The Role of Translation in Language Learning and Teaching

This chapter looks at how translation has been used in learning and teaching foreign languages over the past centuries. It presents a critical eye over the role of translation in pedagogic contexts through the centuries and then consider a new, more creative view of translation in language learning and teaching. The chapter discusses the powerful monolingual myth in language learning and teaching which has resulted in either effectively banning translation from the classroom or ‘misusing’ it. It discusses a new way of creatively integrating translation activities in the foreign language classroom. Translation has a long tradition in foreign language teaching and learning. Translation activities are not teaching devices to get learners to conform, but they need to provide conditions that will stimulate the learning process, no matter how non-conformist the outcomes might turn out to be.