This course-book of Translation & Interpretation-1 includes
activities and strategies to help students learn to translate and interpret
texts from Education and Technology reports of VOA Learning English,
short stories from literature and some readings from “Chicken Soup for
the Soul”. The selected texts and the teaching activities designed in
the course-book were based on the following premises.
Education & Technology reports were reported as efficient
materials to help students learn new knowledge in science, specialized
vocabulary, and grammatical structures, as well as updated
information (Pham Vu Phi Ho, 2015, 2016). Besides, video clips of
these reports are available for download from Youtube.com so the
students can use them to practice their pronunciation which is
essential for interpretation skills.
Readings extracted from the book series “Chicken Soup for the
Soul” and short stories from literature were used not only to train
students how to translate, learn structures and vocabulary, be familiar
with cultures while doing translation, but also to help students learn
meaningful lessons in life. This is one of the primary goals in education
and training.
Discussion activities in the course-book were designed to help
students activate their background knowledge (schema) relating to the
new knowledge that they are going to learn so that they can
understand the texts better during the translating or interpreting
activities. Skimming and scanning activities were employed to help
students pick out some vocabularies, phrases or sentences which are
unknown or difficult. Then group discussions were used to help
students learn from one another. In addition, writing story summaries is
intended to help students learn how to pick up main ideas and
information which is helpful for them in their interpreting activities.
Finally, homework in the course-book was used as a guideline to help
students prepare for lessons in advance so that they can actively
participate in the learning classroom.
4. In general, most of the activities in the course-book were
designed to assign students to work in groups to prepare their
translation before attending the class. Most of the lecturer’s teaching
activities in classes were to provide critical comments on the students’
translated or interpreted versions. Lecturers can refer to the 7-if
comments of Pham Vu Phi Ho’s (2015) to help students learn how to
translate or interpret effectively as follows:
7-if comments for English to Vietnamese translation:
1. if the translated version remains the original meaning of the
source language (English),
2. if the translated version could reflect the cultural issues of the
original texts,
3. if the translated version meets with the context of the text,
4. if the translated version is well-expressed in the target
language (Vietnamese),
5. if the translated version is written in the structures of the target
language (Vietnamese),
6. if the translated version could convey the cultural issues of
Vietnamese contexts, or
7. if the translated version could make use of the appropriate
terms for the native speakers (Vietnamese).
Eventually, in order to keep information for the training course
up-to-date, lecturers are encouraged to employ other related materials
such as foreign or local newspapers in support of the training to help
students learn how to translate up-to-date information and keep the
teaching activities fresh.
Students and lecturers can download the video clips from the
following website: https://www.youtube.com/user/VietSpecialEnglish