MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE --------------------------- TRAN THI CUC USING PORTFOLIOS TO ENHANCE EFL STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION COMPETENCE AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY Major: English Language Students’ code: 1841900036 HO CHI MINH CITY, SEPTEMBER 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ----------------------------- USING PORTFOLIOS TO ENHANCE EFL STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION COMPETENCE AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY Submitted to the Faculty of English Language in partial fulfilment of the Master’s degree in English Language Course code: 8220201 By TRAN THI CUC Supervised by LE THI THANH, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, SEPTEMBER 2020 The thesis entitled USING PORTFOLIOS TO ENHANCE EFL STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION COMPETENCE AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY was successfully defended and approved on 22nd December 2020 at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH). Academic supervisor: Le Thi Thanh, Ph. Examination Committee 1 Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph.D …………………………… Chair 2 Le Van Tuyen, Ph.
…………………………………… Reader 1 3 Nguyen Dang Nguyen, Ph.………………………… Reader 2 4 Nguyen Tien Hung, Ph.…………………………… Member 5 Le Thi Thuy Nhung, Ph.…………………………… Secretary Member On behalf of the Examination Committee Chair (full name, title, signature) Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph. HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE HCMC, September 2020 MASTER’S THESIS REPORT Student name: Tran Thi Cuc Sex: Female Date of birth: April 10th, 1970 Place of birth: Đà Nẵng Major: English Language Student code: 1841900036 I. Thesis title: USING PORTFOLIOS TO ENHANCE EFL STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION COMPETENCE AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY II. Objectives and content: This study aims at enhancing the EFL students’ translation competence and improving students’ self-monitoring by using portfolios as a tool for learning and assessment combined with translation error analysis in a translation classroom of International Studies of International Relations Department at Saigon University.
This research alternative hypothesis was accepted and represented with the significant changes of the students’ self-monitoring and translation competence after the course. Starting date: March 30th, 2020 IV. Completing date: September 30th, 2020 V. Academic supervisor: Le Thi Thanh, Ph.
ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR FACULTY DEAN Le Thi Thanh, Ph. Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, Ph. CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled: USING PORTFOLIOS TO ENHANCE EFL STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION COMPETENCE AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY In terms of the statement of the requirements for Thesis in Master’s programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of English Language, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2020 TRAN THI CUC RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Tran Thi Cuc, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarians for the care, loan and reproduction for theses. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2020 TRAN THI CUC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the journey into discourse analysis and learning of portfolios in translation classrooms, I have finally ended up realizing that this thesis represents a path in which the wonder of learning and growing outbalanced occasional discouragement. This was made possible by the precious contribution of many people to whom I am greatly indebted for having helped me to reach the final destination of my journey. First, I am greatly grateful to my tireless supervisor, Ph.
Le Thi Thanh, for her patience, insightful advice and helpful guidance, as well as constant encouragement through the whole research process. Under any circumstances, she always supports me with her warm dedication. Thus, most importantly, her integrity, conscientiousness, strong and continuous commitment towards improvement is to me the most invaluable lesson I might have been taught as a researcher and a human being. With her immense and expertise knowledge, such is a genius that she always inspires me with her enlightening discussions, and thought-provoking comments and questions.
Without her further deepened insights, this thesis would never have been completed. I would like to express my profound gratitude to my lecturers at HUTECH who have given us the invaluable lectures and their devoting time to enrich my knowledge through this master course. I would like to acknowledge the helpful staff of HUTECH Institution of Post-Graduate, and my enthusiastic students of International Studies in the translation classroom at Saigon University, who voluntarily participated in my investigation, collaborated with me with their participation and corporation. Last but not least, I wish to express my acknowledgements for the support and overwhelming love of my family and friends, especially my 90-year-old mother, who are undoubtedly a source of my motivation, my happiness and my effort.
ABSTRACT Portfolios can be useful and effective media for teacher and students to identify the students’ progress and achievements during a translation course. This paper aims at using portfolios to enhance translation competence in the translation classroom of EFL students of International Studies of International Relations at Saigon University. The quasi-experimental research design was conducted in two classes of total sixty students in two classes of total sixty students whom the researcher was teaching translation. One 30-student class was treated as the experimental group and the other 30-student class as the control group.
All of the participants at the intermediate level of English had not had any previous exposures to the use of portfolios. Through the rubric evaluation, portfolio and the tests (pretest and post test), this study proved the accepted alternative hypothesis on using portfolio to improve EFL students’ self-monitor and enhance EFL students’ translation competence in a translation classroom of International Studies at Saigon University. There was significant enhancement of students’ translation competence in the experimental group. In the post test, the number of students with grade A and grade B increased while decreased with grade C and grade D.
