A Training program for Developing English Majors' Translation Competence Based on

the Eclectic Approach

By
Amira El-Amir Khater
Lecturer, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Women's College, Ain Shams University
:Abstract
The present research aims at developing basic-education English majors' translation
competence in light of the eclectic approach. The researcher designed the program by
integrating the linguistic approach, the cognitive approach, cultural studies approach and the
functional approach in order to improve students' accuracy, grammar and style, finding
equivalent and reducing the shifts, omissions and additions. They were also trained to
translate idioms, proverbs and collocations from English to Arabic and vice versa. Data was
analyzed statistically by means of t-tests for the English-Arabic and Arabic-English passages,
and the descriptive analysis for idioms, proverbs and collocations. Results proved the
effectiveness of the program.
:Introduction
Mastering a second language requires going beyond the acquisition of pure linguistic skills.
In order to gain command in second language, it is valuable to analyze and contrast the style,
format and organization of the discourse in both L1 and L2. Translation as a unifying discipline
could facilitate this task to the L2 students. Pariente-Beltran (2006) indicates that translation, as
a pedagogical resource, may contribute to enhance the learner's accuracy of the L2, which will
eventually foster communicative confidence and development of their linguistic and
communicative skills in both languages. Language skills are no more the traditional four
language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing; cultural skill and translation skill were
added to these traditional skills as both contribute to language comprehension. Therefore,
translation learning is an effective component in language teaching.
Although translation is one of the courses being taught in English departments for English
majors in Faculties of Education, students still have translation problems and commit translation
errors. Translation teaching depends mainly on translation product rather than process. Shi-Yang
(2009) explains that traditional translation teaching main aim is to improve the language
competence, it is teacher-centered, mainly concerns with error correction, and bases on words or
sentences, and focuses on the foreign language competence.
Studies conducted in faculties of Education proved that English majors face problems while
translating. Most of these studies were concerned with error analysis such as Gabr (2002) which
investigated the practices of teaching and studying translation in Egyptian governmental
universities. Aly (2004) conducted a study to investigate the strategies followed by the EFL
students in the translation process. It was a case study since it followed a think aloud protocol to
identify the EFL translation strategies followed by the students. (Abdellah, 2007) explored the
practices of learning and teaching translation at faculties of Education in South Valley. Results
showed that there is a bad need for designing a systematic program for developing basic
translation skills for English majors in the faculty of Education. The study showed also that
there is a need for a systematic translation test that measures translation ability. Also, Badawi
(2008) investigated EFL Saudi prospective teachers' ability to translate culture-bound
expressions. The test was to assess EFL prospective teachers' ability to translate culture-bound
expressions, idioms, and collocations. Also, they were provided with strategy awareness

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questionnaire. The researcher concluded that EFL prospective teachers' performance is very
poor. Abbasi and Karimnia (2011) developed an analysis of grammatical errors among Iranian
translation students: insights from inter-language theory. Findings showed that 98 percent of the
students had problems grammatically, and most errors that the students produced were of
interlingual errors, indicating the influence of the mother language. The main aim of
Firoozkoohi, Beikian and Golavar’s (2012) study was to conduct a survey among translation
students to find out the translation assessment criteria used by their translation instructors and
the extent to which these students are aware of such criteria. The results obtained from the
analysis of the available data showed that translation instructors were not unanimous in terms of
the criteria they used in assessing students’ translations. Furthermore, in most cases, the students
were not aware of such criteria. Finally, Atawneh and Alaqra investigated the course out line
given in different places of Palestinian Universities to check the objectives of teaching
translation and look into samples of tests to check the compliance of tests with the courses
taught. Results proved that there was a gap between theory and practice and students faced
cultural pound problems while translating. These studies proved that there is a problem facing
EFL students in different contexts.
:Context of the problem
Being concerned with teacher preparation issues, the researcher has always been following
their academic progress and their achievement not only in the Methodology course but in the
other courses as well. Among the problems they mentioned, in a free discussion, was the problem
of the translation course. They mentioned that they are always assessed according to the product
they produce but are not directed to the process they should follow.
For further emphasis on the problem, the researcher developed a pilot study where 10 students ,
fourth year Primary stage English majors, were provided with 5 English proverbs, 5 Arabic
proverbs, 5 English collocations, 5 Arabic collocations and two small passages; an Arabic one
and an English one (Appendix :1 ).
:Results were as follows
:Analysis students' translation for the Arabic proverbs
1-The first Arabic proverb ‫ اختر اهون الشرين‬only three students(30%) tried to give a
comprehensible translation as one of them translated it ( choose one of the two ill things) while
the other student translated it ( choose the less effective bad choice) .The third student translated
it as ( choose the worse option not the worst if you have to choose). While the correct translation
could be (pick the lesser of two evils). The rest seven students (70%) did not translate it at all.
2- The second Arabic proverb was ‫أختلط الحابل بالنابل‬, none of the students translated it except for
one student (10%) who translated it as (people were mixed, you can't differentiate them). The
correct translation was either to translate it literally (the rope men mixed with the archers) taking
into consideration that English speakers would not understand the meaning, or to translate the
intended meaning which would be more comprehensible for English speakers as (things got
chaotic).
3- The third proverb was ‫ أراق ماء وجهه‬, five students (50%) translated it as (he humiliated
himself, he disgraced himself, he mocked himself, he lowered himself, he underestimated
himself). One student (10%) translated it literally but not linguistically and contextually correct
as (his face water dried). The other four students (40%) did not translate the proverb. The literal
translation is (The water of his face are cleaned). While the intended meaning is ( His decency is
preserved) .
4- The fourth proverb was ‫القرش األبيض ينفع في اليوم األسود‬, six students (60%) translated it nearly
the same (save money for difficult days, or money you save now can help in black days ).
The present study aims at developing translation competence for English Majors Basic
Education section at Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University in light of a mixed approach. In
this study , the researcher developed workshops to train the students. A pre-post test was

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conducted, and analysis depended on both error analysis for the English and Arabic proverbs
and collocations and a scoring rubric for the English passage and the Arabic passage.
5- The fifth proverb was ‫ كل لبيب باإلشارة يفهم‬, eight students (80%) could not translate the
proverb. A student (10%) translated it as (intelligent people understand signs) which is the
closest to the correct translation. The last student (10%) translated the meaning of the proverb as
( People who are sensitive enough do not need words to arise their attention). Where the correct
translation is (For smart people, signs replace words).

:Analysis of students' translation of the English proverbs

1-The first proverb was (Jack of all trades master none), 7 students (70%) translated it literally
as
(‫ )جاك بتاع كل حاجة ما يعرفش حاجة‬where 2 students (20%) misunderstood the proverb and translated
it as
( ‫ )جاك يعرف أشغال كثيرة و لكنة ال يشتغل آي شئ‬. Only one student (10%) translated it correctly ( ‫صاحب‬
‫) بالين كداب‬
2-The second proverb was (Charity begins at home). All the 10 students (100%) translated it
literally as (‫)الصدقة تبدأ من المنزل‬. None of them reached the Arabic equivalent which is either
‫) )األقربون أولى بالمعروف أو اللي يحتاجه البيت يحرم على الجامع‬
3-The third proverb was ( Ill-gotten gains never prosper). None of the students (100%) could
translate the proverb. The correct translation is ‫) )المال الحرام ال يثمر او ال يدوم‬
4-The fourth proverb was (One man's meat is another man's poison) . Five students (50%) could
not translate the proverb. Three students (30%) misunderstood the proverb and translated it as
‫ ) )ال تأكل لحم أخيك فانه كالسم‬, The last two students (20%) translated it correctly as ( ‫مصائب قوم عند قوم‬
‫)فوائد‬
5-The last proverb was (Do not cross the bridge before you get to it). Six students (60%)
translated is literally as ( ‫ ) ال تعبر الكوبري قبل أن تصل إلية‬, Two students (20%) misunderstood it and
translated it as ( ‫)ال تقفز إلى نتائج قبل أن تحصل على األدلة‬and (( ‫ ال تقول كالم لست متأكد منة‬. The last two
students translated it correctly ( ‫)ال تسبق األحداث‬.
From the previous analysis one may conclude that most of the students were unable to
translate proverbs correctly. It is important to mention that proverbs are important cultural part
of language learning which are ignored in teaching language in general and in translation
teaching in particular.

The second part of the pilot study asked students to translate five English collocations into
Arabic and vice versa. First, the analysis the translation of the English collocations into
Arabic:

English collocation and the Correct translation Wrong translation Not translated
Correct translation Approximated
translation
Insurmountable difficulties students 20% 2 students 50% 5 Three students
‫عقبات ال يمكن تخطيها‬ ‫صعوبات جمة‬ ‫ترجموها صعوبات فقط‬ 30%

A clear-cut evidence students 50% 5 students 40% 4 One student

‫دليل قاطع‬ ‫دليل قطعي‬ ‫دليل ناقص‬ 10%
Arbitrary government students 30% 3 students 20% 2 students 5
‫حكومة استبدادية‬ ‫ حكومة مستبدة‬/‫حكومة غاشمة‬ ‫ حكومة ساقطة‬/‫حكومة فاشلة‬ 50%
Drastic war students 40% 4 students 40% 4 students 2
‫حرب ضروس‬ ‫ حرب كاسحة‬/‫حرب شرسة‬ .. ‫ حرب‬/ ‫حرب غير متكافئة‬ 20%
Heinous crime students 50% 5 students 30% 3 students 2
‫جريمة نكراء أو بشعة‬ /‫ جريمة وحشية‬/‫جريمة فظيعة‬ /‫ جريمة واضحة‬/‫مسرح جريمة‬ 20%

3
 ‫جريمة منكرة‬ ‫جريمة سطحية‬

Table (1)
Students translations of the English collocations are unsatisfactory. Students who translated
them correctly said that they depended on the strategy of guessing the meaning rather than
their knowledge of these collocations.

Moving to the analysis of the students' translation of the Arabic collocations, results were as
following:
Arabic Collocations and the correct Correct or approximated Wrong translation Not translated
translation translation
‫قرار ال رجعة فيه‬ Non of the students 5 students 50% 5 students
Irreversible decision 0% A decision not to be broken 50%
‫تمكين المرأة‬ One student 10% 5 students 50% 4 students
Women empowerment Enabling women Women's ability, women's power, 40 %

‫غسيل أموال‬ Non of the students 8 students 80% 2 students

Money laundering 0% Money wash/ washing money 20%
‫غضب مكظوم‬ Non of the students 5 students 50% 5 students
Pent-up anger 0% Keeping anger/ hiding anger 50%
‫مصدر موثوق‬ 2 students 6 students 60% 2 students
Reliable source 20% Trust sources/ judged sources 20%

Table (2)
Analyzing this table, it is apparent that students' ability to find an equivalent for the
Arabic collocations is poor. Finding Arabic equivalents to English collocations is, to some
extent, easier because they may guess the meaning of the collocation.
The third part of the pilot study was the translation passages from English to Arabic and vice
versa. Correcting students' translation from Arabic into English holistically it was concluded
that
1-Students have difficulties to find the proper equivalent for some Arabic words such as ‫رعيتة‬
Word for word translation was another problem that affects the context and the meaning of
the translated part.
2-Some of them do not recognize the tense of the source text and as a consequence they
translate the passage using another tense. Also, subject verb agreement is another
grammatical problem.
Punctuation was an apparent problem when translating from Arabic into English. Arabic
sentences are, sometimes, long and do not have punctuation marks but when translated into
English one may need to add punctuation marks for the sake of the context or to clarify
meaning.

Moving to students' translation of the English passage, it was concluded that translating
from English to Arabic was a little bit easier for them; at least the context was more
comprehensible than that of the Arabic passage. Even though, they encounter the same
problems they faced in translating the Arabic passage.

Problem of the Research:

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 The traditional translation classroom presumes that a transfer of translation knowledge takes
place from teacher to student. The teacher presents the ideal translation, points out the
students' deviations from the ideal, with the expectation that they will avoid making same
errors in the future. Translation needs to be approached in a new way where the student is the
core of the learning process. Students need to experience the translation process rather than
produce a translated text to be assessed and graded. The present study aims at developing a
training program for primary stage English majors' at Girls' College to develop their
translation competences based on the eclectic approach.

The study seeks to provide answers to the following main question:

What is the effect of a training program for developing English majors' Translation
competence based on the eclectic approach?
From this main question the following sub-questions emerge:
1-What is the theoretical base of the training program for developing English majors'
Translation competence based on the eclectic approach?
2-What are the features of the training program?
3- How far will the training program help to improve English majors' translation
competence?
Hypotheses of the Research:
The study seeks to verify the following hypotheses:
1-There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' overall English-Arabic pre-post translation competence test in favour of the post test.
2-There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors’ pre-post English-Arabic translation competence test in favour of the post test in the
following sub-competences: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and avoiding
shifts, omissions, additions and inventing equivalents.
3-There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' overall Arabic-English pre-post translation competence test in favour of the post test.
4-There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' Arabic-English pre-post translation competence test in favour of the post test in the
following sub-competences: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and avoiding
shifts, omissions, additions and inventing equivalents.

Variables of the Study:

1-Independent variable:
The independent variable is the training program for developing fourth year basic-education
English majors' translation competence.
2-Dependent Variable:
The dependent variable is the experimental group of basic-education English language
majors' performance on translation competence test .
Delimitations of the Research:
The study is delimited to:
1-Fourth year, basic-education English majors, Women's College, Ain Shams University, the
second term of the academic year 2011- 2012.
2-The translation competence training program for both English-Arabic translation
competence and Arabic-English translation competence covering Arabic proverbs, English
proverbs and idioms, Arabic collocations, English collocations, Arabic passage and English
passage.
3-The translation competences were: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and
Shifts, omissions, additions and inventing equivalents.

