Dear Eduardo Ronderos Micolta,

You have certainly broached up a very nice question. However, we should keep in mind that language is like a fortress and for capturing it,  we should attack it from all sides and by all means. That is why translation and foreign language teaching are no longer wrong bedfellows . The evidential basis substantiating my claim is Vaughan Methodology used in Spain in which  Audiolingualism is integrated  with Grammar Translation Method and the results have been satisfactory. In point of fact, translation proper can play a pivotal role in certain EFL contexts like adult language learning and it is facilitating rather than debilitating.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Dear Mr. Biria

The Grammar-Translation Method taught the students to speak English but it did not teach them to speak fluently. My question has to do with fluency. We must remember that the Audio-Lingual Approach stablished that Learning a language is not consciuos but subconscious and the Broca Area is at the subconscios level. Translation does not use the fluency part of this area. What  happens with a Latin American person that has lived in the USA for 30 years and has not spoken Spanish during that time? He will forget his mother language. Where would translation be in that situation?

Best Regards

Eduardo Ronderos Micolta

Dear Eduardo,

I think you have already formed your own opinion on the matter and I absolutely agree with it. Translation does not help oral L2 fluency. Languages differ considerably and if a student with lower level of proficiency in L2 is trying to translate whatever he wants to say from his mother tongue, the results would probably be disasterous and would not sound like L2 at all.

In my opinion, only people with very high level of proficiency in L2 can benefit from translation and can act as translators or interpreters, simply because they have already mastered L2 and they can differenciate / easily find equivalents between their L1 and L2.

What strikes me, though, is that  quite a few researchers recommend Grammar-translation method of teaching as something positive and useful. What nonesense! I have been teaching EFL for more than 20 years, and as an L2 learner myself, I can claim confidently that this method (popular in the 50-60s of the last century) is so boring that nobody uses it these days. If you'd like to develop fluency - the communicative method is best (although quite out of date, too). However, task-based method is the most balanced one and helps both fluency and accuracy.

Psycholinguistics has proved that a balance between implicit and explicit learning works best. (See Nick Ellis, 2015).

Best wishes,

Mariana

Thank You Mariana. I would like you to read my article "Is learning Conscious - Unconscious in order to make Speaking Automatic". Please send me your opinion after you finish reading it.

Regards

Eduardo R.

Dear Mr. Micolta,

Firstly, with all due respect, I believe you need to go deeper in your studies of what translation is, what Broca's Area does, how language is acquired and how concepts are created. You seem to be very assertive with subjects you clearly do not master.

Secondly, your question was "Does translation limit the sentence creating capacity in the student of a Foreign Language and why?" Such question, as you replied to Mr. Biria, has nothing to do with fluency.

Thirdly, translation is the written transposition of a conceptual message from one language and/or culture into another, and it is a highly-specialized area of studies. On the other side, interpreting is the oral transposition of a conceptual message into another language and/or culture, and it is also a highly-specialized area of studies.

Translation or interpreting studies are useful to language learning inasmuch they bring up issues of semantical and pragmatical correspondence, they shed some light on complex syntactical and phonological issues, and so on.

Thus, to answer your question, no, [the study of] translation does not limit the sentence-creating capacity of foreign language students; Rather, it stimulates and enhances the students' linguistic capacity by encouraging their cross-language and cross-cultural information acquisition, crucial to learning and speaking another language, among many other advantages.

Lastly, on matters of neuroscience and language (the Broca's Area issue) I suggest you the reading of Grodzinsky & Amunts, 2006; Rosenberg & Kosslyn, 2010; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Scarabino, 2006.

Kind regards,

Luis Cavaco-Cruz, PhD (purs.)

Dear Dr. Luis Cavaco-Cruz:

Thank you for your opinions and your recomendations. I will read the books you tell me on neuroscience and I will inform you of the results.

