presented by Sarah Albrecht (University of Houston-Downtown)
Sunday March 1, 2026 | 9:00am – 12:00pm MST
Pedagogical translation, or using translation towards specific objectives, is a research-supported language teaching strategy that is still gaining traction in the classroom. Translation will be presented as a strategy for teaching language and culture, then participants will design a pedagogical translation activity suitable for their own contexts.
Abstract:
Translators are border crossers, beings who live in cultures rather than simply knowing about them (Phipps and González, 2004), and pedagogical translation, or classroom use of translation towards specific objectives, mediates for the acquisition of both language and culture (Council of Europe, 2020). It is also highly collaborative, encouraging the relational thinking recognized by the UN as students negotiate for meaning (Cano & Ruíz, 2020). However, despite its solid research backing (González-Davies, 2017), pedagogical translation is still gaining traction in the classroom due to an “implementation problem” (McLaughlin et al., 2022, p. 3). This slower adoption has been due in part to erroneous connection to the out-of-favor grammar translation method and the dominance of the direct method which approaches language instruction monolingually (Cook, 2010). Ongoing effort is therefore required to move translation towards mainstream classroom adoption.
This workshop proposes to be part of that effort. It will introduce pedagogical translation as a research-based teaching method and model the design, implementation and assessment of pedagogical translation strategies such as guided writing, translation of proverbs, or translation of bilingual texts for varying language-learning environments and towards acquisition of intercultural competence. Finally, it will provide space and support for participants to collaboratively practice designing their own pedagogical translation activities based upon those modeled.
Pedagogical translation is a very versatile strategy, and participants may be language instructors from any grade level or teaching environment. They can expect to leave this workshop with a translation activity which includes aligned objectives and assessment.
References Cited:
Barnes, K. (2018). Reviving pedagogical translation: An investigation into UK learners’ perceptions of translation for use with their GCSE Spanish studies and beyond. Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts, 4(2), 248– 81.
Cano, J. & Ruiz, N. T. (2020). “Wait! I don’t get it! Can we translate?”: Explicit collaborative translation to support emergent bilinguals’ reading comprehension in the intermediate grades. Bilingual Research Journal, 43(2), 157– 77.
Cook, G. (2010). Translation in language teaching: An argument for reassessment. Oxford University Press.
Council of Europe (2020). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment— Companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing.
González- Davies, M. (2017). The use of translation in an integrated plurilingual approach to language learning: Teacher strategies and best practices. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, 4(2), 124– 35.
McLaughlin, M., Laviosa, S., Linares, E., Pintado- Gutiérrez, L., Postlewaite, L. Roesler, L. & Thow, D. (2022). Reflections. L2 Journal, 14(2), 107– 14.
Phipps, A. & Gonzalez, M. (2004). Modern languages: Learning and teaching in an intercultural field. Sage.
For full workshop details and link to register please visit: https://icc.cercll.arizona.edu/workshops/
You can also register for the workshop(s) alone, if you don’t want to attend the rest of the conference.
Participants can request a certificate of attendance for 3 hours of Continuing Education for this workshop.
➣➣Visit the ICC website for full details:
ICC 2026 is hosted by the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) and co-sponsored by the College of Humanities at The University of Arizona, Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) Program, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences , Arizona International, UArizona Center for East Asian Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, and Center for Middle Eastern Studies, all at The University of Arizona; and by CALPER-Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at Pennsylvania State University, the Center for Advanced Research on Language (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota, Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS) at the University of Oregon, and the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.