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Design of the study:
The design of the present study is the one-group pre-post experimental. The results will be
treated through quantitative data, qualitative and descriptive analysis. T-tests will be applied
for the English-Arabic passage and the Arabic-English passage on the four translation
competences: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and Shifts, omissions,
additions and inventing equivalents. While the descriptive analysis is used for the Arabic-
English and English-Arabic proverbs, idioms and collocations .
Tools of the Study:
1-A pre-post translation competence test which is divided into four sub-competences:
accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and Shifts, omissions, additions and
inventing equivalents.
2-The researcher's analysis of the students' translations of the English-Arabic and Arabic
English proverbs, collocations and idioms.
3-Translation competence scoring rubric.
Significance of the study:
The present study tackles a problem that faces English majors in faculties of Education;
mainly basic-education English majors Women's College Ain Shams University, where
students have difficulties in the translation process. Their education in this field emphasizes
the product rather than the process. They need some theoretical background on translation
theories as well as some information about translation competence. Moreover, they need
more tasks, activities and exercises that enhance the translation process. Also, instructors
need a criterion to assess their students’ performance. Translation teaching does not depend
mainly on translating the ST (source text) to the TT (target text). A prerequisite to this stage
is needed where students practice some tasks and activates related to linguistic aspects such
as, word choice grammar and style, and cultural aspects such as, proverbs and their
equivalents, idioms and collocations. New trends in education call for the integration between
more than one theory, approach and more than one instructional design. Therefore, the
researcher presents the training program to improve basic-education English majors'
translation competence based on the eclectic approach.

Definition of Terms:
Eclectic Approach:
It is defined as "the use of variety of methods or approaches, choosing techniques from each
method that are considered effective and applying them according to the learning context and
objectives. It aims at facilitating the understanding of the language and do not rely on one
specific 'best method' ". (TJ Taylor: WWW.tjtaylor.net/english/teaching-method-summary)
Operational definition:
Using a variety of approaches' activities, tasks and exercises in a mixed way to teach
translation ; namely the linguistic approach, the cultural studies approach, the cognitive
approach and the functionalist approach through the transformational learning in order to
improve basic-education English majors' translation competence.
Translation Competence:
Neubert (1994) explains that "translation competences have to provide students with the
ability to recreate the source text (ST) in a context of different language and culture. He
proposes a hierarchical definition of translation competence that consists of language
competence, textual competence, cultural competence, and transfer competence".
Operational definition:
In this study translation competence is defined as the students' ability to translate from the
source text to the target text taking into consideration mastering language accuracy, finding

6
the proper equivalent of the translated words, using correct grammar and style, and the proper
use of shifts, omissions, additions and the adequate invention of equivalents, and the
effective use of cultural elements to translate idioms, collocations and proverbs by finding
their equivalents, paraphrasing them or coining new ones that keep the flavor of the source
(adaption).

Review of Literature
What is translation?
According to Avval (2009) translation is considered "an act of communication. To
translate effectively, the student should analyze the message; to do so, he/she should have
some tools at hand: such tools can be the well known communication strategies which
prevents a communication from disruption".
Moore (2009) explains that "translation refers to carrying the meaning of a text from one
language to another. This process involves interpretation of meaning of the text and
producing the same meaning in another language."
For Al-Kufaishi (2004) "translation is a cognitive activity in the sense that it engages the
translator's cognitive structures in an attempt to comprehend, deconstruct and reconstruct
meaning. Schemata are involved in the four translation processes (decomposition,
conversion, restructuring and editing). In the deconstruction process, the translator utilizes his
SL schemata especially his knowledge of the processes of discourse analysis, communicative
context and cultural reconstruction. In both restructuring and editing processes, he exploits
his schemata to properly encode the transferred meaning'’.
Richards and Rodgers (2002) define translation as “the process of rendering written
language that was produced in one language (source language) into another language (target
language) or the target language version that results from this process."
For Bassnett (2002) "translation involves the rendering of a source language (SL) text into
the target language (TL) as to ensure that (1) the surface meaning of the two will be
approximately similar, and (2) the structures of the SL will be preserved as closely as
possible ,but not so closely that the TL structures will be seriously distorted".
James (2000) regards translation as "a kind of activity that involves two languages and two
cultures. It is an activity of a cross-cultural communication rather than the mere
transformation of linguistic signs of different languages. Translation is not only the
transformation of linguistic signs but also the communication of thoughts and culture".
Al-Kufaishi (1996) also defined translation as" an interlingual communicative activity in
the sense that it is primarily concerned with conveying meaning across different cultures and
with enhancing cross-cultural understanding. It is interactive in the sense that it involves
interaction and negotiation in its four processes of text decomposition, conversion,
restructuring and editing".
It is concluded that translation is the process of transformation of certain message from one
language to another language. This process involves not only linguistic signs but also a
cognitive activity that requires the translator to activate his schemata and to understand,
deconstruct and reconstruct the meaning. It is also a communicative activity where the
translator interacts with the text and activates the communicative strategies to overcome the
obstacles s/he meets while translating. It is also considered a cultural activity where the
translator has to be familiar with the cultural differences between the languages and the
cultural implications a text may contain which affect the meaning while translating.

Traditional translation teaching:

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 Traditional translation teaching is teacher-centered, mainly concerns with error correction,
limits in classrooms' teaching, and bases on words and sentences, and focuses on the foreign
language competence. It emphasizes mainly the word meaning and the sentence meaning
which is not completely right in context. The pragmatic meaning may change the meaning
completely.
The main short comings of traditional teaching as presented by Shi-Yang(2009)
1-The traditional translation teaching prefers the bottom-up order, concentrating on the
semantic meaning, it mainly emphasizes the word, phrase, clause, or sentence meaning. In
this situation, when the students get the translation text, they usually study new words and
phrases to understand the sentence meaning, finally translate the text with the help of
sentence translation skills. These kinds of meaning cannot clearly and exactly realize the
purpose of the original author, and it is difficult for target readers to obtain the same effect as
source readers obtained from the original text.
2-The traditional translation teaching focuses on the word or sentence meaning, and the main
aim of translation is to improve students' language competence, which is of far nature of
translation teaching. The purpose of translation teaching is “to make students understand that
most of equivalent meaning of words is not fixed" (He-Ping, 2000:42).
3-The traditional translation teaching is teacher-centered. In general, teachers give students a
text, which is full of pitfalls, that is to say, the teachers at the very beginning do not plan to
train their students to be engaged in complex and difficult translation skills, and confuse them
and mislead them to the wrong way. Then discuss sentence by sentence after students have
translated the text, eventually, teachers give the right translation. This translation teaching
becomes error correction, and teachers' reference becomes the ultimate aim. Thus, the
purpose of translation teaching disappears and it, to some extent, harms students' activity and
creativity.
4-The traditional translation teaching does not concern much about the culture factor. In
translation, culture difference is an important factor that the translator must consider.

Based on the findings that identified the drawbacks of the traditional translation teaching
method, experts in the field started discussing the competences that students need to master in
order to translate a text comprehensibly. Different classifications of translation competence
were presented and the following is a presentation of the most important and more relevant
ones to the present research followed by a discussion of the different approaches of teaching
translation, methods, strategies, and techniques.

Translation Competence:
Neubert (1994) cited in Schaffner (2000, 15) proposes the following hierarchical definition
of translation competence that consists of:
1-Language Competence: includes the knowledge grammatical system as well as repertoires,
terminologies, syntactic and morphological conventions.
2-Textual Competence: emerges from and is intertwined with the linguistic competence, and
represents an ability to define textual features of e.g. technical, legal or literary fields,
3-Subject Competence: stems from textual competence, it represents the familiarity with what
the particular text is about, this concept covers both knowledge about the world
(encyclopedic knowledge) and readers' knowledge.
4- Cultural Competence: is what students need while translating as they act as mediators
between various cultural background and presuppositions.
5-Transfer Competence: encompasses the strategies and procedures that allow translating the
text from L1 to L2. It is the ability to perform translation as such quickly and effectively.
This competence is superordinate to the previous four competencies and has a transient nature

8
because it is "triggered off by the nature of the text" or by different parts of a single source
text.

Schaffner (2000) presented a pedagogical model known as Christina Schaffner's model

where she defines translation competence (TC) as "…a complex notion which involves an
awareness of and a conscious reflection on all the relevant factors for the production of a target
text (TT) that appropriately fulfils its specified function for its target addressees". Her TC model
consists of the following translation sub-competences:
1-Linguistic Competence- is the languages concerned
2-Cultural Competence- is general knowledge about historical, political, economic, cultural, etc.
aspects in the respective countries.
3-Textual Competence-is knowledge of regularities and conventions of texts, genres, text types.
4-Domain/ Subject Specific competence-is knowledge of the relevant subject, the area of
expertise.
5-(Re)search Competence- ability to produce TTs that satisfy the demands of the translation
task. (Schaffner 2000:146).
These competences are interrelated and interacted together depending on a given translation
task.
TC models based on pedagogical experience may be constructed in the light of undesirable
traits exhibited by students and by the products of their efforts.
Olivia fox (2000) presented some of the negative aspects of translation performance of
undergraduate students :
*lack of awareness of the purpose of translation task
*lack of knowledge of the TT language, its conventions and usage
*lack of knowledge of the socio-cultural context within which texts were to be received
*The absence of effective text editing
In response to the needs presented by aforementioned shortcomings, Fox developed the
following definition of translation competence/s (Fox:2000):
1-communicative competence- awareness towards the purpose of translation task and the
situation resulting in the ability to produce an adequate TT
2-Socio-cultural competence-awareness of the socio-cultural context in which the ST emerged
and an ability to comprehend texts in TL and SL culture.
3-Language and cultural awareness- being aware of how language/s work and conveys meaning
and an ability to produce TTs that meet the linguistic and cultural expectations of target
audience
4- Learning-how to learn – an awareness of different resources and how to use them to record
ones observations.
5-Problem-solving goals – awareness of situational, linguistic, cultural or textual problems and
being able to solve them.
Having a glance to the competence models presented, one can conclude that:
First, all the competences are interrelated, and cannot be segregated.
Second, all the competences suggested are derived from different theories; either theories of
language or theories of learning. For example, linguistic or language competence and textual
competence are derived from the linguistic theory, the communicative competence and problem-
solving competence are derived from the communicative and functional approaches, cultural
competence is derived from the cultural studies theory, and the subject/ domain specific
competence is derived from the cognitive theory.
Depending on this, the researcher designed the program in light of these theories which are
integrated under the umbrella of the eclectic approach. The following discussion is a short
presentation of the four theories being used in the present research.

9
The linguistic approach to translation:
Linguistic approach to translation focuses primarily on the issues of meaning and
equivalence (same meaning conveyed by a different expression). Linguistics thus tries to
discover ‘what’ the language actually means. It is then the work of the philosophy of
linguistics to understand ‘how’ the language means. Language has certain features like
meaning, reference, truth, verification, speech acts, logical necessity etc. it is through these
feature that the linguists try to understand the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the text. Any language
uses a particular set of signs and symbols to convey a particular meaning or idea. These signs
and symbols are ‘signifiers’. The meaning or idea that is being conveyed by these ‘signifiers’
is called ‘signified’.  All languages are used in a particular social and cultural context. So the
‘signified’ for a particular ‘signifier’ may change from culture to culture and society to
society. For example, for signifier ‘yellow’ in America, the signified is cowardice, for the
Egyptians yellow signifies jealousy whereas for Indians it signifies joy. Thus the translator
has to understand what the author of the original text actually wants to convey. (Moore,
2009)
Undoubtedly, for the linguistic approach, language is the component in translation.
Translation can actually be understood as transferring the meaning or the idea from one
language to another. It thus becomes imperative for a translator to understand the meaning of
the source text (text to be translated) in the context in which they are said or written.
Cultural studies and their implications on translation:
Now the academic circles of translation studies have reached a consensus that translation
studies have been taking a shift from the mere linguistic transformation to the transference of
cultural messages. It can be seen from some cultural terms. Conacher (1996:169) replaces
translation with “inter-cultural communication”; Holz-Manttari substitutes “intercultural
cooperation” for translation (1984:17); and Snell-Hornby (1988:2) regards it as “a cross-cultural
activity”
Translation is more of a cross-cultural communication than of a bilingual communication the
aim of which is to break the language barriers to cultural communication; the nature of
translation is a cross-cultural transmission of information, a cultural activity in which translators
make the reappearance of the source text with the target language. The essence of translation is
cultural transplanting and cultural mixture. It is rather than the language but cultural information
that is the object of translation activity (James:2002).
James (2002) adds understanding the meaning of the source text is much more than a mere
linguistic matter. Language is part of culture and is, in turn, influenced and restricted by culture.
Under different cultural background, the same word may mean differently. So, in the course of
translating, whether the translator can understand one passage correctly or not is to a great extent
determined by his knowledge of the culture concerned. Cultural Translation (or Cultural
Approach) is a term used informally to refer to types of translation which function as a tool for
cross-cultural or anthropological research, or indeed to any translation which is sensitive to
cultural as well as linguistic factors. Such sensitivity might take the form either of presenting
target language recipients with a transparent text which informs them about elements of the
source culture, or of finding target items which may in some way be considered to be culturally
“equivalent” to the source language items they are translating. Thus a translator who uses a
cultural approach is simply recognizing that each language contains elements, which are derived
from its culture (such as greetings, fixed expressions, etc), that every text is anchored in a
specific culture, and that conventions of text production and reception vary from culture to
culture. An awareness of such issues can at times make it more appropriate to think of
translation as a process which occurs between cultures rather than simply between languages.
(Shuttleworth ＆ Cowie 2004: 35)
The functional Approach:

