Using Some Metacognitive Strategies in Teaching Translation to Enhance Faculty of Education English Majors’ Translation Skills

 

     کلیة التربیة

        کلیة معتمدة من الهیئة القومیة لضمان جودة التعلیم

        إدارة: البحوث والنشر العلمی ( المجلة العلمیة)

    =======

 

 

 

Using Some Metacognitive Strategies in Teaching Translation to Enhance Faculty of Education English Majors’ Translation Skills

 

 

By

Dr / Marwa Gamal Muhammed Shehata

^{TEFL Lecturer at the Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction}

^{Faculty of Education-Minia University}

 

 

}     المجلد الخامس والثلاثون– العدد السادس- یونیه 2019م {

http://www.aun.edu.eg/faculty_education/arabic

 

 

            

مستخلص البحث

هدفت الدراسة الحالیة الى تعرف أثر استخدام بعض استراتیجیات ما وراء المعرفة فی تدریس الترجمة لتحسین مهارات الترجمة لدى طلاب شعبة اللغة الانجلیزیة بکلیة التربیة - جامعة المنیا. وقد استخدمت الباحثة التصمیم شبه التجریبی. وقد بلغ عدد الطلاب الذین اشترکوا فى الدراسة ستین طالبا وطالبة مقیدین بالفرقة الثانیة شعبة تعلیم أساسی تخصص اللغة الانجلیزیة  فى الفصل الدراسی الثانی من العام الأکادیمی 2018-2019 تم تقسیمهم الى مجموعتین إحداهما ضابطة والأخرى تجریبیة :  ثلاثین طالبا فی کل مجموعة. وقد قامت الباحثة بتصمیم واستخدام دلیل معلم  قائم على استراتیجیات ما وراء المعرفة فی تدریس مقرر الترجمة مع طلاب المجموعة التجریبیة  بینما درست المجموعة الضابطة بالطریقة المعتادة. تضمنت أدوات الدراسة اختبار لقیاس الکفاءة اللغویة(EPEE) لدى المجموعتین قبل بدء التجربة واختبار آخر فى مهارات الترجمة حیث قامت الباحثة بتطبیقه قبل وبعد اجراء التجربة. وقد استخدمت الباحثة معادلة 'ت'  لتحلیل النتائج وحساب الفرق بین متوسطی درجات الطلاب قبلیا وبعدیا .أظهرت نتائج الدراسة وجود  درجة تحسن أعلى فی أداء المجموعة التجریبیة  عن أداء المجموعة الضابطة فی الاختبار البعدی لمهارات الترجمة.

الکلمات المفتاحیة: استراتیجیات ما وراء المعرفة -  مهارات الترجمة

 

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the impact of using some metacognitive strategies in teaching translation to enhance Faculty of Education English Majors' Translation skills. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed. Sixty second year English majors enrolled in the second term of the academic year 2018-2019 were randomly divided into two intact groups: a treatment group (N=30) and a non-treatment one (N=30). A teacher's guide based on the metacognitive strategies was prepared and used by the researcher with the treatment group in the translation course, whereas the regular way of instruction was used with the non-treatment one. Instruments of the study included a language proficiency test (EPEE) in addition to a pre-post translation skills test. 't' test was used to analyze data . Results showed that participants of the treatment group surpassed their counterparts of the non-treatment one on the post testing of the translation skills test.

Key words: Metacognitive Strategies-Translation Skills

 

                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

Translation plays a significant role that is globally recognized. It is a life skill that is usually important for the mutual understanding among nations. Not only does it pave the way forward for global harmony and interaction, but also enables effective communication between people around the world. It is one of the most important means for universal understanding through which cultural heritage can be protected and people come to know different cultures, societies and beliefs. As for English Language Teaching (ELT), translation is as important as the four language skills. Moreover, language educators argue that it facilitates EFL learning.

Fernández-Guerra (2014) states that translation is motivating. It facilitates a deeper understanding of the form and content of the source language text, it increases learners’ awareness of the differences between both linguistic systems, it allows them to re-express their thoughts faster and easier, and it helps them acquire linguistic and cultural knowledge. As a matter of fact, translation is sometimes considered the fifth skill, alongside with the four other skills, therefore, it can be a valuable tool to develop and improve communicative competence.

Madoui (2012) points out that the traditional approach to translation teaching seems to avoid any serious attempt to meet the requirements of a systematic development of students' cognitive ability, which is at the core of their translation competence. He further explains that translation is an act of communication which requires a sound knowledge of two languages at least and an acute ability to realize the transfer between these languages with ease and mental agility.

In this respect, Berandini (2004) and Moudi (2012) argue that the aim of an educational program, at the undergraduate level at least, should be concerned with developing students' acquisition of awareness, reflectiveness and resourcefulness. Translation, then, is not simply a matter of decoding a message in one language and encoding it to another. It is a mental agility that needs a high degree of awareness.

Hariri (2014) ,in turn, emphasizes that effective translation requires good learning strategies that can help learners handle it in effective, appropriate manner. Metacognition plays an important role in students' learning as metacognition can be observed as one of the most important factors leading to success in learning. Furthermore, there is evidence that improved metacognition is associated with promoting students' overall academic success.

Yanqun (2015) asserts that metacognition is the call of the essential features of translation competence for the time being. Metacognition refers to a level of thinking that involves active control over the process of thinking that is used in learning situations. Planning the way to approach a learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating the process towards the completion of a task are all metacognitive skills in their nature.

Oxford (2013) highlights that metacognitive strategies are those strategies that teachers apply to help learners in understanding how they learn different skills in the learning environment. It helps students in determining how they carry out the thinking processes. Ideally, these processes make students aware of their own learning capabilities. Therefore, teachers should use them in order to help learners become more strategic thinkers.

