VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT TRANSLATION AS AN ENABLING STRATEGY FOR STUDENTS’ READNG COMPREHENSION OF IT TEXTS (Sử dụng dich thuật như một chiến lược trong việc day đọc hiểu các bài khóa chuyên ngành công nghệ thông tin.A THESIS FIELD : English teaching methodology CODE : 601410 SUPERVISOR: VU THI THU THUY, M.A BY : DANG THI THANH VAN HA NOI – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………ii ABSTRACT. iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Identification of the problem.
Scopes, objective and research questions for the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study. 5 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.
Challenges of comprehending IT texts. Use of language 1 as support of students’ reading comprehension. Translation as a classroom technique. Strategy for using translation to support students’ comprehension of IT texts.
Clarifying the exact meanings of technical terms. Performing translation activities in post-reading for clearer comprehending the IT texts. Improving students’ knowledge of the language. 12 CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY 3.
Context of the study. The learning context. The learning materials. Methods of data collection.
The procedures of the study. 16 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Plan of survey. Determining the students’ challenges in reading comprehension of IT texts.
Helping students come over their challenges in comprehending IT texts. Applying translation activities in post-reading, the direct observation in class and strategy for using translation to support students in reading comprehension of IT texts. Evaluating students’ attitude to translation in post-reading process. Analyzing the data.
21 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 4. The effects on the students’ attitude towards translation in post-reading process. The students’ perception of usefulness of translation to reading comprehension. Discussion of the above findings.
What are the effects of translation on students’ reading comprehension?. What are the students’ attitudes towards translation in post-reading?. What do IT students perceive of the usefulness of translation to their reading comprehension?. Summary of the major findings.
Students’ positive attitudes towards translation in post-reading process. Students’ perception of usefulness of translation to their reading comprehension related the strategy for using translation mentioned above. Students’ opinion on the role of translation to their reading comprehension of IT texts. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies.
Pedagogical implications of the study. 42 REFERENCES APPENDIX LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABBREVIATIONS L1: Language 1 L2: Language 2 SL: source language TL: target language IT: Information Technology ESP: English for Specific purposes FLT: Foreign Language Teaching HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology E.M: English Teaching Methodology iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter is concerned with the rationale behind the researcher‟s decision of choosing the thesis subject, and the way she investigates the effects of translation activities on students‟ achievement in reading skills for IT students. Besides, the scope, the objectives, and the research questions as well as the methods and design of the study are also stated clearly. Rationale Never before has English become so pervasive as nowadays, and English has formally been an important subject in our educational system.
English is one of the languages in the world that masters in various fields globally. “Better English, more opportunities” is the answer given by most Vietnamese university students when asked about their goal of learning English. English can help students prepare well for their future careers as it can not only equip them with a useful source of personal, linguistic, social and cultural knowledge but also provide them with access to modern technology and information concerning a variety of issues in modern society. Getting students to read English texts is an important part of our job at HUBT.
IT students should be able to read specialist texts in English either for careers, or for study purposes. Understandably, reading is useful for language acquisition provided that students more or less understand what they read, and the more they read, the better they get at it. Reading also has a positive effect on students‟ vocabulary knowledge, on their spelling and on their writing. However, it is observed that IT students at HUBT who have to read to get gist information about new technology always have difficulties in translating IT texts for thorough understanding in their mother tongue.
For all the above reasons, it is strongly desirable for the researcher to propose “Translation as an enabling strategy for students’ reading comprehension of IT texts” as the subject of this study. Identification of the problem According to the researcher‟ observation and her teaching experience she realizes that her IT students always encounter difficulties in understanding specialist reading texts LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 thoroughly after they have done many reading comprehension exercises. They always have to use their mother tongue as an understanding aid. Therefore, there is an additional task after doing reading comprehension known as translation or translating the text into Vietnamese (as IT students do at HUBT).
In the past, the prevalence of grammar- translation method led to an extraordinary phenomenon: students were unable to speak fluently after having studied the language for a long time and until recently, translation was out of favour with the language teaching community. As pointed out by Duff (1994), translation was labelled “boring”, “uncommunicative”, “difficult”, “pointless” and the like, and suffered from too close an association with grammar. For this reason, translation has been defined as “uncommunicative, boring, pointless, difficult, and irrelevant”. However, Duff (1994) also sees there has been a revival of interest to translation due to the shift of its emphasis - to using a mother tongue as a resource for the promotion of language learning.
