Based on translation being done Word by Word and fluency translates de idea expressed in the complete sentence.
translation is done after the person grasps the complete idea and not before that idea is obtained.
Given that the tendency to translate is widely recognized as a major impediment towards fluent speech and writing, I would not use translation as a means of obtaining fluency. It is true that translation should be done after the idea has been comprehended. Nevertheless, learners who have not yet learnt to think in the L2 will tend towards word-by-word translation.
Translation can have a role in foreign language teaching, as it can make learners aware of the lexical, grammatical, discoursal and rhetorical differences and similarities between the L1 and the L2. However, in my view, it should be used sparingly if we want to wean students off L1 dependence and get them to think directly in the L2.
Hi dear
Translation is a mature activity and to be able to translate you have to acquire the two languages fully. Concerning the role of translation in fluency, I think if the translation is oral both of them have mutual importance. But if you mean written translation, I don't think that it has direct effects. Liqaa
I agree with Chris and Liqaa. There are some interesting open source articles on the net about pedagogical translation in foreign language teaching and learning. I think you will find all the information you are looking for.
Translation is preceded by a meaning-generating process. It is necessary to master a vocabulary, but it is not enough, because to know a foreign language we need to know their speeches.
Dear Liqaa: What do you mean by acquire the language fully? The Cambridge Advanced Learner´s Dictionary and Threasures sais that acquisition is learning a language without being taught. Starts at a very young age. Where would adult teaching be while you are acquiring the language? or Do adults also acquire the language?
Translation belongs much more to the realm of semantics, where fluency is not essential. However, if you contrast a battery of 900 expressions (daily life, job, trips, school, among others) between the target language and the native language, you would have a great set of expressions to be work with fluency. I wish you the best luck!
My long professional experience as Italian native linguist has shown that translation is essential for acquiring fluency in every foreign language. I have doubts about Rafael Ibarra's opinion that translation belongs basically to semantics, where fluency would be not essential. If you don't grasp exactly what is the meaning of a syntactic construction compared with a more or less semantically equivalent second construction (e.g. I am afraid that... / I fear that...) , you'll not be able to see that the translations of the two constructions may vary in that they may focus different aspects of the English couple. It depends on what one understands under "fluency"...
I have a major on English Literature and a Master on Applied Linguistics, an English teacher for more than 25 years, besides being an instructor of TOEFL Ibt for more than 10 years (not very much experience, I guess) and I would like to remind Paolo Ramat two issues: 1) the sentence composed by Noam Chomsky: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously quiet", in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures, is an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct, but semantically nonsensical. My point in this section is that you can teach fluency without focusing on meaning. The strategy I used to help students with fluency is to articulate three or four words as they were being one. This action help students dramatically. 2) Since we, humans, are babies, we learn fluency without focusing on semantics or grammar. It is true, as a language teacher you need to have at hand high quality texts related to the topic you are dealing with. Cheers!
To Paolo,
I agree it does depend on how you define fluency. If we were to define "native-speaker like fluency" as, roughly, "the ability to communicate ideas and information with no more pauses and hesitation than the average native speaker", I am by no means sure that translation is the basis for acquiring it. The point is that to be able to achieve fluency as defined above, we need to think directly in the L2, as translating from the L1 will slow us down. Tasks in which students understand and produce language directly in the L2 are far more likely to get students thinking in the foreign language than are translation tasks. Of course students will not be able to think in English until they have a suffficient number of lexical phrases and the latter can sometimes be expediently taught through translation. As I stated in my first answer, translation tasks can be used to make students' aware of lexical, grammatical etc differences between the L1 and the L2. However, this is perhaps more related to accuracy than to fluency.
I think that translation, whether oral or written, is a good step towards fluency. It helps to master the way other languages are used as it requires a punctual balance of structure and meaning in both languages.
The problema Arwa is that when one tanslates one Works with words and their equivalents and when one is fluent one Works with ideas, images.
to paolo,
My question would be: How can translation be essential to fluency, if translation works with equivalents and fluency with ideas? When you are translating you go word by word, and when you are fluent the person understands the idea and then translates it. Maybe I am wrong but when you are fluent (speaking automatically or without thinking of the words to be used but thinking about the idea that has to be expressed) one forgets about translation; therefore, I don´t thjink that translation is essential to obtain fluency nor to think in the L2 language. That is a different story because I think that ideas do not have a langue. Language is only a meas to express ideas. This material should be covered by another investigation
Chris: I agr ee with you but I define fluency as speaking done automatically or without thinking. I base myself on the following: Preparing a conference one thinks of the ideas, the secuence of those ideas but you never think of the words you are going to use. You think of specific words only if they match the idea you want to express.