In a study by Wathen (2010), he found out that self-assessment -which is considered one of the important metacognitive strategies- helped students in reflecting on what they knew and what they did not know. Through metacognition, students were capable of getting feedback for learning. This process helped in motivating students to improve their skills in learning. Again, Smilkstein (2011) assumes that it is only through metacognitive strategies that one may discover what he or she has learned and still needs to learn.

Zainudin and Awal (2011) mention some prominent problems and difficulties that translators face. These difficulties include (1)ambiguity; some words are lexically ambiguous, some phrases or sentences may have more than  one structure  so they are said to be structurally ambiguous.(2) Lexical and structural mismatches and  (3) Multiword units such as translating idioms and collocations . Idioms and proverbs sometimes cannot be completely understood as it is not possible to translate them using the normal rules." Take the bull by the horns" is an example of an idiom which cannot be literally translated. However, it means" Face and Tackle a difficulty without Shirking".

In this regard, the present study is an attempt to teach the translation course to second year English majors using three main metacognitive strategies namely; planning, monitoring and evaluating. In this course students were expected to have their translation skills developed through a systematic instruction.

Review of literature and Related studies

Metacognition

Flavell  in 1979 was the first to use the word "meta-cognition". He described it inthese words: "knowledge and cognition about cognitive phenomena". Flavell's definition was followed by many others, often portraying different emphases on mechanisms and processes associated with meta-cognition. For example, "thinking about knowing" or "learning about thinking" or "control of learning or "knowing about knowing" or "thinking about thinking" (Adkins, 2007).

Gao (2013) emphasized that meta-cognition is a kind of intentional higher mental control over one's own thinking process. Henter (2014) mentioned that metacognition is seen as what people know about cognition in general and about their own cognitive processes, in particular, as well as how they use this knowledge to adjust their informational processes and behaviors to specific situations.

Two aspects of metacognition are described in the dimensions of thinking by Henter (2014) who stated that meta-cognition involves (1) knowledge about cognition and (2) Regulation of cognition.

1. Knowledge about cognition: There are three factors that work together to make up this dimension

• Declarative knowledge refers to knowledge that a person may have about his or her abilities and about the outstanding learning characteristics that affect cognitive processing (McCormick, 2003). In the example of translation, declarative knowledge indicates a learner's understanding about what translation strategies are.
• Procedural knowledge is identified as knowledge of how to execute procedures such as learning strategies (McCormick, 2003), or how to use the particular translation strategies. This knowledge requires learners not only to understand what translation strategies are, but also to understand how to actually use them.
• Conditional knowledge includes when, where, and why learners use particular strategies and assessments of their effectiveness (Henter, 2014). For example, students know which strategies are most suitable for a variety of tasks in order to achieve their translation goals, and they are able to reflect on their use of the strategies.

2. Regulation of cognition the regulation of cognition includes:

• Planning which involves selecting appropriate strategies and allocation ofresources necessary to perform the task,
• Monitoring aims at awareness about the level of understanding and solving the task during performing that task.
• Testing implementing a strategy,
• Reviewing and Evaluation of Strategies includes assessment of the methods used as well as of the objectives and results (Henter, 2014).

Consequently, teaching metacognitive strategies should be a lasting process (Çubukçu, 2008). Basic metacognitive strategies can and are used by students regardless of age, level of education or subject matter. They go beyond simply teaching discipline and can be applied in similar situations. Çubukçu argues that training on the use of metacognitive strategies can target the following aspects (1) improving learning performance,(2) learning new strategies to facilitate content assimilation, (3) increasing self-confidence,(4) increasing effectiveness in terms of time spent and expected results.

Meta-cognitive strategies involve thinking about the mental processes used in the learning process, monitoring learning while it is taking place, and evaluating learning after it has occurred. Moreover, meta-cognitive strategies (Rao, 2007) are activities that require students to be self-insightful or to use meta-cognitive strategies in learning, these would include:

• Think-aloud modeling, where the teacher "meta-cognizes" out loud to the class while performing a complex activity.
• Peer teaching, where students have to be self-conscious of what they know, in order to reorganize it and teach someone else.
• Self-questioning, or heuristic devices, whereby students give themselves systematic nudges during an activity.
• Group activities of various kinds, including syndicate groups and process discussion groups, where students learn about effective problem solving from others like themselves.

The following are three metacognitive strategies that were used in the current study. They might be effective in teaching and learning translation. They were supposed to affect considerably student's translation. They integrally and simultaneously worked together so that the learner could achieve his/her goals established before. They were planning, monitoring and evaluation.

1) Planning

Lv & Chen (2010) highlighted that planning consists of previewing concepts related to the language task; anticipating strategies to be used in a language task and "generating a plan for the parts, sequence, main ideas, or language functions to be used in handing a task". Planning, in this view, also has a direct relationship with monitoring as a learner must take notice of how effective the plan actually is. Rasekh & Ranjbary (2003) provided some examples of planning strategies are; setting learning objectives (pre-planning), attending to a learning task, ignoring irrelevant distractors (direct attention), and attending to specific aspects of input (selective attending). Objectives may be changed, depending on how learners will progress through the task (planning-in-action).

Yanquan (2015) further explained that planning means developing an awareness of what needs to be done to accomplish a translation task, developing an appropriate action plan and/or appropriate contingency plans to overcome difficulties that may interfere with successful completion of the task.

