1

Jelena Pralas
Institute of Foreign Languages
University of Montenegro
Podgorica
Montenegro
pralas@t-com.me

Using Mini Team Projects in Translation Classes to Achieve the Competences Defined in the
EMT Reference Framework

Abstract:
In the process of developing a curriculum for the Specialist Post-Graduate Translation
Programme and in its regular updating, the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University
of Montenegro has been guided by the European Master's in Translation Reference
Framework of the Competences for Professional Translators that was created on the EU level
to ensure convergence among the training for translators in Europe. This sets out what is to be
mastered at the end of the training for translators, regardless of where and when it is
provided. The Framework is primarily concerned with the ends, but in no way pre-judges the
means, and it is up to the individual institutions that provide translator training, to find the
best means to achieve the ends. Among the means the Institute uses are the Mini TeamTranslation Projects and this paper seeks to explain how.
Key words:
Translation training, EMT, translator competences, team-translation, classroom activity.

1. Introduction
The last 25 years in our region can be described as years of change years of transition and
transformation at various levels. We have seen the change from socialism to a new form of
social order more similar to capitalism; we watched the transition from peace to war and then
the much slower transition back to peace; we have been going through the process of the
transition to democracy, and transforming our societies to achieve the standards of the
international alliances and entities that we want to be a part of.

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Hardly any of these changes could take place without translation which has become
an important part of human interactions in the region and beyond. It actually became so
omnipresent that, apart from being the years of change, the last 25 years in our region have
also been the years of translation.
Naturally, in the years of change, the translation microcosm has undergone changes
too. The translation market has changed, both in terms of demand and on the side of supply,
provoking changes in translation training and leading to the opening of numerous translation
training programmes in the universities in the region. The situation has been similar at the EU
level and this abundance and diversity of university programmes has led to the need for the
harmonization and uniform standards setting, which resulted in the establishment of the EMT
network of postgraduate university translation programmes, which has been active in setting
the standards in the field of translation and translation training.
Measuring its Specialist Translation Programme against the standards and translators'
competences set by the EMT, the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of
Montenegro identified the gaps and designed strategies for bridging them, one of which is
presented in this paper. It is a practical example of something that started as a simple
classroom activity and grew into a more complex exercise capable of contributing to the
development of numerous EMT competences, which will hopefully lead to the Institute of
Foreign Languages obtaining EMT observer status in due time.
2. Translation and Translation Training in Montenegro
Although the smallest in the region and the country that was the least developed of all the
former Yugoslav republics, Montenegro has not lagged behind in the changes. On the
contrary! Its dynamic transformation processes have put its already overstrained capacities
under stress in various fields including translation, while the translation market has gone
through a significant transformation. Unlike 25 years ago, it is today characterized by very
low levels of supply and demand in literary translation (many literary translations are
imported from the neighbouring countries which use similar languages), and by a huge
demand for translation of specialised texts in the fields of law, economics, social sciences,
civil engineering, environment, and medicine i.e. LSP translation.
The increase in demand for specialised translation naturally influenced translation
training. Similar to other countries in the region, Montenegro used to train its translators in

3
university programmes aimed at training foreign language teachers. In such programmes,
translation training usually focused on literary translation or translation of general texts with
a view to training students in translation skills on texts with complex syntax, and demanding
terminology. Developments in the market did not show that such training was wrong, but it
showed that the students needed more training to cope with the challenges that the new
market conditions had brought. That is why the last 15 years in our region have also been
marked by a boom in the opening of brand new translation study programmes in our
universities.
It is true that in the Montenegrin context this meant only one translation study
programme was opened, but given the size of the country and its market, the impact of that
single translation study programme has indeed had the feel of a boom. Some additional
efforts were invested in the field by a new university in Montenegro that developed its
language study programme that contained more translation training than traditional
programmes of the kind. The rationale behind their decision not to go for translation training
study programme per se might have lied in their wish to produce human resources who,
instead of being too specialized, would have multiple skills that would make them able to
adapt more easily to the changing demands of the labour market.
The Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of Montenegro, however, opted
for the specialist study programme for translation being of the opinion that translation
training that students get in general language study programmes is not sufficient to equip
them with all the competences they need to cope with the challenges of the demanding
translation market. This Specialist Translation Programme became the basis for developing
the Master and Undergraduate Programmes of the Institute that are specific not only because
they focus on translation, but also because the students are required to study two foreign
languages in parallel (as B languages) which was not the case in Montenegro before.
3. Specialist Translation Programme of the Institute of Foreign Languages
The Specialist Translation Programme of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University
of Montenegro was designed by the faculty of the Institute that not only teaches and carries
out research but also works very actively in the Montenegrin translation and interpretation
market. This gave this team a deep insight into the dynamics of the market - both on the
supply and on the demand side, and informed their decisions in developing the curriculum for