It was shown that using portfolios can also help students with self-monitoring - their awareness of translation quality, identifying translation errors and translation error remedy-, and their translation competence. Keywords: portfolios; translation competence; self-monitoring CONTENT LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .x LIST OF TABLES. xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 Background to the study .2 Statement of the problems .3 Aims and objectives of the study .5 Scope of the study .6 Significance of the study .7 Definition of key terms.8 Organization of the study .11 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Concept of translation .3 Errors and Translation Errors .2 Concept of Portfolio .1 Definition and Types of portfolio .2 Advantages and challenges of portfolio .1 Advantages of portfolio.2 Challenges of portfolio .4 Johnson (2003)’s Basic Translation Course portfolio .5 Galán-Mañas (2016)’s learning portfolio in translator training .6 Popescu (2011)’s model of translation competence and linguistic competence .1 Previous studies on translation error analysis .2 Previous studies on the use of portfolios to enhance EFL students’ translation competence and to improve self-monitoring .3 Previous Vietnamese studies on translation error analysis and portfolios to improve self-monitoring and translation competence .3 Sample and sampling procedures .1 Rubric for the evaluation of the Basic Translation Course portfolio adapted from Galán-Mañas (2016) and Johnson (2003) .5 Data collection procedures .6 Data analysis procedures .7 Validity and Reliability .69 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.1 Hypothesis acceptance & Students’ self-monitoring improvement .2 Students’ translation competence enhancement .2 Implications of the research .3 Limitation of the research.4 Recommendations for further research .105 The list of ATA framework for standard error marking .109 The table of types and examples of translation errors in accordance with Popescu (2013a)’s model .110 Galán-Mañas (2016)’s rubric for the evaluation of the learning portfolios .115 Rubric for the evaluation of the Basic Translation Course portfolios (Adapted from Johnson, 2003; Galán-Mañas, 2016; Popescu, 2011, 2013a) .122 The table of grading students’ translation tests and translations .123 The extracts of the training syllabus of translation course in International Studies at International Relations Department of Saigon University .126 Guidelines for Self-Reviews .128 Guidelines for the first report .129 THE SOURCE TEXT OF PRETEST .129 THE SOURCE TEXT OF POST TEST .131 SOME SAMPLE PIECES OF STUDENTS’ PORTFOLIOS .131 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PA: portfolio assessment SL: source language TL: target language LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Summative assessment of learning portfolio contents proposed by Galán-Mañas (2016) -------------------------------------------------------------page 34 Table 2.2: Schedule of portfolio submission proposed by Galán-Mañas (2016) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------page 35 Table 3.1: Scheduled submissions of the contents of Basic Translation Course portfolio of junior International Studies students at Saigon University---page 63 Table 3.2: Summative assessment of Basic Translation Course portfolio contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 64 Table 3.3: Instruments of data collection and analysis to the research questions for the present research ------------------------------------------------------=-- page 67 Table 3.4: Cronbach’s Alpha indices of the rubric items -------------------page 68 Table 3.5: Cronbach’s Alpha indices of translation error analysis of experimental group’s pretest and post test ----------------------------------------------------page 68 Table 4.1: Descriptive Statistics of the rubric for the evaluation of Basic Translation Course portfolio ----------------------------------------------------page 71 Table 4.2: Rotated component analysis on the items of the rubric --------page 76 Table 4.3: Paired Samples Statistics of pretest and post test of experimental group -------------------------------------------------------------------------------page 78 Table 4.4: Paired Samples Statistics between experiment group and control group ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------page 79 Table 4.5: Comparison on the number of students according to the grading scheme -----------------------------------------------------------------------------page 80 Table 4.6: Case Processing Summary -----------------------------------------page 81 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: A course-portfolio guideline in the Basic Translation Exercises (from Johnson, 2003) --------------------------------------------------------------------page 29 Figure 2.2: Popescu (2011)’s framework on learning objectives in a translation course ------------------------------------------------------------------------------page 38 Figure 2.3: Conceptual framework of using portfolios to improve self-monitoring and enhance translation competence of EFL non-majors in the translation course of International Studies ----------------------------------------------------------page 47 Figure 4.1: Translation errors of pretest in the experimental group -------page 82 Figure 4.2: Translation errors of post test in the experimental group -----page 83 Figure 4.3: Translation errors of pretest in the control group -------------page 84 Figure 4.4: Translation errors of post test in the control group ----------- page 85 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter first includes the background of the study on translation significance and portfolio assessment as a tool of assessment and learning in EFL translation courses at universities. Next sections introduce the statement of the problem, research objectives, research questions, and the scope for this paper.
Finally, this chapter introduces the definitions of key terms.1 Background to the study Nowadays, English has played important part in the international integration environment and translation is pointed out as an effectively communicative way (Newmark, 2003; Vermes, 2010). Translation studies, therefore, is considered not only an academic program but also an essential subject towards undergraduates at Vietnamese universities (Ho Dac Tuc, 2012; Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, 2017). Vermes (2010) states that translation is not only the structure transferring or manipulation but also means for language learning and communication. In other words, translators cannot be competent without language acquisition and language competence (Baker, 1992; Newmark, 1988; Robinson, 2003; Popescu, 2011; Munday, 2016).
Transfer competence is defined as the knowledge of translational relationships between the languages used for translation allowing to- be-translator students to match languages appropriately, as distinct from students’ ability of using the languages individually (Pym, 2010). Some other extra-factors such as self-direction, self-confidence, reflection, have been analyzed and discussed under the diversity of models or frameworks (Oroczco and Albir, 2002; Johnson, 2003; Galán-Mañas, 2016). Translation is really arduous and complicated to EFL students. Hence, translation errors can be 1 from the lack of linguistic competence and language acquisition of a foreign language and from the lack of translation skill (Popescu, 2011, 2013b).
Translation error analysis is employed to assess a translation and evaluate students’ achievement after a translation course. In response to the drawbacks of traditional assessment, through the diversity of these models, portfolio assessment is presented as one of the popular primary alternative methods in translation teaching-learning and assessment.