2) Monitoring

Monitoring is a response to ambiguity in comprehending language where an individual selects a best guess, of the message's meaning based on available meaning. Monitoring can also be described as being aware of what one is doing.  There is only one strategy in this subcategory: self-monitoring (Lv & Chen, 2010). Hence, monitoring enables students to direct their own progress. This component primarily deals with revisiting the way strategies are employed and making sure that the strategies are implemented correctly.

Mahdavi (2014) pointed out that monitoring includes self-testing skills essential to regulate learning. It refers to the critical analysis of the effectiveness of the strategies or plans being implemented. Engaging in periodic self-testing in the course of learning would be a particular case of monitoring. Monitoring in a translation task involveschecking, verifying, or correcting one’s comprehension or performance and this process includes

3) Evaluation

Evaluation is a mental process that involves conscious inspection of learning outcomes, one's own progress in the new language. This category consists of only one strategy: self-evaluation (Lv & Chen, 2010). Moreover, at this stage students attempt to evaluate whether what they are doing is effective by means of self-questioning, debriefing discussions after strategies practice (Coskun, 2010).This ability can be developed by teachers through asking students to answer: a) what is s/he is trying to accomplish? b) What strategies is s/he employing? c) How well is s/he employing the strategies? and d) What other strategies can s/he employ? These questions address all of the aspects of metacognition stated earlier. (Nosratinia, Ghavidel& Zaker, 2015).

Evaluation refers to the examination of progress being made toward goals which can trigger further planning, monitoring, and evaluation. A typical example might be re-evaluating one's goals and conclusions (Mahdavi, 2014).In addition, evaluation  meanschecking the outcomes of one’s translating comprehension against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy. It includes:

(1) Performance evaluation: Judging one’s overall execution of the task

(2) Strategy evaluation: Judging one’s strategy use.

Consequently, the main purpose of this strategy is to provide students with opportunities to evaluate their own success in using learning strategies, thus developing their metacognitive awareness of their own learning processes. Activities used to develop student’s self-evaluation insights included self -questioning, debriefing discussions after strategies practice, learning logs in which students recorded the results of their learning strategies applications, checklists of strategies used, and open-ended questionnaires in which students expressed their opinions about the usefulness of particular strategies (Rasekh & Ranjbary, 2003).

Metacognition and Translation Skills

Metacognition is the call of essential features of translation competence in the time being. Metacognition is the core of translation competence, which dominates and optimizes other sub-competences.  Yanqun (2015) proposed a metacognitive model from learners' perceptions for complicated tasks as translation known as "ALERT" It started with (1) Analyzing the task and assessing relevant knowledge, abilities, and resources mastered; (2) Locating and Identifying Problems; (3) Exploring and selecting strategies; (3) Running the strategies in practice and applying the strategies to solve problems; (4) Tracking, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting. Using ALERT model inside the classroom would encourage students to do self-guided questioning, strategic selection, evaluating, reflecting and facing translation tasks with minimum apprehension. On the other hand, Obaid (2010) assumed that translation is a convenient means of verifying comprehension and accuracy. Hence, she illustrated the most important translation skills to anyone who wants to translate, as follows:

Gist reading skills; the sub-skills are comprehending translation skills, scanning; distinguish main and subordinate ideas, identifying the writers. style, level, genre.

Linguistic skills; the sub skills are dividing each paragraph / text into meaningful portions/sentences, determining meaning of difficult/ unfamiliar words, using dictionary, using word analysis (affixes), context clues, cultural element, grammar & structure analysis.

Compensation strategies: when the translator encounters a translation block he/she may resort to some devices such as: paraphrasing, adding and omitting (persistence/capitulation).

Editing and proofreading skills; their sub skills are (Editing, proofread and writing the final/refined copy).

By developing students translation skills as Abdellah ( 2004) mentioned students will surely improve their’ language skills, metacognitive awareness and increase reading comprehension skills. The researcher here would say that metacognition is supposed to be promoted not only in translation education, but in all the other disciplines.

Related Studies

I. Studies Related to Metacognitive strategies and Translation

There are studies that tried to investigate the use of metacognition in teaching translation such as Aluwairesh (2016), Hashempour, Ghonsooly and Ghanizadeh (2015), Yanqun (2015)  and Madoui (2012). Following is a summary of those studies.

Aluwairesh (2016) carried out a study to investigate the metacognitive listening strategies used by female Saudi students at the College of Languages and Translation at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when listening to texts in English. Two main research questions were explored in the study: (1) which of the five major types of metacognitive strategies do the participants use most when listening to English texts? and (2) What are the metacognitive listening strategies used most by the target group when listening to English texts? The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire was used to get answers to the two research questions. Participants were 82 students from the same group. Results indicated that the participants use problem-solving and directed attention strategies more commonly than the other metacognitive listening strategies; mental translation and person knowledge strategies are the least used by the participants.

Hashempour, Ghonsooly and Ghanizadeh (2015) investigated the probable link between Iranian English translation studies and students' metacognitive awareness, self – regulation, and gender. A sample of 230 M.A and B.A senior English translation students comprised the participants of the study. They were asked to complete two questionnaires of Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) and Self-regulation Trait (Self-Regulation Trait). Results revealed that there were not any differences between male female translation students regarding metacognitive awareness and Self-regulation. It was found that MA students were shown to have higher levels of metacognitive awareness in comparison with their BA Counterparts and there were no significant differences between educational level and self-regulation.

Yanqun (2015) conducted a study trying to reveal the definition of metacognition , the significance of metacognition in learning and the value and function of metacognition in translation. The study proposed a model in translator education to enhance translation competence effectively, to improve translation quality and efficiency and to cultivate metacognitive- conscious, autonomous, self-directed, competent translator and lifelong learners.

