ABSTRACT
Translation is a real-life activity, increasingly essential in today’s multilingual and multicultural global world. Despite its ubiquity, this bilingual activity has long been ignored in the field of ELT. Yet, translation is an invaluable asset of the bilingual speaker-hearer that can be pedagogically useful as it has the potential to improve linguistic as well as analytical and critical thinking skills. In this chapter, a translation activity intended to raise learners’ Global Englishes awareness will be introduced. In the activity, first, the learners were introduced with the term Global Englishes via explicit instruction through videos, readings, critical reflections, and reflective interactions. Then the learners were assigned a translation task where they were told to translate from English to Turkish the videos of three speakers of English, each of whom was from one of Kachru’s three concentric circles, namely Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles, and asked to reflect on each practice and share their translations and reflections. The learners stated the activity was effective since it provided exposure to different varieties and raised their Global Englishes awareness, but it was also challenging as they had difficulty understanding different interlocutors. Pedagogical implications will be presented along with suggestions for further practice.