10
Sui and Wang (2005) indicated that the functional approach is a model of performance. It is
concerned with meaning, function, and language in use. It is an important tool for interpreting
texts. According to Halliday (1985), the functional approach has the following three
characteristic features:
1) It is based on systemic theory; a theory of meaning as choice. It means starting with the
most general features and proceeding step by step so as to become even more specific.
2) It is functional in three distinct: First, it is concerned with the way language is organized to
fulfill communicative functions. Second, it aims to account for three basic kinds of meaning,
the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. Third, each element in a language is
explained by reference to its function in the total linguistic system.
3) It is discourse approach. It aims to provide two levels of discourse analysis: the first is the
understanding of the text. The second is the evaluation of the text.
Accordingly, Sui and Wang concluded that:
1) Use, not just study. Modern methods give priority to classroom activities that encourage
students to use the language rather than merely study it.
2) Exchange of information. Communicative activity also necessitates a focus not just on the
forms of language, but on the information that is accessed through it.
3) Skill integration. Language learning, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating
are seen as mutually supportive.
4) Grammar is only a tool to use language well, no need spending much time on actual
explanation. Of course, people communicate with one another not only in language, but also
with their body and mind.
According to this functional approach, translation training does not depend merely on
translation from and to the target language; it depends on several activities to enhance the
process of translation. These activities range from pair work to group work and from
language exercises to cultural ones.
Translation as a cognitive process:
The cognitive theory depends mainly on the assumption that learners are not simply passive
recipients of information; they actively construct their own understanding. Bassnett (2002)
indicated that translation is a cognitive process, because conscious knowledge helps towards the
development of L2 proficiency. It involves a deeper understanding and internalization of the
language (translation becoming a mediation resource for communication). Wilson ( 2011 )
indicated that how translation occurs is the cumulative cognitive behavior of the translator and
what is the transition of the sign and its components from the source language to the target
language. She added that translation, at a minimum, involves cognitive functions such as
problem-solving and decision-making. Linguistic skills in two languages are not sufficient, as
translation is a complex cognitive function that extends beyond linguistic skills. Wilson
summarizes the cognitive translation process into three general tasks (analyze, interpret and
reformulate) under the umbrella of these three tasks operational concepts occur: action,
behavior, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, intuition, and strategies , techniques and
routines of translation. For Al-Kufaishi (2004)Translation provides learners with opportunities
to operate on the text extracting salient information, interpreting propositions, rejecting
redundant information, focusing on what is relevant, etc. Translation is thus an exercise that
helps learners develop their cognitive data processing capabilities — their abilities to recognize
and reproduce structured discourse and sharpen their comprehension skills. With its focus on
meaning, translation helps learners identify the communicative value of utterances which is
determined largely with reference to the interaction between sentence meaning and the
communicative context. Sentence meaning, in turn, is determined largely with reference to the
interaction between words and the structures in which they are embedded. One of the important
learning principles is the linkage principle-learning through associating related elements. It

11
postulates that learners learn by linking (a) grammatical forms to their communicative functions
and to the parameters of the communicative event, (b) the different functions manifested by a
single grammatical form and (c) the different forms that serve the same function. Since a
translation text exposes learners to the communicative functions language forms encode
(functions such as those of description, definition, classification, etc.), it helps them associate
these functions with the grammatical structures that realize them and with their illocutionary
intent.
:Transformational approach
It is a student and learning-centered context that focuses on collaborative study and exploration
of the translation process with the teacher acting as guide and where procedures bridge class
work and practice with theories (Davies, 2004).
It is obvious that the implementation of translation could not only enhance the process of
learning the language from a pragmatically and socio-cultural point of view, but also contribute
to a better and deeper understanding of the L2 and culture. By bringing the translation exercises
into the L2 classroom, students' use of grammar, vocabulary, registry are reinforced and they
become aware of different situational contexts and cultural aspects.
Based on these approaches Davies (2004) summarized the implementation of them in classroom
dynamics as follows:
a-the linguistic-based approach based on the comparison and contrast of languages, on text
types, pragmatics, morpho-syntax, that is mainly text and language centered.
b-The cultural studies approach where the students are made aware of the hidden agendas in
texts, and analyses and translate according to these, discussing mainly the procedures used by
authors and translators to reveal covert or overt intentions and what the translator's reactions and
actions should be accordingly. Relaying or challenging ideologies is the crucial issue here.
c- The cognitive approach in which the emphasis lies on the application of translation solutions-
sometimes called strategies or procedures-to specific problems, on the discussion about what
goes on in the translator's mind and on exploring what lies behind translation competence.
Transference skills are main area of study and practice.
d-The functionalist approach where the emphasis lies on the translation assignment and its
initiator, whether an author or the translator him/herself. Here, the target text is more central
than the source text and its author, and the transformations necessary to comply with the
initiator's request are the key issue around which classroom discussions revolve.
She added, in the approach to translation training to be applied, the following points affect the
design of any training program directly:
-An interaction between all the participants of the learning setting.
-The inclusion of both process and product oriented activities.
-The integration of five main approaches to translation training: linguistics, cultural, cognitive
psychology, functionalism and cooperative.
-The inclusion of research in pedagogy studies, especially the area related to class dynamics.
-A need to build bridges to fill the communication gap between theories and practice.
-The perception of the teacher's role as guide, counselor, informer and evaluator.
-The acceptance of student diversity and the perception of their role as autonomous learners.
-A need to respect learner styles and teaching styles.
-Learning through negotiation and experimentally in a classroom environment understood as a
combination of a hands-on workshop and a discussion forum on ongoing translation issues.
-The design of worksheets and activities to complete the texts for translation and enhance
different aspects central to translating, whether linguistic or extra-linguistic.
-Catering for the specific needs of students with little experience in translation to help them
move from language learning to translation learning.

12
Reasons for using translation in the classroom:
Slepchenko (2003) agreed with Duff (1994) in highlighting the following reasons for using
translation in the classroom:
1-All people have mother tongue: Translation shapes people's way of thinking and their use of
the foreign language to some extent. It helps people to understand better the influence of one
language on the other. And because translation involves contrast, it helps them to explore the
potential of both languages- their strengths and weaknesses.
2- Naturalness of the activity: He believes that translation is a natural and necessary activity.
3-The skill aspect: Language competence is a two-way system. People need to be able to
communicate both ways; into and from the foreign language. Translation is a perfect means of
practicing this vital skill.
4-The reality of the language: The proper material for translation is authentic and wide-
ranging; the learner is being brought into touch with the whole language, and not just the parts
isolated by the textbook.
5- Usefulness: As a language learning activity, translation has a lot of merits; in translation there
is hardly any 'right' answer, but there are a lot of wrong ones. Doing all the work individually
and in writing is not necessary. Students can work in pairs of groups for oral discussions. He
adds that translation is useful because it develops three essential qualities to all language
learning: accuracy, clarity and flexibility. It trains the reader to search (flexibility) for the most
appropriate words (accuracy) to convey what is meant (clarity).
Slepchenko (2003) added that depending on the students' needs, and on the syllabus, the teacher
can select material to illustrate particular aspects of language and structures the students have
difficulties with. By working through these difficulties in the mother tongue, the students can
see the link between the language (grammar) and the usage.
Methods of translation:
Newmark (1988) presented the following methods of translation:
1-word –for-word translation:
In this method, the source language word is translated into another language by their most
common meanings, which can also be out of context at times, especially in idioms and proverbs.
2-literal translation:
In this method, the source language grammatical constructions are translated to their nearest
target language. However, the lexical words are translated singly, out of context.
3-Faithful translation:
In this method, the translation interprets the exact contextual meaning of the original within the
constraints of the grammatical structures of the target language.
4-Semantic translation:
Semantic translation refers to that type of translation which takes into account the aesthetic
value of the source language text.

5-Adoption:
Adoption refers to that type of translation which is used mainly for plays and poems. The text is
rewritten considering the source language culture which is converted to the language culture
where the characters, themes, and plots are usually preserved.
6-Free translation:
This method of translation produces the translated text without style, form, or content of original
text.
7-Idiomatic translation:
It reproduces the message of the original text but tends to distort the original meaning at times
by preferring colloquialisms and idioms, where these do not exist in the original.
8-Communicative translation:

13
This method attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original text in a manner
where both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readers.

Adetunji (2010) presented another classification of the methods of translation:

1-Idiomatic Translation
Idiomatic translation is the kind of translation that is meaning - based and which communicates
the meaning of the source language in a natural form of the receptor language. In translating an
idiom, the translator’s goal should be to reproduce in the receptor language a text, which
communicates the same message as the source language but using the natural grammatical and
lexical choices of the
receptor language.
2-Unduly Free Translation
Unduly free translation is the kind of translation that has additional extraneous information
which is not included in the source text, whether the meaning of the source language has been
changed or the fact of the historical and cultural setting of the source language text has been
distorted. However, this kind of translation is not totally considered acceptable and normal. It is,
however, usually used to bring a kind of humor and special response from the receptor language
speakers. And it also emphasizes on the reaction of those reading or hearing it and the meaning
is not necessarily the same as that of the source language.
3- Interlinear Translation
It is a completely literal translation for some special purpose. It is preferable to reproduce the
linguistic features of the source text as, for example, in a linguistic study of that language.
Although these literal translations may be very useful for purposes related to the study of the
source language, they are of little help to speakers of the receptor language who are very
interested in the meaning of the source language text.
The present research concentrates on both communicative translation and idiomatic translation
because the sample of the study is not professionals and will not work as translators; their
profession is mainly English teachers for basic education cycle.
The following are techniques and strategies of translation adopted from Adetunji (2010):
A. Equivalence
This implies searching the target language for the most appropriate and equivalent
expression corresponding to the one in the source language. It is the technique most
frequently applied in the translation of proverbs, idiomatic expressions and figures of
speech. Simpson (1985) explains that the translator has no choice than to search for similar
situation in the target language. It is therefore a cultural transplant. For example ‫الولد سر ابية‬
“al- waladu sirru abihi” If we translate this literally, we may write: “the boy is the secret of
his father” this translation does not give the exact meaning of the source language, the real
meaning is “like father like son”. From this example, it appears that equivalence plays a
significant role in the translation of idioms, proverbs and figures of speech. It is the safest
way of ensuring that the right message is transmitted from the source language to the target
language.

B. Adaptation
Adaptation means the modification of the idea in the source language so as to find an
acceptable one in the target language. Adaptation can be used where the translator does not
find an appropriate equivalence.
C. Transposition

14
Transposition is a replacement of a part of speech by another, without altering the meaning.
Therefore transposition as a technique of translation means changing the syntactical
structure of an expression so as to clarify the meaning.

Dornyei (1995) cited in Brown (2000) provided the strategies that students usually follow
while translating:
1-Avoidance strategies:
Message abandonment:
Leaving message unfinished because of language difficulties.
Topic avoidance:
Avoiding topic areas or concepts that pose language difficulties.
2-Compensatory strategies:
Circumlocution:
Describing or exemplifying the target object of action (e.g. the thing you open bottles with
for corkscrew).
Approximation:
Using all alternative term which expresses the meaning of the target lexical item as closely
as possible (e.g. ship for sailboat).
Use of all purpose words:
A general empty lexical item to contexts where specific words are lacking (e.g., the over use of
things, stuff, what-do-you-call-it)
Word coinage:
Creating a non-existing L2 word based on a supposed rule (e.g., vegetaianist for vegetarian).
Prefabricated patterns:
Using memorized stock phrases, usually for "survival" purposes (e.g., where is the…..or
where the morphological components are not known to the learner).
Non-linguistic signals:
This strategy is used in the case of oral translation like mime, gesture, facial expressions…
Literal translation:
Translating literally a lexical item, idiom, compound word, or structure from L1 to L2.
Foreignizing:
Using L1 word by adjusting it to L2 phonology (i.e., with a L2 pronunciation) and/or
morphology (e.g., adding to it a L2 suffix).
Code-switching:
Using a L1 word with L1 pronunciation or a L3 word with L3 pronunciation while speaking
in L2.
Appeal for help:
Asking for help from the teacher directly of asking a colleague by saying (what do you call
…..?)
Stalling or time gaining strategies:
Using fillers or hesitation devices to fill pauses and to gain time to think (well, now, uh
…..etc.)

Pedagogical strategies to implement translation activities:

Sainz (1991:70) presented two effective activities to train students on translation.
Back-translation: It requires students to translate a text into L2, and after having set it aside for
some period of time, either translate the previous translation back into L1, or compare this
previous translation back with the original text in L1. This technique makes students realize

15
"how far away are from the original version and how their own translations can be misleading
even for themselves".
Collaborative translation: This consists of students comparing and sharing their own
translations. The goal is to promote discussion among students. Thus, they could eventually see
a better translation in each other's target text, or admit more than one option as a valid
translation.
Davis (2004) presented variety of tasks and activities; the following is a representation of some
of them:
Proverbs and fixed expressions activity:
1-The students take to the class between 10-12 beliefs, superstitions, or customs belonging to a
given culture. In groups students try to find equivalents in other cultures.
2-Match the columns activity: proverbs and sayings are listed in one column and their
correspondences in another language are listed jumbled in a second column. The students have
to match the correspondences. In some cases, there may be no correspondence or there may be
more than one possibility.
Collocations: Tackling negative transfer activity
1-The teacher chooses verbs that pose problems for the students because of linguistic
interference.
2-The verbs are situated in the centre of a "bubble" and few words which usually collocate with
it are written around each one. One false collocation is added. A blank space, or more, is also
left.
3-The students have to find the false collocation, fill in the blank/s with another collocation, or
others, and give possible translations that may vary according to different contexts.
Fast thinking: stop!
1-The students draw a grid in their notebooks with the semantic fields that the teacher has
proposed or the class has agreed upon previously.
2-A letter is called out by the teacher. The students have to fill in their grids with one word for
each field. The word must begin with the letter that has been called out.
3-Each student in the pair takes turns to draw back up the list in one of the two languages in
which they are working. Each time they have completed a list corresponding to a given letter,
they exchange them and translate each other's.
Synonyms and context activity:
1-The teacher chooses a number of challenging words which appear in the chosen text and
writes them on the board. The students then jot them down in their notebooks.
2-The teacher says aloud a synonym of each of the words but not in the same order in which
they were written on the board.
3-The students have to write the corresponding synonym next to the word it matches.
4-The students correct each other's synonyms against the complete text, that is, they put the
words in context. Problems are discussed as a class activity(e.g. how words may have different
meanings depending on their context).
5-Finally, students try to find correspondences for the words in their own language and comment
on any interesting points which may arise.