Madoui (2012) carried out a study to investigate the perspectives of a metacognitive approach to translation teaching. In his study he provided a general analysis of the way translation is taught and new perspectives on how it should be taught with a special emphasis on the role of raising students' metacognitive awareness. He recommended that the classroom should include all specific tasks and activities that would meet specific objectives such as making the learners more able to de-verbalize a given text, more self-confident in selecting options to solve specific problems , and more aware of the translation process they undertake.

Related Studies on Translation

There are various studies that tried to tackle the area of translation teaching such as the studies conducted by Alfadly & Albeibanifull (2013),  Al-Sohbani & Muthanna (2013), El-Esery (2010), Bakir & Lazim (2009) and Al-Sanad (2008).  A brief of those studies follows soon:

Alfadly & AldeibaniFull (2013) carried out an action research to explore some linguistic problems in English-Arabic translations and vice versa empirically and found tangible evidence of the areas that pose real problems for English Language undergraduates at Hadramout University. Results of this research indicated fundamental weaknesses among students in grammar causing them great hardship in comprehending and translating sentences from English into Arabic and vice versa.

Al-Sohbani & Muthanna (2013) explored the major challenges that faced Yemeni students in translating Arabic into English and vice versa. The participants of this study were 100 on the level four English Department students, Faculty of Arts, Ibb University .The use of both qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed several challenges that impeded the translation process quality in Yemen. Results showed that lexical knowledge insufficiency; inadequate knowledge and practice of grammar; inadequate cultural backgrounds; and inappropriate teaching atmosphere and methodology were the main problems. Also, the study results showed that there was the terrible need for a re-systematic reform of the curriculum, the teaching method, and the students' admission processes in higher education institutions.

El-Esery (2010) investigated the effectiveness of a proposed translation program in developing Prospective EFL teachers' translation strategies and skills. Subjects of the study were fourth-year students studying at Menofia Faculty of Education, Mansura University in the academic year 2008-2009. They were randomly assigned into two groups; experimental and control. The experimental group (35 students) studied the proposed translation program whereas the control group (35 students) received translation instruction through the regular method. The study used four instruments: two tests to be used as pre-post measures, a Translation Strategies Test to identify students' use of translation strategies, a Translation Skills Test to measure the students' translation skills, and a proposed program to be studied by the experimental group for three months. The results of the study showed that training on translation strategies was effective in developing translation skills.

Bakir & Lazim (2009) diagnosed the stylistic problems confronting Arab students at the university level in translating a text from Arabic into English. A sample of 40 advanced-level students of the department of English language and literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Translation, Ajman University of Science and Technology Network was randomly selected. The study instrument was a translation test (Arabic into English) dealing with a passage of fair length (170 words). The results determined the students' stylistic errors in areas pertinent to literal vs. free translation, mistranslations, inadequate translation, inexact rendering, and Ll interference. It was found that the participants generally focused on translating words as isolated entities.

Al-Sanad (2008) discussed lexical problems relating to cultural concepts that Arab students face in translating English texts into Arabic and vice versa. The aim of the study was to investigate the major reasons behind committing lexical errors relating to cultural concepts in translation from English into Arabic and vice versa. Participants were 20 students majoring in English translation at King Saud University in Riyadh. The researcher designed two translation tests to measure students' difficulties in rendering lexical items associated with cultural aspects and to present the main factor after encountering such difficulties. The results revealed that Arab students encountered more lexical problems relating to culture in translation from Arabic into English than they encountered in translation from English into Arabic. The findings indicated that the most mistranslated words were those unfamiliar to the students' culture.

Commentary

The previously mentioned studies showed that there were a number of factors that might affect the work on translation. These factors, to the knowledge of the researcher, are level of proficiency in the mother tongue (Arabic) and the target language of translation (English), training in translation strategies, types of translation difficulties and the passive interference of the Arabic language structures with the English one. The researcher tried to consider these aspects in designing and implementing her study.

Context of the problem

Second year English Majors, Primary Education Branch, at Faculty of Education Minia University were noticed by the researcher to have a low level in translation skills as this was documented by checking their scores in the translation course. The researcher found that students' low scores indicated their weakness in translation. This was because of the fact that most of them did not receive systematic training to improve their translation skills using appropriate learning strategies. Reviewing the related literature concerning metacognition and its effect on improving language learning, the researcher found that metacognitive strategies played a significant role in language learning. The researcher noticed that few studies explored the influence of using metacognitive strategies on developing learners' translation skills. This drew the researcher’s attention and highly motivated her to develop students' translation skills through using some metacognitive strategies.

Statement of the Problem

The problem of the present study lied in the weakness of Faculty of Education second year English majors ' translation skills. This weakness was documented by their low scores on the translation in the first year. Therefore the current study aimed to investigate the use of some metacognitive strategies in teaching translation to enhance Faculty of Education English Majors’ translation skills.

Aim of the Study

The present study aimed at identifying the impact of using metacognitive strategies in enhancing Faculty of Education second Year English Majors’ translation skills.

Question of the Study

The current study tried to find an answer to the following question:

"What is the impact of using some metacognitive strategies in enhancing Faculty of Education English majors' translation skills?"

Hypothesis of the study

To formulate the hypothesis of the present study, the researcher depended on personal scientific reasoning and evidence from the related literature. This is why the hypothesis in question is an alternative directed one as follows:

"There would be a statistically significant difference between mean scores obtained by the treatment group and non-treatment one on the translation skills post-test (favoring of the treatment group)."

