(956)FIRST STEPS IN TRANSLATION: REVIEWING TRANSLATION BOTH AS A TEACHING METHOD AND AS AN ASSESSMENT TOOL. RESEARCH IN THE SCHOOLS OF ENGINEERING, PEDAGOGY AND FINE ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN MACEDONIA GREECE

摘要

With this paper we aim to refer to the speculation on innovating university students' teaching styles inESP (English for Specific Purposes)classes of the School of Fine Arts and the School of Pedagogy,Department of Primary Education of the University of Western Macedonia in Florina and the School ofEngineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Department ofInformatics and Telecommunications Engineering in Kozani. It is generally admitted that the Greekstudents entering the university are already familiar with at least two foreign European languages,according to the educational system's standards, one being English, so they are mature enough todiscover mediation techniques and develop their metalinguistic skills in translation/interpreting fields.Therefore, we decided to introduce translation assignments from English to Greek as a means ofimproving the students' reading skills in the foreign language and understanding of academic andscientific texts and apprehension of terminology deriving from their fields. All the above wereimplemented both during the teaching sessions and in the final assessment. Within this framework, onthe one hand we tried to help students understand and familiarize them with the meaning andappropriate use of the terminology of their own scientific fields in both the English and Greek languageand on the other hand we attempted to stir the students' interest in learning and researching theEnglish bibliography of their discipline. Our aim was to encourage students to increase their interest inGreek terminology and produce scientific texts in proper Greek. A psychometric questionnaire wasprepared and distributed through the e-class to all the students that had opted for the translationassignment. We wanted to motivate students to live more of their lives in English without forgettingtheir Greek identity, communicate their attitude towards translation through the questionnaire, andimprove their language skills while being at the same time free from stress of translating texts as anexamination task. To this end, even though we had to face various problems such as multi levelclasses or reluctant participation in the lecture process, we partially put grammar aside, reintroducedtranslation as a teaching method where necessary, assisted students to develop a critical viewtowards various sources (translation machines & Greek<>English web dictionaries), and conducted anamount of experimentation described in this paper.Apart from the use of the e-class, to the aid of the teacher-students communication and thedistribution of English academic and scientific extracts, the completion of the translation task had as aprerequisite the participation in an oral interview. The material was mostly assigned individually andpair work was the only other form of work that was permitted. In the latter case a larger piece oftranslation material was assigned. The results of the questionnaires in discussion demonstrated adifferentiation of attitudes amongst students belonging to different departments and along with the oralinterviews comments consisted a profile for each student's translation problems, a profile useful to theteacher in order to deduct conclusions about problematic areas in the students' L2 acquisition.