
strategies in a professional manner.
The experiment was quite a vast one, with a sample of 200 students
and unfolding over one semester of the second year of study. Two EST 14week
modules were conceived by the author and used in the two types of
groups, an experimental one, comprising implicitly and explicitly included
language learning and using strategies, and an already existing one, of the
usual communicative type.
The research instruments used comprised: tests, questionnaires,
interviews, diaries, case studies and so on. Certainly, it had the
unavoidable limitations such a vast program may have, but on the whole
the data processed by means of the SPSS software in analyzing the aspects
of interest (viz. success in learning, level of communicative competence in
English, progress in the reading and writing skills, awareness raising of the
strategic repertoire, students’ level of motivation and involvement,
assuming responsibility by the students for their own learning process,
optimization of the teaching process) confirmed the need for such an
analysis. There were statistically significant results with the experimental
group and the hypotheses were all confirmed. Therefore, we can consider
that there are good chances to contribute to the increase of the students’
learning autonomy, when the best and most efficient ways and modalities
of introducing strategy-oriented activities are identified and applied.
Two seminars were devoted to technical translations (which, out of
the total of 13 represents 15.38% of the total class time).
The experimental module translation seminars are described below:
Seminar A
Objectives: writing technical translations from English into Romanian;
discussing typical translation errors; sensitizing students as to the kinds of
language learning and using strategies they should use while generating
the translated texts.
Seminar description: while translating, students fill in a Word
document named Working Protocol* (see below); it is pair work on
translating two different texts, avoiding the case of having two adjoining
pairs translating the same texts, on computer, with permanent filling in of
the protocol. Then the various solutions adopted are discussed and
commented upon, as well as the strategies used in order to solve the
problems encountered; homework assigned: to continue the translation at
home, while filling in the protocol, and attaching both documents to the
Student’s Portfolio.
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