Significance of the study

The significance of the present study emerged from the following:

1. It tried to fill the gap in review of literature in the studies related to translation skills promotion through metacognitive strategies.
2. It provided second year English majors systematic training to enhance their translation skills by using three main metacognitive strategies; planning, monitoring and evaluation.
3. It was observed that the use of metacognitive strategies of the present study helped second year English majors to reduce their translation apprehension when translating written texts.
4. It provided some solutions to overcome translation difficulties.
5. It offered a teachers' guide that might help translation instructors to effectively teach translation using some metacognitive strategies.
6. It helped second year English majors to effectively make use of other metacognitive strategies such as, time management, asking for help and  self-assessment

 Delimitations

  The current study was delimited to the following:

   (1)Metacognitive strategies

Second year English majors, Primary Education Branch, would receive sufficient training to make use of  three main metacognitive strategies(Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating)These strategies had been found in literature to be effective in teaching and learning translation. They integrally and simultaneously worked together so that learners could achieve their established goals.

(2)Translations skills

The present study was geared towards developing the following translations skills:

1-Dictionary skills

1-Translation of language items with connotative meaning:(idioms, proverbs and figurative language mainly metaphor and simile)

3- Translation of texts from English into Arabic and vice versa.

These skills were selected because they represent good areas for practicing translation because literal translation is not recommendable. As most of the texts are culturally bound, idioms used for translation with the participants are the ones of high frequency in language use. Emphasis was laid on the idiomatic use of words that are unfamiliar to the participants. Proverbs were grouped around some aspects of social life.

(3)Participants

Participants of the study were selected from second year English majors, Primary Education Branch so as to give them sufficient opportunities to make use of the program in the upcoming years.

 (4)Duration of the study

The study was implemented in the second term of the academic year 2018/2019. The experimentation lasted for 24 hours; two hours per week.

Definition of terms      

Metacognition

Metacognition refers to a level of thinking that involves active control over the process of thinking that is used in learning situations. Planning the way to approach a learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating the process towards the completion of a task are all metacognitive skills in their nature (Richards & Schmidt , 2013). This definition was adopted. Furthermore, O'Malley, Stewner-Manzanares, Kupper, & Russo (2006) classified meta cognitive strategies into three categories: (1) planning, (2) monitoring, (3) evaluation. O’Malley et al. classification was also adopted in the current study.

1-Planning

The researcher viewed 'Planning' as an strategy that involves an awareness of what needs to be accomplished in a translation task. It includes developing appropriate action plan to overcome difficulties that may hinder the completion of the task.

2-Monitoring

Monitoring was viewed in this study as a strategy that involves checking, verifying, or one's comprehension or performance in the course of a translation task.

3- Evaluation

Evaluation is a metacognitive strategy that is operationally viewed in this study as the process of checking the outcomes of one's translating comprehension against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy.

Translation

The term ‘translation’ has been defined by Sadeghi (2011) as an activity of changing a piece of text from one language into another. Furthermore, translation is understood as "a transfer process from a foreign language or a second language to the mother tongue" .Translation is operationally defined in this study as the act that comprises the meaning of a text in one language (source) to the other language (target) with making use of some metacognitive skills.

Methodology

Research Design

The present research adopted the pre-post control group quasi-experimental design. Two groups, namely a treatment group and a non-treatment one were exposed to a pre-post means of getting data. The treatment group was taught translation using the metacognitive strategies, whereas the non-treatment group was taught using the regular way of instruction.

Participants

Participants of this research were 60 English majors enrolled at second year, Faculty of Education- Minia University. The participants were selected and assigned randomly into two groups: a non-treatment group (N=30) and treatment one. (N=30).

The Treatment Group

         The treatment group was taught the translation course using a number of metacognitive strategies namely; planning, monitoring and evaluation. The researcher used a number of authentic materials with the participants and a various types of metacognitive activities where students were trained to go through the metacognitive cycle which consisted of three phases:

1. Plan (analyze the learning task), set goals and select strategies.
2. Practice (employ strategies and monitor their success).
3. Evaluate (evaluate their performance and the effectiveness of the strategies).

In addition, students were encouraged to develop their metacognitive strategies through:

1. Guided Instruction and Modeling
2. Guided and Independent practice.
3. Social support and feedback.
4. Reflective Practice.

A number of formative assessment techniques were also used with the treatment group such as the instructor's correction as well as peer and self -corrections.

Instructors

The researcher taught the treatment group whereas another instructor with approximately the same qualifications taught the non-treatment one.

Variables

-Independent Variable

The use of some metacognitive strategies in teaching translation.

- Dependent Variable

Enhancing Faculty of Education English majors' translation skills.

-       Control Variables

1. Age
2. Years of Studying English.
3. Proficiency Level in English
4. Entry level of Translation Skills.

1-        Age

The age level of second year English majors ranged between 18 and 19.8 years old with approximately the same age in each group. For age of students in months see table (1).

Table (1)

't'-value of the treatment and non-treatment group' age calculated in months

Not significant at 0.05

2-   Years of Studying English

Students in both groups studied English for 13 years, from primary one till the end of the secondary stage.

3-   Proficiency Level

A Nationally Standardized Proficiency test of English (EPPE) – which was developed by the Center of Developing English Language Teaching (CDLT), Ain Shams University- was used to test the participants' level of proficiency in English. 't' value (0.352)revealed no significant difference at (0.05) level  between mean scores of the two groups as represented in table (2).