Many other activities were presented by Davies (2004) and were used and presented in the
present research's program.
Design of the study:
It is a pre-post one group design. Consequently, one group of fourth year basic-education
English majors, Women's College, Ain Shams University was used for conducting the
experiment. The pre-translation competence test was administered to the students before the
experiment. Then, they received the training program for developing their translation

16
 competence based on the eclectic approach. Finally, the post- tests were administered to the
students and the differences were calculated by means of t-tests for the English-Arabic passage
and the Arabic-English passage while descriptive analysis was followed with the other part of
the test concerned with proverbs, idioms and collocations.
Subjects:
The subjects of the study included 19 fourth year basic education English majors who
represented the whole section. The program was administered in the second term of the
academic year 2011/2012. All subjects were graduated from governmental schools. This sample
was chosen mainly because the researcher is concerned with teacher preparation, especially
basic education students who are responsible for cultivating young learners’ minds and teaching
them the foreign language. If these student-teachers do not master the foreign language
appropriately, their deficiency will be reflected on their students.
The aim of the research was to develop basic education English majors' translation competence
based on the eclectic approach. In accordance with the research aim, the researcher developed
research instruments for collecting data needed for answering research hypotheses:
a)Translation competence pre-post test. (Appendix:2 )
b)Translation competence scoring rubric (Appendix : 3 )
Translation competence pre-post test:

The test was devised to find an answer to the research's sub-question:

How far will the training program help to improve English majors' translation competence?
Content of the test:
The pre-post test is divided into six parts: the first part consists of 12 English proverbs and
idioms to be translated into Arabic. Part two consists of 15 English collocations. Part three
consist of 12 Arabic proverbs to be translated into English. Part four consists of 15 Arabic
collocations. Part five is an English passage to be translated into Arabic. The last part is an
Arabic passage to be translated into English.
Description of the test:
A- Students' translations of the English and Arabic proverbs and idioms will be analyzed
qualitatively and the errors will be compared between their pre-translation and their post-
translation.
b-Students' translations of both the Arabic collocations and the English collocations through
comparing the percentages of the correct answers before and after administration and the quality
of the translation i.e. the students' ability to provide the best or near correct translation.
C-Students' translations of both the Arabic passage and the English passage will be measured in
light of the translation competence scoring rubric.
Description of the translation competence scoring rubric:
The translation competence rubric is adopted from Khanmohammad and Osanloo (2009)
published in JELS Journal vol.1, no.1 entitled Moving toward objective scoring: A rubric for
translation assessment.
The rubric covered four aspects of translation. These aspects are accuracy, finding
equivalent, grammar and style, and shifts, omissions, additions and inventing equivalents.
The score of the rubric is 80. Each translation aspect is divided into five levels ranging from
the best and efficient translation to the worst and inefficient translation. The first aspect is
accuracy where 30 marks were given to this aspect. The first level in this aspect represents
the best and most accurate translation ranging from 25 to 30 marks. The second level ranges
from 21-24 marks. The third level ranges from 16- 20 marks. The fourth level ranges from
11-15 marks and the fifth level which is the worst translation and the inaccurate translation
ranges from 1-10. The second aspect is finding equivalent where 25 marks were given to
this aspect. The first level ranges from 20-25marks which represents the best usage of

17
vocabulary. The second level ranges from 15-19, the third level ranges from 10-14, the fourth
level ranges from 5-9, and the fifth level which presents the least appropriate use of
vocabulary ranges from 1-4. The third aspect is grammar and style where 15 marks were
given to this aspect. The first level is the most fluent and native-like use of grammatical and
stylistic points, this level ranges from 13-15 marks. The second level ranges from 10-12
marks, the third level ranges from 7-9 marks, the fourth level ranges from 4-6 marks, and the
last level ranges from 1-3 marks where this level represents the worst translation
grammatically and stylistically. The fourth aspect is shift, omission, addition and inventing
equivalent where 10 marks were given to this aspect. The first level ranges from 9-10 where
correct use of relative clauses, verb forms, use of parallel structure, no fragment or run-on
sentences are apparent. The second level ranges from 7-8 where shifts appear slightly. The
third level ranges from 5-6. The fourth level ranges from 3-4, and the last level ranges from
1-2 where translated sentences are unintelligibly structured due to ignorance of necessary
shifts and no trace of invention. (appendix: 3 ).
Validity of the test:
To measure the test content validity, the first version of the test was given to three jury
members, 2 of them were TEFL professors and a linguistics lecturer who used to teach
translation, to evaluate the appropriateness of the items of the test.
The test in its first version consisted of 20 Arabic proverbs and idioms and 20 English
proverbs and idioms, 20 Arabic collocations and 20 English collocations, Arabic passage and
English passage.
The jury suggested the following:
a-They chose 12 English proverbs and 12 Arabic proverbs which are considered well known
proverbs and idioms for the Egyptian students in order to guarantee the full comprehension of
their meaning in order to test the students' translation ability only.
b-They chose only 15 collocations for each language. The collocations chosen varied to cover
economical, social, political and religious aspects.
c-The two passages were approved without any modification.
Reliability of the test:
In order to establish the reliability of the test, it was administered to a randomly chosen
group of 10 students from the third year basic education English majors, Women's College.
They were chosen from a level other than the sample of the study because the whole section
of the fourth year was the entire sample due to the low number of the section. After two
weeks the researcher retested the same students on the same test. Then, the pearson
correlation coefficient between the test/retest results were calculated. The reliability
coefficient was (r = 0.94). Therefore, the test was considered reliable for the purpose of the
study.
Test time limitations:
Time of the test was estimated by calculating the means of time of both the fastest and
slowest students that finished answering the test:
The fastest student + the slowest student
-----------------------------------------------------
2

The slowest student finished after three hours while the fastest student finished after an hour
180 + 60
------------------- = 120 minutes
2

18
Administration of the program:
The program was administered on the second term of the academic year 2011/2012 for two
months. The researcher used to meet the students regularly once a week for 2 hours. The
program consisted of eight sessions each consisted of a group of activities. The activities
were based on the four approaches (linguistic, cultural, cognitive and functional approaches).
The Program:
Rational:
The present program stems from the belief that translation teaching/learning is an essential
component of language acquisition that constructs students' language competences of both the
target language and the mother tongue language. It depends on the eclectic approach which is an
integration of more than one approach. In the present program the approaches are the linguistic
approach, the cultural studies approach, the cognitive approach and the functional approach.
These approaches were carried out through the transformational approach which is a student and
learning-centered context that focuses on collaborative study and exploration of the translation
process with the teacher acting as a guide and where procedures that bridge class work and
practice have a place. Out of these approaches, different classifications of translation
competences emerged. Surveying these classifications, the researcher designed the present
program to develop four competences required for basic-education English majors students
which are accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and avoiding shift, omission,
addition and inventing equivalent.
The program relies on the following assumptions:
1-In order to gain command in l2, it is valuable to analyze and contrast the style, format and
organization of the discourse in both L1 and L2. Translation, as a unifying discipline, could
facilitate this task to the L2 students.
2-Translation is a communicative/ functional activity as it enables the construction of
meaning from L1 into L2 and vice versa.
3-Translation is a cultural experience as it bridges and shares the transference of the culture in
L1 into the culture in L2 and vice versa.
4-Translation is a cognitive process because conscious knowledge helps towards the
development of L2 proficiency. It involves a deeper understanding and internalization of the
language.
5-Translation, linguistically, is understood as transferring the meaning or the idea from one
language to another.
6-ranslation class room is a learner centered-class room rather than a teacher-centered
classroom.
Sessions of the program:
Session 1:
Activity 1: 30 minutes
Objectives:
By the end of this session students will be able to:
1-reflect on preconceived ideas about translation and elicit their expectations.
Procedures:
a-The researcher writes a series of words connected with translation on the board as "word
stars".
b-Each student should write between 3-5 words, expressions or ideas that she associates with
each of the words (they can be nouns, adjectives, verbs, phrases….)
c-When they have finished, they compare their associations with those of another student and
discuss their different and similar viewpoints.
d-Finally, in a brainstorming session, the researcher writes the different associations on the
board and a class discussion on preconceived ideas and expectations follows.

19
 Translation Equivalence

Creativity

Activity 2 : what is translation (60 minutes)

Objectives:
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Present their beliefs about translation.
2-List possible items that form part of translation competence.
3-Compare and discuss their attitudes towards translation.
Procedures: (pair work)
a-The researcher asks students to write down about 5-6 points they need to know in order to
carry out an adequate translation task.
b-The students compare their list with those of another two students and discuss and justify their
points. The researcher circulates to find out what the general feeling is and to help out with any
problem.
c-Once all the students have had time to discuss, a brain storming session follows. The
researcher draws up three columns or bubbles on the board under the headings: Languages,
Encyclopedic knowledge, Transfer skills.
d-The students read out the concepts on their lists, which are then included in one or other of the
columns or bubbles. Of course, some may overlap, but this is considered an interesting part of
the debate. They decide under which column they want to include the more ambiguous items
and, if no consensus is arrived at, they are written in a space between the two columns that seem
most appropriate.
e-The columns can be visualized as a triangle as follows:

Target
Interference
language

Linguistic
knowledge
20
subject

Source language

Encyclopedic
Translation aptitudes:
knowledge the task

Theory of
translation
Source and
target
language
Transference
mental
skills

Decision
resourcing
making
Proble
m
solving
strategie
s

f- A discussion and an explanation, from the part of the researcher, of the terms included in
the bubbles follows.
Activity 3: 15 minutes translation (30minutes)
Objectives:
By the end of the activity students would be able to:
1-write translation drafts quickly.
2-translate with no resources, e.g. coping with translation without depending on a dictionary.
3-guess meaning through context.
4-Discuss translation issues with their peers.
Procedures:
a-the students received a text to be translated. The first time they do this activity, they read
the text before the activity started.
b-The students were given exactly 15 minutes to translate the text individually. Once the time
was up, they exchanged what they had done with another student and compared the results.
c-A discussion on which they was the best way to deal with translation under time constraints
followed.

Session 2:
Objectives of session 2:
By the end of this activity students would be able to:
1-become aware of cultural similarities and differences.
2-discuss translation strategies that can be used to translate proverbs and expressions.
Task 1: proverbs and fixed expressions

21
Activity 1: find equivalent
a-The students took to the class between 10–12 beliefs, superstitions, or customs belonging to
the English culture: cats have 9 lives; unlucky dates such as Friday 13th, one should never spill
salt, so on.
b. Students tried hard to classify the proverbs into those which have an equivalent and the others
which does not have exact equivalent.
c. In groups, the students tried to find equivalents in their own culture. They were given some
time to do this outside the classroom as homework.
d. A discussion on these cultural differences and how to translate them followed.

Activity 2:match the columns

a.A reverse dictation was followed. The teacher read out proverbs and
sayings in English language and the students take them down in Arabic
language at dictation speed.
b.A discussion of the possible translations was held.
c.A “match the columns” activity followed in which proverbs and sayings
were listed in one column and their correspondences in the language were
listed jumbled in a second column. The students had to match the
correspondences. In some cases, there may be no correspondence or there
may be more than one possibility.
Activity 3: practice translation alternatives
a.In this activity the instructor provided the students with two types of proverbs; the first type
of proverbs have exact equivalents while the other type does not have exact equivalents.
b.students were asked to translate each proverb and explain how they translated each.
c.The instructor started a discussion of possible strategies for translating proverbs and
provided them with the following strategies:
a. keep the same context, register and meaning
b. use solutions on a cline between total creativity and compensation:
*------------ *------------ *------------ *------------ *------------ *------------ *------------
coin a new paraphrase explicitation footnote literal elision compensation
saying translation
– Coin a new saying: make up a proverb or saying keeping the flavour of the original and the
rhythm of the target language for this kind of language.
– Paraphrase: explain the meaning of the proverb or saying briefly.
– Explicitation: insert a brief explanation in the text to clarify the meaning of the proverb or
saying, usually after applying a semantic translation.
Literal translation: a translation which follows the source language almost but not quite word by
word.
Activity 4: mind maps
a. The students sat together in teams. They were the same groups as in the previous steps. Each
team chose two topics to propose to the rest of the class, e.g. Time, Money, Games, Education...
b. The teams called out the topics and the teacher wrote them down on the blackboard.
c. Once again, each team chose two topics from those on the blackboard.
d. Every two teams in the class chose and worked with the same topic from those proposed.
e. Each team now worked on a mind map of that topic. The concept or word was written in the
middle and then different branches with subtopics were drawn around it. These branches were
subdivided into more and so on. Words, proverbs and expressions should be included next to
each topic and subtopic. All this is done in L1.
a. Variation 1. The teams translated the words and proverbs they had written into the L2.

22
b. Variation 2. The teams exchanged their mind maps and translate the words and proverbs
written by the other team.
Session 3:
Activity 1: collocations
Objectives:
By the end of this activity students would be able to:
1-compare collocations in two languages
2-choose the appropriate correspondence
Procedures:
a. The teacher chose verbs that pose problems for the students because of linguistic interference.
b. The verbs were situated in the centre of a “bubble” and a few words which usually collocate
with it were written around each one. One false collocation was added. A blank space, or more,
was also left (appendix ).
c. The students had to find the false collocation, fill in the blank/s with another collocation, or
others, and give possible translations that may vary according to different contexts.

Activity 2: choose the appropriate word

Objectives:
1-explore specific vocabulary
2-Choose the most appropriate word or expression in the source language and justify the
choice
3- Choose the most appropriate word or expression in the target language and justify the
choice
4-pratice dictionary exploration
Procedures:
a. The teacher chose an excerpt of a text they have already worked on or of a completely new
one in the L2.
b. She blanked out words and expressions and prepared a number of activities.
c. Using a thesaurus, pairs of students prepared a worksheet similar to the one provided by the
teacher.
d. Each pair exchanged their worksheets and fills in the gaps. As they had to justify their
choices, they needed to look up the words and expressions in dictionaries.
e. The pairs sat together and proceeded to correct the work done.
f. Finally, each pair translated the text they did not prepare originally.
Variation 1. The students can prepare a similar worksheet with their translation so that they also
explore the target language.
Variation 2. This can be done as individual work first, followed by a discussion in small groups.
Activity 3: synonyms and context
Objectives:
By the end of this activity students will be able to
1-introduce or reinforce specific vocabulary, synonyms and connotations
2-spot cultural components in words
3- contextualize vocabulary
4-Justify choices and make decisions

Procedures:
a. The teacher chose a number of challenging words which appear in the chosen text and wrote
them on the blackboard. The students then jot them down in their notebooks.

23
b. The teacher says aloud a synonym of each of the words but not in the same order in which
they were written on the blackboard.
c. The students had to write the corresponding synonym next to the word it
matched.
d. The students corrected each other’s synonyms against the complete text,
that is, they put the words in context. Problems were discussed as a class
activity (e.g. how words may have different meanings depending on their
context).
e. Finally, the students tried to find correspondences for the words in their
own language and comment on any interesting points which may arise.
f. A follow-up activity consisted of asking the students to find other words
and their synonyms, with or without the help of a dictionary, and passed the
activity they have prepared over to other students to carry out. They
corrected it together.