Duff (1989:7) also notes that translation is of a great value because it “develops 3 qualities essential to all langage learning: flexibility, accuracy and clarity. This combination of freedom and contraint allows the students to contribute their own thoughts to discussion which has a clear focus- text.” Therefore, translation can be considered as a tool for improving language skills. Today, thanks to the new communicative approach to language teaching, translation is gradually becoming recognized as a valid activity for language practice and improvement. The three qualities essential to all language learning should be taken into details.
Firstly, accuracy is very important for IT students, who always deal with professional technical terms as well as complicated grammar structures in their specialist reading texts. The accuracy quality can be seen in the real usefulness of translation in English classes in exploiting it in order to compare grammar, vocabulary, word order and other language points in English and the student‟s mother tongue. Ross (2000), if students are aware of the language differences, language interference (transfer) and intervention from their own language are likely to be reduced. Secondly, clarity depends a lot on students‟ language proficiency.
It is observed that the students may understand the text in general. However, it is sometimes difficult for them to clarify some professional terms and complicated grammar structures - syntactic IT texts feature. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 It is noteworthy that in teaching / learning ESP there has been a long-felt dissatisfaction, mainly on the students‟ part, about the exclusion or minimal use of translation in mastering complex issues. Learners constantly wished to check the exact meanings of the professional terms in their native language by consulting bilingual dictionaries or asking for teacher‟s explanations.
There is an opinion that “rigidly eliminating or limiting the native language does not appear to guarantee better acquisition, nor does it foster the humanistic approach that recognizes learners‟ identities (Mattioli 2004: 20). Translation as a teaching tool needs to take into account a number of different aspects, such as grammar, syntax, collocation and connotation. Uncritical use of translation may give learners insufficient, confusing, or even inaccurate information about the target language. Thirdly, flexibility is referred quite a lot to students‟ background knowledge.
According to the researcher‟s observation of her IT students at HUBT she realizes that students with better background IT knowledge find it easier to understand technical texts and interpret to others legibly or clearly. This means that in the case their background knowledge leads them to become more flexible to cope with challenges of comprehending IT texts. Therefore, raising learners‟ consciousness can be valuable: teachers can explicitly point out differences between L1 and L2. For this purpose translation may be useful, because it can be interactive, learner-centered, then it promotes learners‟ autonomy by using authentic materials (Mahmoud 2006: 28).
Although the use of translation in learning a foreign language is much maligned by language teachers, translation is widely used in learners‟ foreign language learning process. It appears that learners often use translation as a learning strategy to comprehend, remember, and produce a foreign language. Translation has been used by foreign language learners to facilitate language learning for centuries, but translation has played various roles under different language teaching methods. While some foreign language educators may consider translation as a critical means to ensure students‟comprehension and an important writing exercise, other teachers may totally ban or discourage the use of the native language and translation in the classroom.
As Malmkjar stated, „the issue of the use of translation in language teaching is one on which most language teachers have a view‟(1998: 1), but fairly often, teachers‟ views are not strongly in favor of it. However, relatively little research attention so far seems to have been devoted to a consideration of LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 the use of translation in language learning. As an English teacher working with IT students on ESP at HUBT the researcher always takes this problem onto consideration. Doing the research the researcher tries to identify the role of translation in post-reading for IT students at HUBT and to help them use translation well enough for their language learning.
The teacher - the researcher had asked her students to translate their specialist reading into Vietnamese as a compulsory task in class as well as a homework assignment. She asked them to translate a simple sentence, then more complicated ones, after that a paragraph, and finally a whole text orally in order to find out students‟ weaknesses and strengths and help them with correcting mistakes. Their products had to be written out, which helped them a lot in improving their language learning. During the research, the researcher had found some articles and books about implementing translation as learning strategies to improve students‟ reading understanding and even their language proficiency.
According to these articles and books, the benefits of translation had been explored in Vietnam and should be taken into account. Scopes, objective and research questions for the study This study was a kind of survey research which was designed and conducted by the researcher herself. The study was limited to the investigation of students‟ attitudes towards translation, as well as the effect of translation on students‟ reading comprehension of IT texts. The study was conducted on the third-year IT students who were studying English as a compulsory subject at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.
Thus, the first and foremost objective of the study is for the sake of the students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology, where the researcher worked as a teacher of English. Although any generalization of the findings should be made with caution, it is expected that this study will serve as a source of references for teachers of English on the teaching of reading skills for IT students, especially for those who consider translation in post-reading for IT students as one of the suggested educational innovations.