 

Table (2)

Differences between the Treatment Group and the Non-treatment one in the English Proficiency Exam (EPEE)

Group	No.	Means	S.D	D.f	t-value
Treatment	30	43.40	5.636	58	0.352
Non-treatment	30	43.90	5.378

Not Significant at 0.05

Total Score=75

4. Entry level of Translation Skills

The equivalence between both groups in their possession of the translation skills was ensured before the treatment, the results of the translation pre-test of both the treatment group and the non-treatment one were subjected to statistical analysis to find whether there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups or not . Statistical analysis revealed that the two groups were homogenous at the beginning of the experiment as t- value was (0.250) and it was not significant at (0.05) level. This analysis is quite manifested in Table (3) below.

Table (3)

Means, Standard Deviations, 't'-value,  Significance of Difference Between the Treatment Group and the Non-treatment one in the Pre-Testing of the Translation Skills Test

Not Significant at 0.05 level

Material and Instruments

1. Teacher's Guide         

The teachers' guide was used with the treatment group to teach the translation course using some metacognitive strategies: (See appendix A). To design the teachers' guide the researcher went through the following procedures: 

1. Building a list of translation skills needed by second Year English Majors  primary branch  using the following resources:

(a) reviewing the related literature.

(b) views of TEFL and EFL staff members.

1. Specifying the general and specific objectives, content area, the suitable metacognitive strategies, learning activities and methods of evaluations.
2. A list of idioms and proverbs were provided and selected from contemporary resources.
3. The teacher's guide consisted of three units; covering eleven lessons.
   1. Judging the content validity of the teachers' guide by having it evaluated by nine EFL and TEFL staff members.

B. Translation Skills Test

Test Construction

The test consisted of five parts: part one covered the essential      dictionary skills, part two for translating idioms, part three for translating different kinds of proverbs, part four covered translating figurative language and part five demanded the translation of two texts                      one in English and another in Arabic. In addition researcher designed a table of specification (For the test and the table of specification                (See Appendix B).

 

Test Objective

The Objective of the test was to assess second year English majors' translation skills through responding to seventy seven MCQ items, five identification items and six free translation items.

Piloting the Test

The test was piloted on 30 students enrolled at second year English majors other than those assigned to the experiment. The pilot studywas conducted two weeks before the experimentation. It was conducted to determine the validity and reliability of the test
and estimate the test time. 

Test Validity

1. Content validity

To establish the content validity of the test, it was evaluated by nine TEFL staff members to decide its validity in terms of belongingness of the sub-skills to the main skills, stating of items and suitability of items to the target participants' academic level.

1. Internal consistency of the Test

It was obtained by calculating the correlation coefficients of each part of the test with the total score. Part one (0.97), part two (0.95), part three (0.90), part 4 (0.75) and part five (0.69) these values are significant at 0.01 and were found acceptable.

 2-Test Reliability

The reliability of the objective parts of the test (MCQ Items ) were    measured by  alpha Cranach's formula and was (0.8) which was found acceptable ;while the parts related to free translation  was evaluated by three different raters to establish the inter-rater reliability ; For the English passage the correlation coefficient between the first and the second rater was (0.84); between the second and the third rater was (0.87) and was found (0.88) between the first and the third rater while for the Arabic Passage the Correlation coefficient between  the first and the second rater was (0.86), between the second and the third rater was (0.87) and was (0.87) too .

3-Test Time

To determine the time of the translation skills test, the researcher calculated the time of the first student finishing the test plus the time taken by the last one divided by two. Thus, the test time of the translation skills test was two hours.

4-Scoring

One score is assigned to each MCQ questions and identification   items. Free translation was evaluated by three raters and the average score was calculated. The parts related to free translation was evaluated in the light of students' lexical choice, students' grammatical accuracy, spelling mistakes and over all intelligibility. The total score of the translation skills test is 130.

Results, Discussion, Recommendations and Suggestions for further research

Results

Testing the hypothesis of the study

The hypothesis of the study predicted that there would be a statistically significant difference between mean scores obtained by the treatment group and non-treatment one on the translation post-test (Favoring of the treatment group). Analysis of data obtained using t-test showed that the treatment group achieved a higher degree of improvement than the non-treatment one on the translation skills post- test as' t'-value (7.884) was significant at (0.01).

The effect size was calculated by using eta-squared formula and was found significantly high (0.66) as Nassar (2006) mentioned that when eta-squared value(η2) is less than 0.1 it means that the significance is weak ,when (η2) is more than 0.1 and less than 0.6 it means that the significance is medium, and when (η2 ) is more than 0.6 it means that the significance is high. Table (4) presents a summary of the analysis of the data obtained on the post testing of the translation skills of both the treatment and the non-treatment groups.

Table (4)

Means, Standard Deviations, 't' -value,  Significance of Difference Between the Treatment Group and the Non-treatment one in the Post-Testing of the Translation Skills Test

*Significant at 0.01

   Total score=130

Discussion

Initially,most students tended to translate literally from Arabic into English this might be due to the fact that they thought in Arabic and wrote in English.The students' lack of culture awareness hindered their ability to translate properly. However, the study showed significant statistical results with regard tothe impact of using some metacognitive strategies resulted in higher performance in translation -whether from Arabic to English or vice versa- more than the regular way of instruction used with the non-treatment group. Translation skills of the students of the treatment group were gradually with the help of their exposure to the activities included in the teachers' guide. Another explanation for that could be attributed to the students' interest to the activities included as well. In addition, the strategies were very effective in enhancing the treatment group students' translation skills. The treatment group achieved progress in the overall translation test due to utilization of the suggested metacognitive strategies. Their performance on the translation post-test was significantly higher than their performance on the pre-test.