4
the programme aimed at "providing students primarily with the opportunity to acquire
practical skills in translation and interpretation based on the knowledge of translation theory,
discourse analysis, as well as different thematic fields like the law or economics". (Laki,
Pralas 2005: 108 ). Thus, the team designed the programme with the following structure1:
Term I
Subject
Translation of Legal Texts into English
Translation of Legal Texts from English
Discourse Analysis
Communication
Translation Theory
Basics of Law

1+1
1+1
2+0
1+1
2+0
2+0

Credits
6
6
5
5
4
4

1+1
1+1
0+3
1+1
2+0
2+0
-

Credits
5
5
4
4
4
4
4

Term II
Subject
Translation of Business Texts into English
Translation of Business Texts from English
Basics of Consecutive Interpretation
Academic Writing
Basics of Economics
Semantics
Final Paper

The Institute started implementing its Specialist Translation Programme in 2004, and so far
has produced nine generations of graduates who are employed as translators in various
institutions and private companies.
4. The European Level, EMT and EMT Competences
We have to note that during the process of development of the above curriculum and in the
first years of its implementation, the Institute was not sufficiently aware of developments in
other countries, and at the EU level, which apparently followed a similar path. As the
Lithuanian scholars Ligija Kaminskiene and Galina Kavaliauskiene noted, those were the
years of "dramatic changes for the translator's profession: rapidly growing need for high-level
linguistic services, enhanced by such factors as globalisation, technological progress and
1More information about the structure of the Programme can be found in Laki, I. i Pralas, J. (2005). "Izazovi i
iskustva u nastavi strunog prevoenja na postdiplomskim specijalistikim studijama", in Vuo J. (ed) Uloga
nastavnika u savremenoj nastavi jezika, Niki, Filozofski fakultet, 105-114.

5
demographic movements, and dramatic increase in the number of official EU languages from
11 to 23 between 2004 and 2007, which brought to light the short supply of qualified
professionals in some languages and language combinations" (Kaminskiene and
Kavaliauskiene 2012: 139). Obviously, the dynamics of the translation markets were similar,
and translation-training demands changed in a similar way, the result being that Europe in the
mid-2000s had an abundance of diverse translation study programmes. Thus, "in 2006, there
were at least 285 translation 'programmes' in European higher education, leading to a
Bachelor's and/or a Master's degree (EMT 2009: 1). This "diversification and multiplication
of programmes" that was noted at the European level and "the search for convergence
between training for translators in Europe and the concern to optimize it" (EMT 2009: 1) led
to the establishment of the EMT - the "European Master's in Translation Network" that
currently has more than 60 members that meet the very high EMT standards. As stated on
their website, the goal of this network is "to improve the quality of translator training and to
get highly skilled people to work as translators in the EU" while "In the long run, the EMT
seeks to enhance the status of the translation profession in the EU." (EMT website)
One of the activities to achieve this goal was the establishment of the Expert Group in
2007 to work on "the definition of a true framework of reference, putting forward a minimum
quality profile and specifying the competences necessary" (EMT 2009: 1). The document
they proposed was adopted in 2009, under the title "Competences for professional
translators, experts in multilingual and multimedia communication". It defined competence
as "the combination of aptitudes, knowledge, behaviour and know-how necessary to carry out
a given task under given conditions" (EMT 2009: 3), and it referred not only to translators but
also to other professionals in multimedia and multilingual communication setting out "what is
to be achieved, acquired and mastered at the end of training or for the requirements of a given
activity, regardless where, when and how" (EMT 2009: 3). The competences are grouped in:
the translation service provision competence (interpersonal dimension and production
dimension),