Activity 4: fast thinking

Objective:
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-explore and apply semantic translation
Procedures:
The students draw a grid in their notebooks with the semantic fields that the teacher had
proposed or the class has agreed upon.
English
Education food clothes home Media

Arabic
Education food clothes home Media

b. A letter was called out by the teacher. The students had to fill in their grids with one word for
each field. The word began with the letter that had been called out.
c. Each student in the pair took turns to draw up the list in one of the two languages in which
they were working. Each time they had completed a list corresponding to a given letter, they
exchanged them and translated each other’s.
Session 4:
Activity 1: Connectors:
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1- contextualize connectors
2- discuss semantic translation
Procedures:
a. The students received a worksheet which included different activities on translating
connectors (see sample).
b. Once they had completed the worksheet, the students prepared another one, individually or in
pairs, drawing from their translations and notes from other classes.
c. They exchanged worksheets.
d. The students or pairs sat together and corrected the answers together, with the teacher
circulating.
Sample (here, only AND has been used, but other connectors can be included
in the list of sentences)

24
 a. How many translations can you think of for the following?
and, nor, or, besides, yet, but, so, since, for, then
b. Look at the sentences and translate the connectors according to the context:
a/ I love bread AND butter AND jam for breakfast.
b/Well, why don’t you try AND understand?
c/ Joan got weaker AND weaker as the days went by.

Activity 2 : contrasting verb tenses

By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Compare the uses of verb tenses
2-Practice reverse dictation
Procedures:
a. The teacher prepared four groups of about five sentences each either concentrating on a verbal
tense or combining several, depending on the students’ level. The tenses should pose problems,
e.g. the subjunctive into English, English modal verbs, the conditional, specific constructions
such as the causal use of “have” (“have something done by someone”), and so on.
b. Individually and in pairs, the students translated the sentences.
c. Students form new groups of four students.
d. The teacher gave a translation of the sentences of each group only to one of the students in
that group (i.e. one student from group A receives the translations which correspond to
sentences A).
e. The students took turns to carry out a reverse dictation of the sentences prepared together
earlier. As there may be other translation possibilities besides that proposed by the teacher, the
student could check before starting the dictation and then act as monitor /guide to correct the
translations carried out by the other members of the new group.
f. The students took turns to dictate and correct.
g. A final class correction monitored by the teacher follows.
h. The same procedures were followed for Arabic sentences.
English Arabic
John knew Charles would tell his sister as soon
as he saw her.
I have just met her in the library.

If I were a bird, I would fly allover the world.

Do you mind opening that window?

It’s not worth getting upset about it.

Because she was so active, she was awarded the

title "the Queen".

Arabic Sentences English Translation

‫هل يمكن تتبع مراحل تصنيع العسل؟‬
‫ليس هناك خيارات أخرى إما النجاح أو الرسوب‬
‫كانت ذات يوم تعنى الكثير لمن تمثلهم إال أنها خذلتهم‬
‫علينا أن نعى آن عجلة التقدم تسير قدما و لن تلتفت لمن‬
‫تخلفوا عنها‬
‫سيكون الصراع القادم من اجل نقطة الماء و لقمة العيش‬

25
Activity 3: gapped translation
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Take decisions about their translations
2-Use correct context, register, style
3-Justify their choices
Procedures:
a. The students sat in pairs. Each student in the pair received a text to translate.
Alternatively, a text can be divided into two parts ( Jigsaw Translation).
b. Individually, the students in the pairs translated their text.
c. Once the text had been translated, each student blanked out a certain number of words, set
phrases, or structures from the translation she had carried out.
d. The students exchanged their translations and filled in the gaps in their partner’s translation
with the words or structures they would have used themselves.
e. The students sat in pairs and discussed the translations each one of them had produced and
tried to justify their choices.
f. A class discussion ensued both on the translation itself and on the acceptability of different
translations as long as they can be justified by the translator.
Session 5:
Task 2: What is ……..?
Objectives:
By the end of this activity students will be able to
1-present their background knowledge about …….
2-introduce specific terminology
3-collaborate to complete a text
4-Peer edit a translation
Activity 1: pre-task
1-This activity began at home where the teacher asked each group to decide on a topic and
collect data about it.
2-Find information about this topic from any sources they like: paper, electronic or human, in
L1.Write down/underline key terminology.
3-Do not overdo it – just bring what you think will be necessary to your work.
Activity 2: read and translate:
Read the text on the topic you brought in L1 and translate half of it orally in groups. Underline
any challenging terminology or syntax and start writing a glossary of terms you meet.
Activity 3: solve problems
1-Now work with another group and try to solve each other’s problems.
2-Comment on your translation, justify your decisions and accept the suggestions that you think
are appropriate.
3- The following step was editing each other’s translations.
Session 6:
Activity 1: Idioms game
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Translate idioms and proverbs in two languages
2-Use different translation options
3-Practice problem solving
Procedures:
a. The teacher formed groups of four students. Gave each group one set of cards with idioms
written on them in L1 and one in L2. It was useful to prepare each set in a different colour so
that the cards would not get mixed up too easily!

26
b. The students shuffled each set separately and put both face down on the table, one next to the
other.
c. The first player turned up one card from each pile at the same time. If the idiom or proverb in
L1 accepted a total correspondence with the one in B, the player kept both cards and won a
point. If they did not correspond, the cards went back underneath their respective piles (L1 or
L2). The next player then repeated the operation.
d. When the four players had taken their turns, the cards must be shuffled again.
e. The first group to pair off all the cards were the class winner. The player with the highest
number of paired cards (points) was the group winner.
Activity 2: Quick vocabulary lists
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Use effectively specific vocabulary
2-Apply communicative, semantic and literal translation and recognize the differences.
Procedures:
a. The students wrote as many words as they could in 4 or 5 minutes related to a topic they had
been working on: feelings, games, education, economics, and so on. This is a good activity to
encourage and check their glossary building. This was done individually.
b. The students compared their lists with those of the other students and each pair chose the 10
most difficult or interesting words to translate from their pooled lists. If necessary, they check
their translations using any sources they may need (dictionary, class notes, translated texts...).
c. Two pairs sat together and Pair A read their words out loud in the L2 to Pair B, who had a
minute to translate them. Each adequate translation was worth one point. Alternatively, they
could write them down on cards or simply on rectangles cut out from paper, put them face down
on the table and translate quickly as they turn them over.
d. Finally, the lists were translated in full and comments followed.
Activity 3: Bilingual chain words: code switching
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-practise transfer skills from L1 to L2 and back to L1
Procedures:
a. The students were asked to form groups of four or five and number themselves: 1 to 4 or5.
b. This activity was a vocabulary specific if a semantic field is preferred. The teacher called out
a word belonging to a semantic field, e.g. “clothes”. Student 1 said a word in L1 related to the
field, e.g. ‫قميص‬, Student 2 says a word in L2 which starts with the last letter of the previous
word, e.g. t-shirt, Student 3 says a word in L1 which starts with the last letter of the previous
word, e.g. “‫”تلبيسة رأس‬, and so on. Of course, a more challenging semantic field were suggested;
code-switching practice was the main point here.
c. The students continued with the chain until one of them repeated a word or took more than,
say, 10–15 seconds to offer a new one. The last group to finish was the “winner”.
d. Once a semantic field had been completed, a different one was called out. The field could be
as specific as required.

Session 7:
Activity 1: Deverbalize and paraphrase:
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-reformulate and change register
3-deverbalize and explain a text in another language (from reading to writing)
4-practise peer editing
Procedures:
a. The students received news briefs or an article and read them (English texts). Two sets of
texts were provided: one for Student A and one for Student B.

27
b. The students read the text once, left it aside face downwards, jotted down notes on a sheet of
paper (not more than one page), read the text again and corrected their notes. All this was done
individually.
c. Student A sat with Student B and explained the text to Student B from the notes. Student B
had Student A’s text and underlined or made notes about points to comment on while she was
listening to Student A’s explanation. Student B should not interrupt Student A.
d. The same process as in (c) was followed reversing the students’ roles.
e. The students commented on each other’s paraphrasing.
f. Finally, a class discussion on common doubts and conclusions may follow.
Activity 2: Gist translation
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-practise synthetic translation
2-Make decisions related to text type
3-Justify choices
Procedures:
a. Student A read a text, which is then left aside. The student then translated only what she
remembered. Student B did the same with another text.
b. Students A and B exchanged their translations and tried to put the text which was new to each
of them back into the source language.
c. Finally, they compared their rendering with the source text and commented on their
translations and the similarities and differences at different levels between the source and the
target texts. They also discussed the procedure.
Activity 3: one minute translation
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Translate specific vocabulary
2-Become aware of register
3-Practice transfer skills
4-Transfer cultural references
Procedures:
a. This activity can be carried out with most topics: a cookery recipe, a description, an
explanation on how a tool works, and so on.
b. The teacher asked the students to read the text provided by the teacher (English). A
brainstorming session followed in which the students sequence the contents. The vocabulary put
up on the blackboard.
c. The students sat in pairs or, preferably, in groups of three and started explaining the contents
in the text to each other. They took turns of one minute to speak. They explained the contents in
a different language (Arabic) from that which was used in the brainstorming session.
d. When they had finished, the students wrote down the problematic vocabulary and expressions
and a class discussion may follow.
e. The activity was repeated with an Arabic text.
Session 8:
Activity1: Accordion translation
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-Practice direct, indirect and reverse translation of the same text
2-Discuss issues of translation
3-Become aware of interference

28
Procedures:
a. The teacher chose 3 or 4 texts of 30–40 words, depending on whether the groups formed in
the class are of 3 or 4 students.
b. As many copies of the texts were made as groups have been formed.
c. The students sat in groups of 3/4, each with a pencil. Each member of the group had a
different text.
d. At the teacher’s signal, the students translated the text they had on their sheet of paper. They
had a limited time to do this (10 minutes).
e. Once the allocated time was up, each student passed the text to the student on the right. Before
doing this, each student should fold the paper so that the source text was not visible.
f. The next student back-translated the previous student’s translation, folded the paper to cover
all previous texts except the last translation, and passed the paper to the student on the right.
This went on until each student received the text she translated first.
g. When the students received the text they translated first, they unfolded the whole paper and
read and analyzed the different translations and back-translations of the ST: what had been lost
on the way? had lexis been more affected than syntax? were there more changes in direct or in
reverse translation? how different was the final product from the original text?
h. All these questions and any others which may arise can be discussed within the group
(“translator” – “author” dialogue).
i. Finally, each student wrote a brief essay on the process and the product.
It is worth noting that this activity was one of the most interesting activities they performed.

Activity 2: persuasion: spotting and correcting mistranslation

By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-practise text checking
2-revise grammatical structures, vocabulary and expressions
3-justify choices
4-become aware of mistranslations
Procedures:
a. The teacher provided students with translated passages with mistakes and also asked
students to bring samples of their own translations.
b. The class was divided into two halves (A and B). Each half had to correct the sentences and
give reasons why they were incorrect. They were allowed to use grammar books, dictionaries or
any other source books.
c. A student from A sat with a student from B and they took turns to be the “editor” and the
“author” of the incorrect text. The editor had to explain the correction to the author. The author
acted as if it were difficult to believe that the sentence was incorrect so that the editor had to
give as many reasons as possible (consulting any source available) to persuade the author to
correct the mistake.
Activity 3: text and context
By the end of this activity students will be able to:
1-translate idiomatic expressions proverbs and word play
2-decide on cultural transpositions
3-assess translation product
This activity consists of three stages:
1.analysing the text linguistically
2.translate the text
3.product assessment

29
Procedures: (see appendix )
1. Feeling a text.
a/ Students were asked to read the text silently. They were asked to write their reactions in the
margin (!, ?, and so on.) or underline any parts they like.
b/They were asked to write down the first three adjectives that come to their mind to describe
the text.
c/ They were asked to write down three words to describe the headmaster, three for Mr. Perkins
and three for Tommy.
d/ Pair work. /The teacher asked the students to discuss their reactions to the text and compare
the adjectives/words they had chosen.
2. Linguistic points
a/ Expressions. They were asked to underline the lexical phrases they find in the text and try to
find an equivalent in your language. Do they pose translation problems at this stage?
b/ Professional translation. Finally, each student had to translate the text taking into account the
above and compare her target text with that of her partner. Discuss the similarities and
differences.

Session 9
Activity 1: Current affairs quiz
Objectives:
By the end of this activity, students will be able to:
1-translate some news papers' news.
2-translate avoiding literal translation
Procedures:
a. The teacher compiled a series of questions in L1 on current affairs concerning both the
students’ country and abroad. The questions were typed and divided into two equal groups.
b. Individually or in pairs, the students translated the questions and tried to answer them in L2.
Student or Pair A translated the first group of questions and Student or Pair B translated the
second.
c. Students A and B sat together. They each had their translation and answers ready before
them.
d. The teacher put up possible translations on the board and the whole class commented on their
variations. Finally, Student or Pair A ask the questions in L2 to Student or Pair B who have to
answer them correctly and obtain one point for each correct answer. Students or Pairs took turns
to ask and answer.
d. Student or Pair A sat with Student or Pair B and read their translated questions in turns. The
other Student or Pair had to correct the structure and vocabulary if they thought there were any
mistakes and answer the questions. Finally, the teacher put up the questions and the students
confirm the corrections and comment on the answers.
Sample questions in Arabic:
1-2010 ‫ يناير‬25 ‫وضح أسباب قيام ثورة‬
2-‫كيف كانت ردود األفعال المختلفة الستفتاء الدستور الذي اجراة المجلس العسكري‬
3-‫ما أسباب انتشار المسلسالت التركية و ما اآلثار المترتبة على ذلك‬
4-‫ما رأيك في الرئيس االمريكى باراك اوباما‬

30
Data Analysis and Discussion of results:
The statistical analysis of the data and the results were interpreted in terms of the research
hypotheses. Therefore, each hypothesis is presented together with the findings related to it.
Moreover, in order to make sure that the results obtained from the t-tests were reliable and
measure the effectiveness of the training program, the effect size was calculated.
The second part of the analysis is concerned with proverbs, idioms and collocations will be
discussed after the presentation of the statistical part.
First: the statistical analysis
Hypothesis 1:
There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors'
.overall English-Arabic pre-post translation competence test in favour of the post test

Variables Admi M .S.D Paired Differences D. T- Lev Effec

M S
nistra .F Valu el of t Size
tion e .Sig

Overall Post 53.20 2.42 Sig. 4.47

mark 26.85 12.339 19 9.73 at large
pre 26.35 12.9 0 0.01
38
Table (1) Comparing between pre and post overall English- Arabic translation competence test
Table (1) shows that was gained for hypothesis (1) where the results revealed that the
differences between the mean scores of the overall English-Arabic pre-post test are highly
significant where t= 9.732 at 0.01 level of confidence. This provides evidence for the
effectiveness. Also, the calculated effect size value of the program on the students' overall
English-Arabic pre-post test was 4.47. Therefore, it can be inferred that the program had a
very large effect size on the students' performance on the post- test if compared with their
performance on the pre-test.
Hypothesis 2
There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' pre-post English-Arabic translation competence test in favour of the post test in the
following sub-competences: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and Shifts,
omissions, additions and inventing equivalents

In order to verify this hypothesis, a number of t-tests were used (table 2).