The significant results of using the metacognitive strategies, which resulted in the development of students' translation skills, could also be attributed to the following factors:

• Using the metacognitive strategies in teaching translation was effective for enhancing students' translation sub-skills as it takes into consideration the process of translation itself rather than its final product
• Through the metacognitive strategies, students got better insights into the translation process and how it works. .
• Metacognitive strategies such as self-planning and self-monitoring helped students become independent translators who can control their translation skills and learn how to manage difficulties which they encountered during the translation process.
• Metacognition provided self-monitoring, which is a step-by-step process of evaluation during the translation process.
•  Metacognitive strategies encouraged students to reflect on the translation process and this enabled students to better understand and evaluate their performance. This, in turn, provided students with the skills to complete translation tasks more efficiently.

Through the practice stage in the metacognitive cycle -where  participants  of the treatment group had the opportunities to apply their learning strategies and monitor their progress- students were provided with ample opportunities for guided and free practice. Training students to competently use metacognitive strategies mainly planning, monitoring and evaluating helped them to get better insight into the comprehension process and how it worked.

The results of the present study provided evidence that translation skills could be developed through systematic instruction in metacognitive language learning strategies. Systematic explicit instruction about the concept of metacognition and learning strategies helped the treatment group to better comprehend this approach and how to apply it to different translation tasks. Progressively, they started to think metacognitively about the strategies and they could use to improve their translation to become not only better translators, but also autonomous and strategic learners.

The results of the present  study were found to be consistent with other studies that addressed  the importance of using metacognitive strategies, such as Aluwairesh (2016), Hashempour, Ghonsooly and Ghanizadeh (2015), Yanqun (2015)  and Madoui (2012)as all of these studies confirmed that the use of meta-cognitive strategies ignites one’s thinking and can lead to higher learning and better performance.

Throughout the treatment and the metacognitive activities that were employed, students had the chance to develop their translation. For example in' Think aloud ' activity, the researcher wrote a translation of a given selected passage on the white board then she retracted and made some modifications and corrections of the translated text. Students had to take notes on the linguistic behavior of the instructor while she was translating. They were required to make guesses at the thought process of the instructor watching her while she verbalized her thoughts through paraphrasing and rewording of the translated text. Students were asked to imitate what the instructor did with their peers.

Another example of the activities that were implemented, the researcher asked students to write a text on any topic they liked (Here students acted the role of the writer) and they had to bring these texts to the class. The researcher randomly chose one of the texts to the class and asked students to translate the text in the presence of the writer of the text. Another activity that students passed through was peer evaluation of their translation. Through evaluating one another's translation products, students had the benefit to notice points of strength and weakness in their peers' versions as well as their own.

The activities included in the teachers' guide were useful and achieved an ultimate goal which was to direct participants' attention to the importance of taking into account the original writer's ideas while translating and to always strive to think about what might be the original purpose in choosing one particular expression rather than another. Students were encouraged to diagnose their weakness, and think of a plan of action to remedy them.

Conclusion

Translation skills of those students were improved. The improvement were found in areas such as reading comprehension, researching skills such as using bilingual dictionaries, analytical skills such as identifying the best meaning that fits the content, composing skills such as using correct word order as used in the target language. In addition, participants were exposed to a number of recent English idioms and proverbs that really increased their linguistic competence.

It was found that using metacognitive strategies led to the improvement of students' translation skills as there were various factors that helped to enhance the positive effect of training students to skillfully make use of metacognitive strategies in the translation process. The activities were purposefully selected. This careful selection of authentic materials really dragged students' attention and interest and, in turn, increased their intrinsic motivation which was a key concept in metacognition and in turn increased their self-efficacy.

Implications

Researchers should find ways to help learners overcome recurrent problems standing in the way of students' acquisition of the translation skills. Students can be responsible for their own acquisition process if they are made aware of what translation is and what their problems are. Therefore, translation instructors should take the role of facilitators than of knowledge transmitters. Students, also, should be encouraged to actively participate in the learning process in order to externalize their acquisition process and maximize learning outcomes for themselves and their peers. Students should be encouraged to make use of the recent innovations of technology such as online translating dictionaries.

Challenges:

If there were several available bilingual dictionaries, the results would have been changed for the better because there were only three dictionaries for the students to use.  The researcher thinks that it would have been much better if she could include more participants than those of the present study.

Recommendations

In the light of the findings of the present study a number of recommendations could be drawn:

1-        More time should be exerted to develop translation skills and their sub-skills.

2-        Students should be offered enough comprehensible input through pre-translating activities.

3-        Metacognitive activities should be integrated within the translation course or program, relating them to both goals and objectives.

4-        Instructors should be provided with sufficient and systematic training to explore the usefulness of meta-cognitive strategies and to master its integration in their classrooms.

5-        Instructors are advised to design meta-cognitive activities with which students do not feel overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task and they should provide the necessary support and feedback when needed.

6-        Translation should be given a great importance and emphasis as an act of communication. Students should be provided with opportunities to share and discuss their translation with their peers.

7-        Students should be provided with authentic materials inside the classroom as they are considered rich resource for translation and language use.

Suggestions for further research

1-        Investigating the impact of using an online translation course for developing students' language use.

2-        Investigating the impact of other metacognitive strategies such as help-seeking, environmental manipulation and self-assessment in developing students' translation skills.

3-        Investigating the effectiveness of using some metacognitive strategies on developing students' language proficiency.

4-        Developing a training program based on some metacognitive strategies for developing vocabulary among EFL learners.

5-        A study is needed to investigate the negative effect resulting from the difference in sentence order between Arabic and English.

 

References

Abdellah, Ahmed. (2004). A suggested program for developing some basic translation skills of English Majors and its effect on their attitudes towards translation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. South valley University. 