language

competence,

intercultural

competence,

information

mining

competence, thematic competence, and technological competence, and they are described as
interdependent.
The Institute of Foreign Languages perceived the "Competences for professional
translators, experts in multilingual and multimedia communication" as an excellent tool to
measure its translation programme against. And that is precisely what it did: comparing the
competences defined by the EMT and the competences trained in the Specialist Translation

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Programme, the Institute identified the existing gaps and set about designing strategies for
bridging them at the level of individual subjects and at the level of the overall programme.
Due to numerous constraints that have existed in the context of the University of Montenegro
(long and demanding procedures being only one of them), full alignment with the
competences defined by the EMT is still an on-going process, that the Institute would like to
see completed by the next EMT membership selection round announced for 2019, where it
will consider applying for observer status.
5. The Mini Team-Translation Projects of the Institute of Foreign Languages
Several of the gaps that the Institute identified when comparing its translation programme
against the EMT reference framework of competences fall within the group of Translation
Services Provision competences, or to be more precise, within their Interpersonal Dimension.
These are: "knowing how to work in a team, including a virtual team; knowing how to
comply with instructions, deadlines, commitments, interpersonal competences, team
organisation; knowing how to work under pressure and with other experts, with a project
head (capabilities for making contacts, for cooperation and collaboration), including, in a
multilingual situation)" (EMT 2009: 5). For the sake of easier reference in the text that
follows the competences that are mentioned in this paper will be assigned numbers in the
order of their appearance in the text. For example the above consequences will be referred to
respectively as competence 1, competence 2, and competence 3.
The introduction of team-translation projects seemed to be the obvious strategy to
bridge these gaps. In the beginning those were very simple projects covered once in the
academic year within the subject "Translation of Business Texts from English", taught in the
second term. Students would split into groups of three to five and, instead of translating the
texts individually, they would proceed in groups. Very soon the faculty realized that team
translation projects could be useful in developing not only the identified competences initially
aimed at, but many more of them. That led to extending the initial projects to both terms,
making them more complex and as a result, more useful.
As projects that require our students to translate a particular given text, the mini teamtranslation projects contribute, as does any other translation task, to the development of
numerous competences defined by the EMT. In this part of the paper we will therefore not
focus on those competences that can be worked on in any translation exercise, although we

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will mention them. Also, as mentioned above, these projects have been introduced with a
view to developing the above mentioned competences 1, 2 and 3. Therefore this paper will
not focus on them either. It will focus instead on some of the other EMT competences, the
development of which would require the design of a particular activity and to which these
projects can significantly contribute.
The mini team-translation projects have several clearly defined stages: selection of
appropriate material; formation of the groups; translation stage; students' presentations, and
assessment. We will describe here each of these stages, link them to the EMT competences
and show how they can contribute to development of the competences. The text will also
offer a diachronic comparison between the initial team translation projects the Institute used
in the past and the extended and more effective ones it uses today.
5.1. Selection of Appropriate Material
In the initial team translation projects, as mentioned above, the Institute faculty used the texts
that the students would otherwise translate individually at home and discuss in the class.
Thus, in the beginning of the team translation projects they would translate a text about
banking, or macroeconomics, dealing with the terminology that was to be covered in the
subject "Translation of Business Texts from English". In such a way they would work on the
competences that can be developed in any translation exercise (almost all the competences
within the group of Language Competences and Information Mining Competences, and most
of the competences within the Production Dimension of the Translation Services Provision
Competences: "knowing how to create and offer a translation appropriate to the client's
request, i.e. to the aim/skopos and to the translation situation" (competence 4); "knowing how
to define stages and strategies for the translation of a document" (competence 5); "knowing
how to define and evaluate translation problems and find appropriate solutions" (competence
6); "knowing how to proofread and revise a translation (mastering techniques and strategies
for proofreading and revision)" (competence 7) and "knowing how to establish and monitor
quality standards" (competence 8) (EMT 2009: 5).
However, the faculty realized that by slightly changing the approach to the selection
of the material for the mini team-translation projects they could offer students the opportunity
to work on developing more EMT competences. The materials that are currently used are
research articles in translation studies dealing with the thematic and terminological fields