Variables Admini M .S.D Paired Differences D. T- Leve Effect

stration .F Valu l of Size
M S
e .Sig

Accuracy Post 20.50 1.000 10.300 5.283 19 8.720 Sig. 4.00

at large
Pre 10.20 5.327
0.01
Finding equivalent Post 14.80 1.508 7.400 3.267 19 10.13 Sig. 4.65
0 at large
Pre 7.40 3.844
0.01
Grammar & style Post 11.45 0.759 6.350 2.390 19 11.88 Sig. 5.45
1 at large
Pre 5.10 2.382
0.05

31
 Shifts, omission Post 6.45 0.945 2.800 2.191 19 5.715 Sig. 2.62
Addition and at large
Pre 3.65 1.663
inventing equivalent 0.01

Table (2) Comparing between pre and post English- Arabic translation sub-competences test

Table (2) indicates that there are statistically significant differences at 0.01level in English-
Arabic competence between the mean scores of the experimental group on the pre
administration of the English-Arabic competences and the post administration in favour of the
post administration scores in each sub-competence and the overall mark. The following remarks
can be concluded from table (2):
1-There are statistically significant differences at 0.01 level in the students' accuracy
competence where the estimated value was 8.720. Besides the calculated effect size was 4.00.
This means that the program in the accuracy sub-competence had a large effect size on the
improvement of students' performance and their accuracy competence.
2-There are statistically significant differences at 0.01 level in the students' competence "finding
equivalent" where the t-value was 10.130, and the effect size was 4.65. This means that the
program in the finding equivalent sub-competence had a large effect size on the improvement of
students' performance and their competence "finding equivalent".
3-Also, table 2 shows that there is statistically significant differences at 0.01 level between the
mean scores of the pre-post test in the sub-competence "grammar and style" in favour of the post
test where t= 11.881 and the effect size was 5.45. This reveals that the program had a large
effect on students' post-test in the sub-competence "grammar and style" if compared with the
pre-test.
4-The above table also shows that there is statistically significant differences between the mean
scores of the pre-post test in English-Arabic translation sub-competence Shifts, omissions,
additions and inventing equivalents at 0.01 level in favour of the post-test where t=5.715 and the
calculated effect size was 2.062. These results reveal that the program had a large effect on the
students' post-test in the English-Arabic sub-competence Shifts, omissions, additions and
inventing equivalents if compared with the pre-test.
The following figure (1) shows the differences between the pre administration and the post
administration of the English-Arabic translation competence test which proves the effectiveness
of the training program.
tset noitalsnart cibarA-hsilgnE

001
08
06 tsop
04 erp
02
0
tnecrep naem

ycaruccA gnidniF& rammarG ,stfihS

kram llarevO
tnelaviuqe elyts noissimo
dna noitiddA
gnitnevni
tnelaviuqe

Figure (1)
Hypothesis 3

32
There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' pre-post overall Arabic –English translation competence test in favour of the post test
In order to verify this hypothesis, the t-test was used (table 3).

Variables Administratio M SD Paired D.F T- value Sig. Effect

n Differences at size
M S 0.01

Overall Post 54.45 2.39 9.28 25.00 19 12.049 Sig. 5.53

mark Pre 29.45 8.99 at large
0.01
Table (3) Comparing between pre and post Arabic- English overall translation competence test

The above table shows that there is a significant difference between the students performance
before and after the treatment in favour of the overall Arabic-English translation competence
post-test where the t-value was 12.049. It can be said that t-test result proved to be
statistically consistent with the hypothesis. Thus the third hypothesis was confirmed.
Furthermore, the estimated effect size value 5.53 shown in the table indicates that the
program had a large effect on the students' overall Arabic-English post-test.
Hypothesis 4
There will be statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the English
majors' pre-post Arabic –English translation competence test in favour of the post test in the
following sub-competences: accuracy, finding equivalent, grammar and style, and Shifts,
omissions, additions and inventing equivalents

In order to verify the validity of this hypothesis, a number of t-tests were used (table 4)

Variables Administ M .S.D Paired Differences D. T- Leve Effect

M S
ration .F Value l of Size
.Sig

Accuracy Post 20.3 0.98 9.300 3.64 19 11.42 Sig. 5.24

0 at large
Pre 11.0 3.43
0.01
Finding Post 14.8 0.79 7.000 2.71 19 11.53 Sig. 5.29
Pre 7.75 2.83
equivalent at large
0.01
Grammar & Post 12.3 0.57 5.800 2.38 19 10.92 Sig. 5.01
Pre 6.50 2.39
style at large
0.05
Shifts, omission Post 7.10 0.91 2.900 1.55 19 8.35 Sig. 3.83
Pre 4.20 1.11
Addition and at large
inventing 0.01
equivalent
Table (4) Comparing between pre and post Arabic- English sub-competences translation test

1-The above table also shows that there is a statistically significant difference between the
mean scores of the Arabic-English competence pre-post test in the sub-competence
"accuracy" in favour of the post-test where t= 11.416and the effect size value = 5.24 which
reveals that the program had a large effect on the students' post-test in the sub-competence
accuracy if compared with the pre-test.

33
2- It is found that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the
pre-post test in the sub-competence "finding equivalent” in favour of the post-test where t=
11.533 and the effect size value = 5.29 which reveals that the program had a large effect on
the students' post-test in the sub-competence "finding equivalent” if compared with the pre-
test.
3- Students achieved progress in the post-test over the pre-test in the sub-competence
"grammar and style", since the t- value is 10.920 and the effect size value is 5.01 and that
proves the progress the students achieved in this competence.
4-Also, there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the Arabic-
English translation competence pre-post test in Shifts, omissions, additions and inventing
equivalents in favour of the post-test where t= 8.353 and the effect size value = 3.83 which
reveals that the program had a large effect on the students' post-test in the sub-competence
shifts, omissions, additions and inventing equivalents if compared with the pre-test.
The following figure (2) shows the differences between the pre administration and the post
administration of the Arabic-English translation competence test which proves the
effectiveness of the training program.
tset noitalsnart hsilgnE-cibarA

001
08
06 tsop
04 erp
02
0
tnecrep naem

ycaruccA gnidniF& rammarG ,stfihS llarevO

tnelaviuqe elyts noissimo kram
dna noitiddA
gnitnevni
tnelaviuqe

Figure (2)

The analysis of the proverbs, idioms and collocations:

The analysis of the pre English-Arabic and idioms versus the post English- Arabic Idioms:
First: the pre-idioms test
Sentences number 1,2,3,4,5 are idiomatic sentences, while the rest are proverbs:
Starting with the English idioms, it was found that in the pre-test students' translations were
either not translated or those which were misunderstood and as a consequence translated
wrongly see table 5.

Idiom Number and percentage of students who didn't Number and percentage of
number translate it students who translated it wrongly
1 52.63% = 10 47.368% =9
2 Non of the students % 100 = 19
3 % 10.526 =2 % 89.473 = 17
4 21.052%= 4 78.947% = 15

34
 5 % 10.526 = 2 % 89.473 = 17
6 73.68% = 14 % 26.315 = 5
Table (5)
Table (5) proves that students had real problem with English idioms where their pre-test reveals
that they either did not translate the idiomatic sentences of translated them wrongly. For
example, in sentence (1) they translated "toffee-nosed" as ‫ ذو انف حلوة‬which reveals a word for
word translation for the word "toffee", while others translated it as ‫ ذو انف قاسية‬where they
misunderstood the word "toffee" and replaced it with the word "tuff".
Moving to sentence (2) it was found that the 19 students translated it thinking that it is the
easiest one because they translated the idiom "Five-finger discount" literally as ‫خصم خمسة بالمائة‬
which is a wrong translation as it means he must have "stolen it " which means "‫ "نشلها" أو "سرقها‬.
Coming to sentence (3) the idiom "led by nose" was translated also in a wrong way where
students thought that it means "‫ "بكبرياء‬because culturally in our Arab culture the nose is a
symbol of bride. In fact in this idiom "led by nose" resembles ‫ ""بتجرة من رقبته‬which means in
Arab culture "‫ابن امة" أو‬
"‫ "تحت سيطرة امة‬.
As for sentence (4), students misunderstood "let the cat of the bag" as some of them translated
the sentence as "‫ "نورا أخبرت والدتها عن ترتيبات عيد ميالدها أال و هو شراء نشطة على شكل قطة‬while others
translated it as "‫ "نورا أخرجت القطة من النشطة و أعطتها لوالدتها كهدي̧ة عيد ميالدها‬in both translations non of
them recognized that the meaning is "to reveal a secret".
In sentence (5) 89% translated the idiom "vote with their feet" as "‫ "يدبدبوا في األرض برجليهم‬others
used more sophisticated Arabic words "‫ "يقرعوا األرض بأقدامهم‬and of course the meaning is "to run
away" or to leave the place".
The last idiomatic sentence (12) 73.68% could not answer it while 26.31% gave incorrect
answers. The most astonishing one was "‫ "على قد لحافك مد رجليك‬because there is nothing in the
sentence that gives such meaning. The other students translated it as " " ‫اليخت يعج بالقطط السمينة" او‬
‫ " يوجد على اليخت قطط ممتلئة‬. their translation was a little bit shocking because in Arabic there is
such idiom "fat cats" which means the wealthy business men.
It is worthy saying that when these idioms were chosen, some of them were chosen on the basis
that they would be easily translated by guessing if the students think of them for a while like the
first one because the use of "but" indicates that what comes next is the opposite of the previous
part of the sentence.
Second: the post-idioms test
Analyzing students' translations of the idioms, it was found that in the post-test students'
translations were improved due to the administration of the program as they were trained to use
idioms correctly through the exercises they practiced and the hand out they were provided
covering so many idioms. The correct translations exceeded 60% in all idioms and proverbs.
Also, they were provided with soft copies with books of idioms and internet sites and that
enhanced their idiomatic use and they were encouraged to use them. Besides, they were very
much interested in comparing the English proverbs with the Arabic ones. The following table
shows their progress if compared with the pre-test (table 6).

Idiom Number and percentage of Number and percentage of Number and percentage
number students who did not students who translated it correctly of students who translated
translate it it wrongly
1 _________ 73.68%=14 26.315%=5
2 __________ 63.158%=12 % 36.84=7
3 ________ % 78.95=15 % 21.052=4
4 ______________ 78.95%=15 21.052%=4
5 ___________ 63.158%=12 % 36.84 = 7
12 _______ 68.42% = 13 % 31.58 =6
Table (6)

35
Table (6) proves that students had improved in translating the English into Arabic. The
researcher did not explain their performance on each idiom because the incorrect translation
resembles those presented when discussing the pre-test and the correct answers were
provided also in the pre-test.

Third: the pre-proverbs test:

Moving to the students' performance on the pre English-Arabic proverbs, it was found that their
answers were ,to some extent, better than that of the idioms as indicated in the following table
(7)

Proverb Left not Wrong Correct Coin a paraphrasing Literal

number translated translation equivalent new translation
proverb
6 10.53 = 2 % 10.53 =2 No 26.32 = 5 % 15.79 =3 % 36.84 =7
% equivalent %
7 none none % 47.37 =9 _____ % 26.32 =5 % 26.32 =5
8 none none % 84.21= 16 ___ none 15.79 = 3
%
9 % 5.26 =1 non No 15.79 =3 none 78.95 = 15
equivalent % %
10 10.53% =2 % 21.05 =4 % 31.58= 6 15.79 = 3 _____ 21.05 = 4
% %
11 21.05 = 4 % 26.32 =5 No =1 none 47.37 = 9
% equivalent 5.26% %
Table 7

The first proverb "the darkest hour is just before dawn" 10.526% of the students did not
translate it, 10.526 % provided wrong translation "‫ "خيوط الفجر تبدأ بعدة بساعة‬while 26.315 %
coined a new proverb which is to make up a proverb keeping the flavour of the original and give
the same indication or denotation. These students translated it as “‫ "إن بعد السر يسر‬or " ‫كل ليل و له‬
‫ "أخر‬or " 15.789 . "‫اشتدي يا أزمة تنفرج‬% of the students paraphrased it as" ‫أحلك األوقات ظلمة هي التي‬
‫ " يبزغ بعدها الفجر‬or " ‫ " اشد الساعات ظلمة هي ما قبل الفجر‬. But those who translated it literally were
36.842% , they translated it as " ‫ " اسود ساعة هي بالضبط قبل الفجر‬of course there is no need to say
that the literal translation is always considered inaccurate one.
The second proverb was “After dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile." 47.368% of the
students provided the correct equivalent which is " ‫ "اتغدى و اتمدى و أتعشى و أتمشى‬while 26.315%
of the students paraphrased it as "‫ "بعد الغذاء راحة و بعد العشاء مشى لميل‬and 26.315 % of them
translated it incorrectly as
"‫"بعد الغذاء و العشاء تحرك على األقل ميال‬
The third proverb was " Birds of a feather flock together". 84.210% of the students succeeded in
giving the correct equivalent " ‫ "الطيور على إشكالها تقع‬, while 15.789% of the students provided
literal translation as " ‫ " الطيور ذات الريش تطير في أسراب معا‬.
The fourth proverb was " Don't bark if you cannot bite". 5.263% of the student provided
incorrect translation "‫"ال تتدخل فيما ال يعنيك‬, where 15.789% of the students coined a proverb which
was considered a correct one " ‫ "رحم هللا امرئ عرف قدر نفسه‬. While 78.947% of them provided
literal translation " ‫" ال تنبح أن كنت ال تستطيع آن تعض‬.
The fifth proverb was “Man proposes, God disposes" . 10.526% of the students translated it
incorrectly as " 31.578 . "‫ان هللا خالف الظنون"و "أعقلها و توكل‬% of the students provided the correct
equivalent "15.789 . "‫العب̧د فى التفكير و الرب فى التدبير‬% of the students coined a proverb " ‫أسعى يا عبد و‬
‫ "أنا أسعى معاك‬. While 21.052% of the students translated it literally as " ‫ "الرجل يطلب و هللا موجود‬.