Adkins, Shae. (2007). Metacognition: Designing for Transfer. University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Al-Esery, A. (2010). A Proposed Program for Developing Translation Strategies and Skills of English Department Students in Faculties of Education (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis), Mansoura University, Damietta.

Ahuwairaresh , Nasin (2016). EFL Saudi Undergraduate Students' Use of Metacognitive Learning Strategies. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume, 7. No.1

Alfadly & AldeibaniFull (2013). An Analysis of some Linguistic Problems in Translation between Arabic and English Faced by Yemeni English Majors at Hadramout University. Journal of Islamic and Human Advanced Research. 3(1): 15-26.

Al-Sanad, Nessreen. (2008). Lexical problem that face Arab students in translating cultural concepts from English into Arabic and vice versa: an experimental study. Unpublished Master Thesis, college of languages and translation, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.

Al-Sohbani & Muthanna (2013). Challenges of Arabic English translation: the need for re-systematic curriculum and methodology reforms in Yemen. Academic research international, 4(4): 442-450.

Bakir, K. & Lazim, H. (2009). Stylistic Problems Confronting Arab Students in Arabic-English Translation. Journal of the college of arts, university of Barsh, 50, 24-41.

Bernandi, S. (2004). " The Theory Behind the Practice:Translator Training or Translator Education?" In Kirsten Malmkjaer (ed.) Translation in the Undergraduate Degree Programmes. John Benjamins Company.

Coskun, Abdullah. (2010). The effect of metacognitive strategy training on the listening performance. Novitas Royal, 4 (1), 35-50.

Çubukçu, Feryal. (2008). Enhancing reading comprehension and vocabulary development through metacognitive strategies. Issue in education research, 18 (1): 1-11.

El-Esery, A. (2010). A proposed program in developing Prospective EFL teachers' translation strategies and skills of English department students in faculties of education.  Unpublished Master Thesis, Mansoura University.

Fernández-Guerra, Ana. (2014). The Usefulness of Translation in Foreign Language Learning: Students’ Attitudes. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Vol-2, Issue-1,153-170.

Gao, Li. (2013). Metacognitive strategies to chines college English learners: a real gold or only with a golden cover. Journal of education and learning. 2(4), 71-76.

Hariri, M. (2014). The effect of metacognitive strategies instruction on listening comprehension of Iranian intermediate female EFL learners. International journal of social studies and Education, 4(2), 437-442.

Hashempour, Mona; Ghonsooly, Behzad& Ghanizadeh, Afsaneh (2015). A study of Translation Students' Self-Regulation and Metacognitive Awareness in Association with their Gender and Educational level. International Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies. Vol.3, No.3

Henter, Ramona. (2014). Developing metacognitive skills as a foundation of learning a foreign language. Romanian Journal of Experimental applied psychology, 5(1): 48-56.

Lv, Fenghua. & Chen, Hongxin. (2010).  A study of metacognitive strategies-based- writing instruction for vocational college students. English Language teaching,3(3):          136-144.

Madoui, Saoussen (2012). Perspectives of a Metacognitive approach to translation teaching. Revue Sciences Humaine, No, 3. July 2012, Pp:69-80

Mahdavi, Mohsen. (2014).  An Overview: Metacognition in Education. International Journal of Multidisciplinary and Current Research, Vol. (2): 529-535.

McCormick, Cristiano (2003). Metacognition and Learning. In I. B. Weiner, D. K. Freedheim, W. M. Reynolds, J. A. Schinka, & G. E. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology: Educational Psychology (pp. 79-102). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. 

Nassar, Yahya. (2006) (in Arabic). The Impact of the Effect Size on the Scientific Significance of the Results Gained from Quantitative Studies. Journal of Educational & Psychological Sciences. Faculty of Education –Bahrain University. ISSN 3670-1726 Vol.7 No.2.

Nosratinia, Mania; Ghavidel, Samira, & Zaker, Alierza. (2015). Teaching metacognitive strategies through Anderson’s model: Does it affect EFL learners’ listening comprehension? Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(6), 1233-1243.

Obaid, R. (2010). The effectiveness of an activity based-program in developing translation skills of English department students at Faculty of Education. Unpublished Master Thesis, Menofia University, Menofia.

O'Malley, JM. Stewner-Manzanares, Gloria. Kupper, L. & Russo, Rocco. (2006). Learning strategies used by beginning and intermediate ESL students Language learning, 35 (1): 21-46.

Oxford, R. L. (2013). Teaching & Researching: Language Learning Strategies. Routledge.

Rao, V. (2007). Educational technology. New Delhi: A.P.H Publishing corporation.

Rasekh, Zohreh. & Ranjbary, Reza. 2003). metacognitive strategy training for vocabulary learning. The electronic journal for English as a second Language, 7(2).

Richards, Jack. & Schmidt, Richard. (2013). Longman Dictionary of Language teaching and applied linguistics (4^th edition). New York USA: Routledge.

Sadeghi, Karmin. (2011). Classroom translation; the case of Iranian university students. Theories and practice in language studies. 1(9): 1185-1190.

Smilkstein, Rita. (2011). We're born to learn: Using the brain's natural learning process to create today's curriculum. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin Press.

Wathen, T. E. (2010). Developing intentional engagement in adolescents: Volitional and metacognitive strategies use in the classroom. Thesis (Ed. D.) Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.

Yanqun, Zou. (2015). The Concept of Instruction of Metacognition in Translation Competence Development. International Forum of Teaching and Studies. Vol.11, No.1-2 .           Pp:69-78.

Zainudin, Intan &Awal, Norsimah (2011). Translation Techniques: Problems and Solutions. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 59 . Pp 328-334.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article View: 1,853

PDF Download: 336