Testing and Evaluation in the Translation Classroom

Testing and Evaluation in the Translation Classroom

By Carol Ann Goff-Kfouri, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in
the Department of English and Education
at Notre Dame University.
Academic Advisor
to Translation and Interpretership students. [e-mail]

 Source: Translation Directory

 It is not at all uncommon today for professional translators to be invited to teach a course at a university. Many translators, though flattered at being invited to teach, are hesitant to accept the position due to their lack of pedagogical knowledge. One particular problematic area is that of marking translations and making decisions on student competence. This paper presents the basic information professional translators need to know before they enter the classroom, and outlines possible testing strategies they might use to make their teaching experience enriching and valuable for themselves as well as their students.

Limitations of Computers as Translation Tools

Limitations of Computers as Translation Tools

Source:  Translation Directory On line

By Alex Grosshttp://language.home.sprynet.com
[e-mail]

As should be more than evident from other contributions to this volume, the field of computer translation is alive and well—if anything, it is now entering what may prove to be its truly golden era. But there would be no need to point this out if certain problems from an earlier time had not raised lingering doubts about the overall feasibility of the field. Just as other authors have stressed the positive side of various systems and approaches, this chapter will attempt to deal with some of these doubts and questions, both as they may apply here and now to those planning to work with computer translation systems and also in a larger sense as they may be connected to some faulty notions about language held by the general public and perhaps some system developers as well. Explaining such doubts and limitations forthrightly can only help all concerned by making clear what is likely—and what is less likely—to work for each individual user. It can also clarify what the underlying principles and problems in this field have been and to some extent remain.

To begin with, the notion of computer translation is not new. Shortly after World War II, at a time when no one dreamt that word processors, spreadsheets, or drawing programs would be widely available, some of the computer's prime movers, Turing, Weaver and Booth among them, were already beginning to think about translation. (1) They saw this application mainly as a natural outgrowth of their wartime code-breaking work, which had helped to defeat the enemy, and it never occurred to them to doubt that computer translation was a useful and realizable goal.