36
 The last proverb was “Stolen fruit is the sweetest" . 26.315 % of the students provided
incorrect translation "‫ "الكعكة في يد اليتيم عجبه‬and "‫ "الطعام الحرام ال يدوم‬, while only 5.263% managed
to coin a correct proverb " ‫ " كل ممنوع مرغوب‬. finally, 47.368% of the students provided literal
translation " ‫"الفاكهة المسروقة هي األلذ‬
Fourth: The analysis of the post English-Arabic proverbs:
Moving to the students' performance on the post English-Arabic proverbs, it was found that
their translations improved too as they trained to translate so many proverbs and also were
provided with hand outs with a great number of proverbs either translated into Arabic or
explained in English which helped them to find an equivalent or coin new ones. Their
improvement was presented in the following table (8).

Proverb Left not Wrong Correct Coin a new paraphrasing Literal

number translated translation equivalent proverb translation
6 _________ ____ No equivalent 68.42%=13 % 31.58=6 % 36.84 =2
7 ______ _______ % 78.95=15 _____ % 21.05 =4 ______
8 ______ _____ % 100=19 ___ ______ ______
9 % 5.26 =1 ________ No equivalent % 73.68=14 21.05%=4 5.26% =1
10 ______ ______ 63.16% =12 21.05%= 4 _____ 15.79%=3
11 5.26%=1 5.26%=1 No equivalent 63.16%=12 non 26.32%=5
Table 8

Again, these results proved that the students were improved dramatically in their
translations of proverbs. They managed to apply more than one translation strategy namely,
presenting an equivalent, paraphrasing and coining a new proverb or saying. One more time,
the researcher is not going to analyze each proverb because the different answers provided by
the students were provided previously and the correct translations, paraphrases and coins
were presented too. The only difference is the change of the percentages. If something new
added in the students’ translations, they would be presented as follows:
In paraphrasing the ninth proverb "don't bark if you cannot bite" they added a new coined
proverb or saying "‫"على قد لحافك مد رجليك" و " خلى طموحك على قدر إمكانياتك‬
Though 15.79% of the students translated the proverb "man proposes, God disposes"
literally, but their translation was better than the one they provided in the pre-test where they
translated it as
"‫ "الرجل يطلب و هللا موجود‬, the literal translation in the post-test was "‫"أدعو و هللا المجيب‬.

Fifth: The analysis of the pre English-Arabic collocations:

Analyzing the students' performance on the pre English-Arabic collocations, it was found that
their answers were presented in the following table (9)

Collocation Left not translated Correct Wrong

translation translation
Precautionary measures 15.789%=3 26.31% =5 57.894% =11
Plastic arts 26.31%=5 5.26% =1 68.42% =13
Scanty information None 42.105% =8 57.894% =11
Underground organization None 10.526% =2 89.47% =17
Radical changes None 63.157% =12 36.84%=7
Pent-up anger 31.578% =6 None 68.42% =13
A non-binding agreement 36.84% =7 10.526% =2 52.63% =10
Controversial issues none 57.894% =11 42.105%=8
A pathetic sight 21.052% =4 26.31%=5 10.526%=10
Exclusive offer none 73.68% =14 26.31%=5
Astronomical profits none 47.368%=9 57.89% =11

37
 Noble endeavours 47.368% =9 21.052%=4 36.84%=7
Wild imagination none 10.526%=2 89.47% =17
Accepted pilgrimage 21.052%=4 % 78.94 =15 none
A bewildering question 26.31%=5 10.526%=2 % 63.157 =12
Table (9)
The first collocation (precautionary measures) was translated correctly as "‫ "إجراءات احترازية‬by
26.31% of the students, where 15.789% did not translate it. 57.894% provided wrong translation
where they translated it as “‫ "مقاييس حذرة" او " توخي الحذر‬.
The second one was “plastic arts”. 26.31% did not translate the collocation, while 5.26%
translated it correctly as "" ‫ فنون تشكيلية‬and 68.42% of the students provided wrong translation
where, astonishingly, all of the 11 students translated it as "‫"فنون البالستيك‬.
The third collocation "scanty information" was translated correctly by 42.105% as " ‫معلومات‬
‫ "ضئيلة " او " معلومات غير كافية" او " معلومات قليلة‬while 57.894% provided wrong translation as " ‫تصفح‬
‫ "معلوماتي‬it seems that these students translated "scanty" as a deviation of "scan" and the other
students who translated it wrongly too as "‫ "معلومات هامة" أو" معلومات قيمة‬translated it using the
guessing strategy.
10.526% of the students translated the fourth collocation "underground organization”
correctly as "‫ "منظمة سريه‬, while 89.47% provided wrong translation where most of them
provided literal translation as "‫ "منظمة تحت األرض‬though this translation, to some extent, could
be accepted. The rest translated it as "‫ "منظمة المترو‬as they translated it lexically apart from the
metaphorical meaning.
The fifth collocation was "radical changes". 63.157% provided correct translation where 4 of
them translated it as "1 ,"‫ تغير راديكالي‬student provided an approximate meaning " ‫تغير رأس على‬
‫ "عقب‬which is correct adaptation while the other 7 presented the exact meaning " ."‫تغير جذري‬
36.84% provided incorrect translation where 5 of them translated it as "‫ "تغير نوعى‬and the other
3 translated it as "‫"تغير سطحي‬.
The sixth collocation was "pent-up anger" which means "‫ "كظم الغيظ‬was a problematic
collocation for all of the students. 31.578% did not translate it, non of the students translated it
correctly while 68.42% provided wrong translations as " ‫انفجر غاضبا" أو "شديد الغضب" أو " ال يمكن‬
‫"استثارته‬.
The seventh collocation was "a non-binding agreement". 36.84% of the students did not
translate it, 10.526% of the students provided correct translation "‫ "اتفاق غير ملزم‬and 52.63%
provided incorrect translation "‫ "اتفاق غير مقبول" او "اتفاق غير موثق"او "اتفاق غير صالح‬.
"Controversial issue" was the eighth collocation where 57.894% translated it correctly as" ‫قضايا‬
‫ "خالفية‬, while 42.105% translated this collocation in different ways such as the following "
‫"موضوعات عكسية"او "موضوعات متناقضة" أو "موضوع مخالف للقانون" أو "إصدار مخالف‬.
The ninth collocation was "a pathetic sight". 21.052% did not translate it, 26.31% translated it
correctly as "‫ "منظر مثير للشفقة" أو " مشهد محزن‬while 10.526% provided wrong translation
"‫رؤية عاطفية " أو‬
"‫"منظر عاطفي‬
"Exclusive offer" was the tenth collocation that 73.68% of the students translated it correctly
as
"‫"عرض حصري‬, while 26.31% provided wrong translation as"‫"عرض خاص" أو "تقديم قاصر على فئة‬
this translation indicates that these students may have consulted an electronic dictionary as they
provided literal translation accompanied with the bad choice among the equivalents provided by
the dictionary. Their translation was also shocking because the word "exclusive" is always
repeated in the TV.
The eleventh collocation was "astronomical profits". 47.368% of the students provided correct
translation as " ‫ "أرباح فلكية" أو " أرباح طائلة" أو "أرباح مهولة‬, while 57.89% provided wrong
translation " ‫"أرصاد فلكية" أو "فائدة الفلك" أو "فوائد علم الفلك‬.

38
 The twelfth collocation was "noble endeavours". 47.368% of the students did not translate the
collocation. 21.052% provided correct translation "‫"مساعي نبيلة" او "اجتهادات نبيلة‬.While 36.84%
translated it wrongly as"‫ "مرشحين نوبل"أو "الساعين لنوبل‬. This mistranslation is a result of the
overlap between "noble" and "Nobel" the prize.
10.526% of the students provided correct translation for "wild imagination" which is " ‫خيال‬
‫"جامح‬, while 89.47% translated it incorrectly where some of them translated it literally as " ‫خيال‬
‫ "متوحش‬and others translated it as "‫ "خيال شاذ‬which is incorrect too because of the misuse of the
translated Arabic meaning where the word "‫ "خيال‬can never be described as "‫ "شاذ‬.
The next collocation was "accepted pilgrimage". 78.94% translated it correctly as " ‫حج مبرور او‬
‫ ""حج مقبول‬while 21.052% did not translate it.
The last collocation was " a bewildering question". 26.31% did not answer it, 10.526%
translated it correctly as "‫ "سؤال محير‬while 63.157% translated it in correctly as " ‫سؤال إجباري" أو‬
‫ ""سؤال معكوس‬.

sixth: The analysis of the post English-Arabic collocations:

Analyzing the students' performance on the post English-Arabic collocations, it was found
that their translation improved if compared with the pre-test as presented in the following
table (10)

Collocation Left not translated Correct translation Wrong translation

Precautionary measures ____ 63.16% =12 36.84%=7
Plastic arts 5.26% =1 78.95%=15 3-15.79%
Scanty information ________ 89.47% =17 10.53% =2
Underground organization ________ _ 100%% =19 89.47% =17
Radical changes _______ 84.21%=16 15.79% =3
Pent-up anger 10.53%=2 68.42% =13 21.02% =4
A non-binding agreement 10.53% =2 73.68% =14 15.79% =3
Controversial issues ______ % 89.47=17 10.53% =2
A pathetic sight 5.26% =1 26.31%=5 5.26% =1
Exclusive offer _____ 100%=19 _____
Astronomical profits _______ 94.74%=18 5.26% =1
Noble endeavours 21.05%=4 68.42% =13 10.526%=2
Wild imagination ______ 73.68%=14 26.31%=5
Accepted pilgrimage ________ 94.74%=18 5.26% =1
A bewildering question 5.26% =1 % 73.68=14 % 21.05=4
Table (10)

The results proved that the students improved in translating the English collocation after
administering the program because of the training they had and the exercises they practiced.
Besides, they were provided with lists of English collocations and their translations to be
reviewed at home.
The analysis of the pre Arabic-English and idioms versus the post English- Arabic Idioms:
First: the pre-idioms test
Sentences number 1, 2,9, 10, 11,12 are idiomatic sentences, while the rest are proverbs:
Starting with the Arabic idioms, it was found that in the pre-test students' translations were
either not translated or those which were misunderstood and as a consequence translated
wrongly see table 11.

Idiom Number and percentage of students who didn't Number and percentage of
number translate it students who translated it wrongly
1 100% =19 _______
2 % 26.31 = 5 % 73.68 = 14
9 100% =19 ____________
10 21.052%= 4 78.947% = 15
11 % 89.473 = 17 % 10.52 = 2
12 % 57.89 =11 % 42.105 = 8

39
 Table (11)
Table (11) proves that students had real problem with Arabic idioms more than the problem
they faced with the English idioms where their pre-test reveals that they either did not
translate the idiomatic sentences or translated them wrongly. For example, in sentence (1)
none of the students managed to translate "‫ "مقطوع من شجرة‬and its correct translation is "has no
relatives". Also, in sentence (2) 26.31 % did not translate it , while 73.68% provided literal
translation for the idiom "‫ "أشكال و ألوان‬as they translated it as " shapes and colours" though
the correct translation is very simple ''"several kinds or different kinds". In sentence (9) non
of the students managed to translate the idiom "‫ "حط في بطنك بطيخة صيفي‬and the 19 students left
the space plank, its correct translation is quite easy " don't worry" . In sentence (10) 21.052%
did not translate the idiom "‫ "اطر ش في الزفة‬, while 78.947% translated it wrongly, for example
" cannot hear in the noise" its correct translation is a kind of paraphrase " cannot understand
what is going on". In sentence (11) the idiom "‫ "أثلج صدري‬was translated wrongly by 10.52 %
as "cool my chest", "cool my breast", while 89.473 % did not translate it at all while its
correct translation is "relieved me". The last idiom "‫ "يده في الماء البارد‬was not translated by
57.89% while 42.105 % provided literal incorrect translation "his hands are in cold water" ,
while the correct translation is " careless".

Second: the post-idioms test

Analyzing the Arabic idioms, it was found that in the post-test students' translations were
improved but not as much as the improvement in the English –Arabic and that is due the
complexity of the Arabic language and the guessing factor do not always work. But still there
is an improvement that would be recognized in the following table ( table 12).

Idiom Number and percentage of Number and percentage of Number and percentage of
number students who didn't translate it students who translate it students who translated it
correctly wrongly
1 % 26.31 = 5 47.37%=9 % 26.31 = 5
2 _______ 78.947% = 15 21.052%= 4
9 % 10.52 = 2 68.42% =13 21.052%= 4
10 21.052%= 4 52.63% =10 % 26.31 = 5
11 15.79% =3 % 73.68=14 % 10.52 = 2
12 % 10.52 = 2 57.89% =11 % 31.56 =6
Table (12)
Table (12) proves that students improved in translating the Arabic idioms, but they did not
reach 60% of the correct translations in some cases; namely in idiom (1)‫ مقطوع من شجرة‬, and
idiom (10) ‫كاالطرش فى الزفة‬, and idiom (12) ‫ يده فى الماء البارد‬. These idioms where the correct
translation could not reach 60% represented 50% of the number of the idioms.

