Russian Translation Assessment Workshop at the Hunter College TIS Conference

I was hoping to gather information on best practices in assessing student translations, and the conference delivered in spades. In no particular order, here are some of the strategies and ideas gleaned from the workshop:

a)     there is a need for a collection or library of sample texts that present typical translation RU>EN challenges: participles, noun chains, verb tenses, passive constructions, etc. The group is working on an open, public place to store/exchange these sample texts. (I can collect them on this website, I can easily add a page for this)

b)    most of the group used either codes or numbers to indicate error, with additional marginal comments or end comments

c)     translations tend to be more successful if there is peer review before the final translation is submitted; most had from one to three intermediate drafts before final submission

d)    also helpful to do group workshops to produce intermediate drafts. (We didn’t discuss how to structure group work for online courses, since I was the only one there teaching online courses.)

e)    definitely need pre-translation exercises that make students slow down and focus on comprehension before they begin translating. Students can tend to work too fast, and can translate without actually understanding big picture of what their text is arguing. Some pre-translation exercises to help with this:

  1. изложение (abstracting and/or gisting); short first, then detailed

  2. retelling/intralingual translation: have students say what each sentence says, but in their own words (in the SL – no SL-TL translation in this exercise) (AOF note: this could be good peer exercise, where they have to explain their text to each other in SL?)

  3. scaffolding: have students parse sentences from the assigned text, then provide feedback on each other’s sentences (helps zoom in and focus on minutia of grammar, punctuation)

f)    tailor feedback to the level/”constellation of problems” of particular student. Some students require more help with understanding the ST grammar; other students struggle with TT style.

  1. in “overall/wrap-up” feedback, identify the primary levels/kinds of error

  2. keep “overall/wrap-up” comments to 3 things; if a TT requires more extensive feedback, deliver the rest through conversation or through targeted post-trans exercises that allow the student to work through the problem herself

g)     post-translation exercises (for refining drafts before final submission): have students go through and reread/revise for just one thing at a time

h)    Post-completion exercises (after final submission): instead of/in addition to written reflection, have students record a 3 to 5-minute screencast where they walk us through 3 translation problems and walk us through their research etc. to show how they solved these problems (AOF post-session idea)

i)      Observation: need to have students be aware of different levels of textual organization and cohesion: not just start at beginning and translate until you get to the end; but look at text at many different levels/units: term; phrase; period; sentence; section; whole text.

j)      Observation: not all assessments focused on same problems, and even the problems that were universally noted were not understood the same way by all assessors; interesting to consider that just as there can be more than one correct translation, there can also be more than one correct set of feedback or mode of feedback delivery

k)     for next time: I personally would like to see a workshop on how to help students edit and refine their own work. Also: how to actively hone students’ understanding of style in their TL? (Cf. “Translation-Adjacent Reading Practices,” Anne Janusch’s brilliant presentation on honing students’ awareness of writing style in English)