Dear Mariana,

I completely agree with you in the fact that the task-based method is, by far, the best method around. I have tested it several times and results show that it both stimulates learning and increases cognitive awareness of language and culture.

Now about translation, I cannot see your point: [translation] is only a thing when it is the product of the act of translating. However, [Translation] is a discipline, a professional industry, and the act of translating a given document from one source language into a target language.

Performing translation studies, on the other hand—considering all the linguistic and cultural value added they bring to the table—while learning an L2, will be valuable. Translation is the transposition of one conceptual message / meaning into another language. Its use helps making sense of cultural, social and linguistic reality of the L2.

What do you all think?

Thanks,

Luis

Dear Mr. Micolta,

Can I also read your article?

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Luis

Yes. Of course. I long to hear your comments and Mariana´s comments, too.

Does translation limit the sentence creating capacity in the student of a Foreign Language and why?

Yes it can limit the student's sentence creation capacity because when a student's vocabulary is lacking on a foreign language, s/he can't apply & speak many relevant translated sentences.  Moreover, if the student is not familiar with the grammar of a particular foreign language, this can reduce his / her confidence to form the quality translated sentences in order to avoid / minimize mistakes made.

Dear Luis,

I am not claiming translation is not good. Of course, it brings a lot to the better intercultural transfer of knowledge.

I am saying that it should be done by people who have already achieved high level of proficiency in L2. I don't think that learners with lower levels can benefit from it to the full or do it properly.

Definitely, the use of  L1 in a monolingual L2 classroom does more harm than helps, especially if the classroom is the only place where students can learn / practice L2. The  kind of "translation" -  translating a text instead of developing reading comprehension skills, or even worse - teaching L2 grammar structures through translation - this is what I am firmly against. I've had cases in my EFL teaching practice, when  teenagers were constructing questions in their L1, then translating them word for word into English, wondering why they were wrong or how to translate certain clitics, which have no equivalents, nor  they are needed in English questions.

I think that fluency needs a lot of exposure to a natural L2, a lot of correct models to imitate, to test hypotheses and generalise, until these models are automatized  and learners do not need to "translate" them - they understand them perfectly well, like native speakers, and after time - use them correctly just like native speakers. Where exactly do you see the translation playing a role here? Switching from one language to another exerts a lot of pressure on learner's brain. And if L2 is not fluent enough - it's more of a useless struggle rather than an exercise building fluency.

Have you heard the advice "Try to think in English" /any L2 - I think this is the internal process when a learner is trying to map structures and vocab from L1 to L2 and although it seems like a translation, it wouldn't be possible if you're not familiar with the L2 equivalents (if you've never heard them / read them).

This is my point as an L2 user and a teacher of EFL for the past 20 years or so.

How can you build fluency in English by urging your students to think in their mother tongue (not English)? Here's a riddle :- )

Best wishes,

Mariana

Dear Mariana Gotseva,

In my opinion, The translation limits the thinking capacity of the students because

1.The focus of the students will be only exclusively on the question rather than the other elements while doing transcription.

2. There may be a phobia if he or she wants to add any additional points while translating, so they don't dare using the extended points.

3.Moreover, the student focuses on the translating of the given sentence rather than the extending the sentence.

It does not mean that I am against to the method of translation but I am focusing the factors which generally happen at the time of translation.

Upon all these things, Translation is meant for translation as it is not changeable for example if I want to translate a famous person's quote , I majorly focus on the particular quote rather than the modification.

Pavani Sasidhar

Hi Mariana:

When a person is translating, he uses the equivalent Word by Word. He Works with equivalent Word by Word.

When a person is fluent, he first grasps the idea of the sentence and after translates that idea. He Works with ideas, images, concepts.

I am talking about teaching the students to work with ideas, images, concepts and not with equivalents.The result of this problema is that the studentcan answer the question but he cannot guive an additional idea like Pavani mentioned and the student focuses on the question, giving an answer to it but  not on giving an additional idea or answer.

Regards

E.Ronderos M.