Third: the pre-proverbs test

Moving to the students' performance on the pre Arabic-English proverbs, it was found that
their answers were worse than that of their English-Arabic proverbs as indicated in the
following table (13)

Proverb Left not Wrong Correct Coin a new paraphrasing Literal

number translated translation equivalent proverb translation
3
1=5.263% _______ _________ __________ _______ 17= 89.47 %

4
4=21.052% _________ ___________ _____ 2= 10.52% 13=68.42%

40
 5 12=63.157% ___ _______
______ _________ 7= 36.84%
6 18= 94.73 % non _______ 1= 5.263%
___________ _____
7 7 =36.84% 4= 21.052 _______ 8= 42.105% ______
% _________
8 4=21.052% ______ ______ 10= 52.63% 5= 26.315%
_________

Table 13

This table shows that finding the equivalent for an Arabic proverb was quite difficult for the
students; even paraphrasing the Arabic proverb was very poor. The number of the students who
managed to paraphrase the proverbs was very few. None of the students managed to neither
provide a correct equivalent nor coin a new proverb.
The first proverb"‫ "الحاجة أم االختراع‬was translated literally by 89.47% as “the need is the
mother of inventions", while the correct translation is "necessity is the mother of inventions.
The proverb "‫ "الجواب يبان من عنوانه‬was paraphrased by 10.52% as “truth is apparent" and “the
appearance reflects the hidden". 68.42% of the students translated it literally as "the answer
appears from the title". The correct translation is "A tree is known by its fruit".
The proverb "‫ "انك تبحث عن إبرة في كوم قش‬was not translated by 63.157%, 36.84% of the students
paraphrased it as "your are looking for something that is not clear", "you are searching for tiny
things", “it is too difficult to find what you are searching for", "your efforts are in vain". The
correct translation is "you're looking for a needle in a haystack".
The proverb "‫ "أضرب المربوط يخاف السايب‬was not translated by 94.43% of the students, while
5.26% translated it literally as " hit the imprisoned persons, free ones will be frightened”, where
its correct translation is "kill one to warn a hundred".
The proverb "‫ "أتق شر الحليم إذا غضب‬was translated incorrectly by 21.052% as “don’t be stupid
to arise wise man's anger" , "take care from the evil in the good man" these translations are
structurally incorrect, students tried to paraphrase but they did not manage to. 42.105 %
paraphrased it as “careful from the anger of patient people", "when a kind man gets angry, you
should avoid him". Where the correct translation is “Beware the levelheaded when he is angry".
The last proverb "‫ "القرش األبيض ينفع فى اليوم األسود‬was not translated by 21.052% , 52.63% of the
students paraphrased it as " save some money for the future", while 26.315% translated it
literally as " a white pound is useful in a black day" and its correct translation is " A penny saved
is a penny gained".

Fourth: the post Arabic-English proverbs:

Moving to the students' performance on the post Arabic-English proverbs, it was found that
their translations were improved, to some extent, as indicated in the following table (14)

Proverb Left not Wrong Correct Coin a new paraphrasing Literal

number translated translation equivalent proverb translation
3
________ _______ 12=63.16% __________ _______ 7= 36.84%

4
4=21.052% _________ No 9=47.37% 2= 10.52% 4=21.052%
equivalent
5 ________ ___ _______
______ 12=63.16% 7= 36.84%
6 5= 26.34% _____ No 10=52.63% _______ 4=21.052%

41
 equivalent

7 _____ 2= 10.52% _______ 4=21.052% ______

13=68.42%
8 ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
19=100%
Table 14

This table shows that out of six proverbs, students' correct translations that exceeded 60%
were 4 which indicates that the translation of Arabic proverbs into English is more difficult than
the vice versa. These results prove that cultural translation is not an easy task and needs more
practice. In spite of these results, the students' achievement is considered acceptable.

Fifth: the pre Arabic-English collocations test:

Analyzing the students' performance on the pre Arabic-English collocations, it was found that
their answers were presented in the following table (15)
collocation Left not translated Correct translation Wrong translation
‫بحر هائج‬ 9=47.37% 2=10.53% 13=68.42%
‫عواقب وخيمة‬ 4=21.05% 5=26.32% 10=5.26%
‫بيان رسمى‬ 2=10.53% 11=57.89% 6=31.58%
‫مصدر موثوق‬ 6=31.58% 4=21.05% 9=47.37%
‫طعام صالح لالكل‬ __________ ___________ 19= 100%
‫دليل قاطع‬ 5=26.32% 7=36.84% 7=36.84%
‫شاي ثقيل‬ --------------- 2=10.53% 17=89.47%
‫عمل عدائى‬ 3=15.79% 5=26.32% 11=57.89%
‫حكومة استبدادية‬ 8= 42.11% ___________ 11=57.89%
‫حقوق أساسية‬ 2=10.53% 7=36.84% 10=5.26%
‫مناطق منزوعة السالح‬ 12=63.16% __________ 7=36.84%
‫صبر بال حدود‬ 3=15.79% 13=68.42% 3=15.79%
‫عمل غير مبرر‬ ________ 14=73.69% 5=26.32%
‫التزامات مشتركة‬ 7=36.84% 4=21.05% 8=42.11%
‫جهد دءوب‬ 9=47.37% _______ 10=5.26%
Table (15)

Analyzing students translations of the Arabic collocations it was recognized that the
percentage of the correct translations were always below 60% except for 2 collocations only
that exceeded 60% although the researcher considered some translations to be true one inspit
of the fact that they did not give the exact translation. It was recognized that most of the
incorrect translations were because of the literal translation or syntactical translation.
The first collocation "‫ "بحر هائج‬was left not translated by 47.37% of the students, only
10.53% translated it correctly as "rough sea", while 68.42% of the students provided wrong
translation " angry sea" was the common translation, "waves sea". But the most unexpected
one was "nervous sea".
The second collocation was "‫ "عواقب وخيمة‬. It was left not translated by 21.05% , 26.32%
translated it correctly as "dangerous consequences" though it is not the exact translation
which is "dire consequences" but though the researcher considered it true. While 5.26% of
the students translated it wrongly as “bad results “and "huge results".
The third collocation "‫ "بيان رسمي‬was not translated by 10.53% , while 57.89% provided
correct translation "official statement". 31.58% provided wrong translation “formal speech",
"formal announcement".
"‫"مصدر موثوق‬ was not translated by 31.58% of the students, 21.05% provided correct
translation "reliable resource", while 47.37% provided wrong translation "trusted source",
"truthful source", "official source".
The fifth collocation "‫ "طعام صالح لألكل‬was translated incorrectly by 100% of the students as
“fresh food", "fruitful food", "eatable food". None of them managed to translate it correctly as
"edible food".
42
"‫ "دليل قاطع‬was not translated by 26.32%. 36.84% provided correct translation "clear
evidence", this translation is considered correct though the exact translation is "clear-cut
evidence". 36.84% translated it wrongly as "appeared evidence", "short-cut evidence".
The seventh collocation "‫ "شاي ثقيل‬was translated correctly by 10.53% as "strong tea", while
89.47% of the students provided wrong translations as "black tea" of course the adjective
"black" describes "coffee" not "tea". Others translated it as "heavy tea", and "red tea".
The eighth collocation "‫ "عمل عدائي‬was not translated by 15.79% of the students, 26.32%
provided correct answer "aggressive act" though the exact translation should be "a hostile act".
57.89% provided incorrect translation “enemies-like act",” harsh work".
The ninth collocation was ‫ ""حكومة استبدادية‬. It was not translated by 42.11% of the students,
while the rest of the students 57.89% presented incorrect translation "unjust government",
"undemocratic government", "dictator government". None of the students translated it correctly
as "arbitrary government".
The tenth collocation was "10.53 . "‫حقوق أساسية‬% did not translate it , 36.84% translated it
correctly as "fundamental rights", while 5.26% provided incorrect translation " basic rights",
"main rights ".
The eleventh collocation was "‫"مناطق منزوعة السالح‬. It was left not translated by 63.16% ,while
36.84% provided incorrect translations "unarmed areas", "non-weapon areas", "free weapon
areas" Non of the students provided correct translation which is "demilitarized zone".
"‫ "صبر بال حدود‬was not translated by 15.79% of the students, 68.42% provided correct
translation "limitless patience", "unlimited patient" though the exact translation should be
"boundless patience" but their translations are acceptable. 15.79% provided incorrect translation
"great patience", "wonderful patience".
The next collocation was "‫"عمل غير مبرر‬. It translated correctly by 73.69% as "unjustified act",
while the rest of the students 26.32% provided incorrect translation "unfair work",
"unreasonable word", "unacceptable work".
‫ ""التزامات مشتركة‬was not translated by36.84% of the students, while the rest of the students
provided incorrect translations "common affairs", " shared obligations", "contributed affairs".
Non of them managed to give the correct translation "mutual obligations".
The last collocation was "43.37 . "‫جهد دءوب‬% of the students did not translate it, while the rest
of the students 5.26% could not provide the correct translation where most of the translations
were "great effort", continuous efforts", "on going efforts", limitless efforts". None of them
translated it correctly where the correct translation is "a ceaseless effort"

Sixth: The post Arabic-English collocations:

Analyzing the students' performance on the post Arabic-English collocations, it was found that
they have improved in this area because of the training program and the hand outs they were
provided with, beside the web sites and books names about idioms and collocations. But though
they were improved, their improvement in the translation of the English –Arabic is better than
that of Arabic-English and that is due to the shortage of the materials dealing with this area. The
following table presents their results, table (16)

Collocation Left not translated Correct translation Wrong translation

‫بحر هائج‬ 10.53%=2 68.42%=13 21.05%=4
‫عواقب وخيمة‬ 15.79%=3 52.63%=10 31.58%=6
‫بيان رسمى‬ _______ 78.95% =15 21.05%=4
‫مصدر موثوق‬ 10.53%=2 57.89%=11 31.58%=6
‫طعام صالح لالكل‬ 36.84%=7 63.16%=12
‫دليل قاطع‬ _______ 84.21% =16 15.79%=3
‫شاي ثقيل‬ --------------- 100%=19 _______
‫عمل عدائى‬ 15.79%=3 57.89%=11 26.32%=5
™‫حكومة استبدادية‬ 21.05%=4 42.11%=8 36.84%=7
‫حقوق أساسية‬ 10.53%=2 73.69%=14 15.79%=3
‫مناطق منزوعة السالح‬ 26.32%=5 52.63%=10 21.05%=4

43
 ‫صبر بال حدود‬ 15.79%=3 68.42%=13 15.79%=3
‫عمل غير مبرر‬ ________ 89.47% =17 10.53%=2
‫التزامات مشتركة‬ 10.53%=2 68.42% =13 21.05%=4
‫جهد دءوب‬ 21.05%=4 57.89%=11 21.05%=4
Table (16)

This table shows that the students were improved if compared with their performance in the
pre-test concerning collocations. But, although they have improved, only 8 correct answers
exceeded 60%, while the other seven correct translations were below 60 % .
In conclusion, it was found that students' performance improved after administering the
training program in the translation competences in general. The program had a distinguished
effect on their performance in both the English-Arabic passage and on the Arabic-English
passage where the t values were high in the overall tests as well as in the sub-competences.
Students also achieved progress in the cultural-linguistic part of the test- idioms, proverbs and
collocations- in both English-Arabic version and the \Arabic-English version. Their results
proved that translating English-Arabic idioms, proverbs and collocations was easier than
translating them from Arabic to English.

Discussion of results:
In light of the results of the study, it can be concluded that the training program to develop
students' translation competence based on the eclectic approach proved to be effective in
developing English majors' translation competence. This was clear in the support gained for the
four hypotheses of the study and the descriptive analysis of the English-Arabic and Arabic-
English idioms, proverbs and collocations. From these significant results, it is concluded that
1-Following the product approach to teaching translation cause boredom to both the teacher and
the student and does not teach the student the process of translation.
2-The transformational approach guarantees both a learner-centered classroom and the teacher
acting as a guide which supports the positive atmosphere and improves students’ self-esteem.
3-The integration between different approaches facilitates teaching and learning where the
teacher elects the appropriate approach and the suitable activities that suite the situation, the
students' differences and the learning process.
4-The variations of the activities enhanced the students learning and contributed in developing
their translation competence where they discovered that translation is not just conveying
message from (ST) to (TT), or transformation of words from one language to another, they
recognized the different types or methods of translation and the effect of the cultural domain.
5-Including idioms, proverbs and collocations enriched the program and affected the students'
interaction in the program because they were interested in discovering the differences between
the two languages and the two cultures. This part of the program was very enjoyable and
enhanced the training regardless of the results.
6-Through the training program, the researcher recognized that students have a theoretical
background about language use yet, they commit mistakes mainly because they usually do not
revise their final draft, besides they do not recognize that, in general, they not only have to
convey the meaning from one language to the other but also to convey the structure and the
verb form.
7-Throughout the training, students used to use fragmented sentences and run on sentences.
When they cooperated in the activities, they started to recognize their mistakes and overcome
bit by bit.
8-Shift, omission, and addition were used heavily in the students' translations. But, by the end of
this training program these shifts, omissions and additions were minimized but not vanished.

44
 They recognized that using them is a competence; they are not prevented but need to be used
when necessary.
9-Providing students with handouts of English proverbs and collocations followed by the
English explanation of each contributed in enhancing their learning and understanding each.
The same was done for the Arabic proverbs though the sources were not quite enough. Also,
they were provided with handouts, web sites and books' names about English idioms but the
Arabic ones were not very much available.
10- The insufficient material of the Arabic proverbs, idioms and collocations-though they
practiced activities as munch as the English ones-are reflected in the students' results where
their performance on the English-Arabic translations were better than their performance on the
Arabic-English translations though they were improved in both cases.
11- It is a common thought that English-Arabic translation is easier than the Arabic-English
translation, but the students’ results in translation passage were, unexpectedly, the opposite.
Their performance in the Arabic- English translation was better than the English-Arabic
translation. These results could be interpreted in the light of the expectation that if a student
faces a difficult word and fails in guessing the correct meaning that will affect the translation
and breaks the context. On the other hand, if a student translates from her mother tongue to
the foreign language, she understands the context perfectly. As a consequence, if she faces a
word that she does not know its foreign equivalent, she will search for another alternative as
she already knows the meaning.
Recommendations:
Based on the data collected and the results of the study, a number of recommendations can be
presented:
1- Instructors are advised to shift from the product approach of teaching translation to the process
approach to teach students how to translate instead of the modeling and correcting technique.
2- It is recommended that variety of activities should be included in the teaching process, as those
used in the training program, to enhance learning and improve different competences instead of
relying on the linguistic translation.
3- Teaching idioms, proverbs and collocations should be included in translation programs being
taught in faculties of education because they are integral parts of any language.
4- Translation instructors are recommended to integrate different approaches and methods for
teaching Translation including those presented in the present program and experiment the
effectiveness of others.
5- More researches are needed in the field of evaluation and assessment to develop rubrics
specially developed for EFL students in the Egyptian setting and to be tested on a wider scale.

Implementing the research in the educational field:

The present research could be implemented in different educational settings:
1- It may achieve effective results with other subjects in Faculties of Education not only for basic-
education students.
2- The present program is applicable for English majors in Faculties of Arts as translation is a basic
course for these students and it could be supported with theoretical background about translation
theories.
3- The activities used could be used in training in-service teachers who teach translation for
secondary stage schools.

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49