8
regularly covered within the curriculum. Thus, instead of a text in the field of tourism, which
would regularly be translated and analysed within the subject "Translation of Business Texts
from English", a team of students would be given the task of translating the article "Lost and
Found in Translating Tourist Texts - Domesticating, Foreignising or Neutralising Approach"
(Sanning 2010) published in The Journal of Specialized Translation. Instead of translating a
legal text, which would normally be translated within the subject "Translation of Legal Texts
from English", a team would be given the task of translating the text "Caveat Translator:
Understanding the Legal Consequences of Errors in Professional Translation" (Byrne 2007)
published in the same journal.
In this way, on top of the competences we already listed, the mini team-translation
projects would contribute to development of the competence "mastering the appropriate meta
language (to talk about one's work, strategies and decisions)" (competence 9) (EMT 2009: 5),
which is one of the most significant competences within the Production Dimension of the
Translation Service Provision competences; as well as to the competence of "developing a
spirit of curiosity, analysis and summary" (competence 10) (EMT 2009: 7) from the group of
Thematic Competences.
5.2. Formation of Groups
In our mini team translation projects, that now take place twice a year, the students are
allowed to form groups as they choose. In this way they are given an opportunity to learn
from practice about interpersonal relations in a translation team, working particularly on the
Interpersonal Dimension of the Translation Service Provision Competences (working in a
team, complying with professional ethics, working with other experts). Since the students are
allowed to choose their groups twice a year, it is particularly interesting to observe the
differences between the composition of the groups in the first and in the second term that
shows how students learn who they feel comfortable to work with and who they are not
comfortable to work with, regardless of the other aspects of their interpersonal relations. This
also contributes to their critical thinking about their work in the team and of the work of other
team members, assessing not only their own, but also other students' performance and
participation.
5.3. Translation stage

During the translation stage within the mini team-translation projects, students are allowed to
decide themselves on the division of the roles in their teams and on the approach they want to
take in dividing the texts and allocating tasks to different members of the group. They can
consult the teacher about the issues related to the text and about translation problems they
might have difficulties in solving, but not regarding the organization of work within their
teams. Working on their translation assignments they are aware that it is the final product that
will be assessed and not the process they went through in order to produce the translation. To
a certain extent the teacher here assumes the role of a client and the students are given the
opportunity to work on developing the competence of "knowing how to clarify the
requirements, objectives and purposes of the client, recipients of the translation and other
stakeholders" (competence 11) (EMT 2009: 4) from within the Interpersonal Dimension of
the Translation Service Provision competences and the competence 4 referred to above from
within the Production Dimension of the same group of competences.
During the process of translation the students are aware that they will have to make a
presentation about the process they went through and about their working together as a team.
This awareness helps them focus, using the set of questions provided by the teacher in
advance, on the stages in their translation process, on the division of the roles, on the
discussions that they engaged in, on how they dealt with the revision process etc. In such a
way they work on developing most of the competences within the Production Dimension of
the Translation Service Provision Competences (already mentioned competences 5, 6, and 7
plus the competence of "knowing how to justify one's translation choices and decisions"
(competence 12) (EMT 2009: 5).
5.4. Students' Presentations
Our experience has shown that the student presentation of their work in teams is actually an
extremely useful part of the mini team-translation projects. Students are given a set of predesigned questions they are to use in preparing their presentations, which makes them reflect
on different segments of the translation stage. Since the questions are given in advance they
also serve as guidelines for their translation process (see above). In general, the whole
process of preparing and making presentations contributes to the development of the above
mentioned competence 9, while each of the questions the students are given is linked to one

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or several competences they work on during the translation stage of the project and reflect on
while preparing their presentations. For easier reference they are presented in the Table
below:
Table 1
Question
1. How did you divide the roles in your

EMT Competence
"Knowing how to self-evaluate (questioning one's

team? Why? Did it prove to be the right

habits; being open to innovations; being concerned

choice? Why?

with quality; being ready to adapt to new

situations/conditions) and take responsibility"

2. What were the stages in the process

(EMT 2009: 5) (competence 13)

"Knowing how to understand and analyse the

of translation in your team? How did

macrostructure of a document and its overall

you decide on them?

coherence (including where it consists of visual

and sound elements)" (EMT 2009: 6) (competence
14)

3. What were the key translation issues

competence 5
competence 6

you faced in translating your text in the

competence 12

team? How did you solve them?

4. How did you organize any revision

competence 7

of the translated text?

competence 8

5.5. Assessment
As in every teaching and learning exercise, assessment is a very important and relevant part.
In our mini team-translation projects it is done in three stages. The first stage is dedicated to
students assessing themselves, describing in a few words their view of their own contribution
to the teamwork in the project, and allocating themselves points on the scale of 1 to 5. In the
second stage of the assessment process they have to do the same for each of their teammates.
In these two stages they work on the competence 13 that belongs to Interpersonal Dimension
of the Translation Services Provision competences; but maybe even more importantly, they
work on the competence of "knowing how to comply with professional ethics" (competence
15) (EMT 2009: 4) from the same group of competences related to what behaviour is ethical
and professional, and what is not, and assessing them accordingly.

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In the third stage of the assessment process, the teacher assesses their product, giving
them detailed feedback on the translated text and, combining that assessment with the
assessments they gave to themselves and each other, sets the final score each student gets for
the project. This score can amount to 10% of the final grade for the subject. The assessment
stage is finished by a brief class discussion about the whole exercise giving the students an
opportunity to comment on the activity and underlining the lessons learnt.
6. Conclusion
Operating within a country with strong aspirations to integrate into the European Union and
to adopt all its relevant standards, the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of
Montenegro naturally guides its efforts to train translators to comply with the standards set at
the level of the European Union. Its task has been made much easier by the adoption of the
EMT reference framework of competences for professional translators, experts in
multilingual and multimedia communication that the Institute now uses as a tool to measure
its translation training programme against and to undertake measures to achieve the goals set
out there.
Contributing to many of the competences defined by the EMT as required for trained
translators, the mini team-translation projects presented in this paper, are among many of the
activities undertaken by the Institute of Foreign Languages with the aim of improving its
performance and practices in translator training in such a way that in five years time it can
apply for the status of an observer in the EMT network. But, even if we do not manage to do
that, exercises of this kind will definitely improve the quality of translation training we
provide, which will in its turn improve the quality of translation in the market in general and
that is the ultimate goal of every translation training programme. If, on top of that, this paper
inspires other translation trainers to undertake similar activities, our success will be complete.
REFERENCES
Byrne, J (2007). "Caveat Translator: Understanding the Legal Consequences of Errors in
Professional Translation". Journal of Specialized Translation 7, Available at:
http://www.jostrans.org/issue07/art_byrne.pdf. Retrieved on 25 September 2014.

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EMT Expert Group (2009). "Competences for Professional Translators, Experts in
Multilingual and Multimedia Communication" Available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/programmes/emt/key_documents/emt_competences_transl
ators_en.pdf. Retrieved on 25. September 2014.
Kaminskiene, L. and Kavaliauskiene, G. (2012). "Competences in Translation and
Interpreting", Studies about Languages, 20/138-145.
Laki, I. i Pralas, J. (2005). Izazovi i iskustva u nastavi strunog prevoenja na
postdiplomskim specijalistikim studijama, in Vuo J. (ed) Uloga nastavnika u savremenoj
nastavi jezika, Niki, Filozofski fakultet, 105-114.
Sanning, H. (2010). "Lost and Found in Translating Tourist Texts - Domesticating,
Foreignising or Neutralising Approach", Journal of Specialized Translation 13, Available at:
http://www.jostrans.org/issue13/art_sanning.pdf. Retrieved on 25 September 2014.