Педагогические науки/5. Современные методы преподавания

Преподаватель английского языка Максименкова Т.Н.

Международная Бизнес Академия, Казахстан

The ways to lead an effective and interesting lesson of

Oral Translation and Interpretation

Translation and interpretation are the means of interlingual communication. The interpreter makes possible an exchange of information between the users of different languages by producing in the target language a text which has an identical communicative value with the source (or original) text.

As a kind of practical activities translation/interpretation is a set of actions performed by the interpreter while rendering source text into another language. These actions are largely intuitive and the best results are naturally achieved by translators who are best suited for the job, who are well-trained or have a special aptitude, a talent for it.

One of the bricks to create a good interpreter is to obtain fundamental knowledge. The first step to start is the University. Very often it seems difficult for a teacher to create an effective and interesting lesson of Oral Translation and Interpretation. Here are some ideas to teach in an interesting way.

During the lesson future interpreter should mainly improve listening and speaking skills. That is why audio and video facilities are preferable. Teacher may start and lead the lesson in a serious way, but better to warm up and interact the students a little bit at the beginning and during the class. That will create a better atmosphere at the lesson and students will not get tired of obtaining too much new information, or look exhausted after all. Here are some warm-up activities:

1. NON-STOP TALKING. Using ball of threads students talk until they meet a knot. Non-stop talking activity helps to avoid unnecessary pauses.

2. BINGO. This activity helps to improve vocabulary skills. It may be used to practice all precocious information, id est names and numbers, for example, as it is considered to be important for a future interpreter. The rules of the game are very easy. Teacher says a word, a number, name of the city (depends on what you are willing to cover) in Mother tongue or in Foreign Language and the students should search its equivalent in the inverse language and cross it out. When four or more words are crossed down, across or bias (depends on the number of words you practice), students say: “Bingo!” You may reward first three students, for example.

	BINGO

	BINGO
		BINGO

3. STAIRS. Draw the stairs. One word is on the bottom and its antonym or synonym is on the top. Students should write the words on each step closer and closer to the antonym or synonym. This activity is very useful for future interpreters as they need to possess connotational and denotational meanings of the word.

4. SUBSTITUTION (substitute every word in a sentence, e.g. The children went to the yard/ The adults returned from the house).

5. NEWS/ AMAZING FACTS. The following activity may be given as home task. Teacher offers students to search news (political, economic, scientific and so on) or interesting facts and present them to their group mates. Students prepare the list of unknown words on their message. During the lesson one presents the news or facts and some other student interprets.

6. BROKEN TELEPHONE. Teacher says a phrase or sentence in foreign language to a student, he/she interprets it into native language. The second student again interprets it in foreign language and so on.

7. SITUATIONS/ ROLEPLAYS. Teacher prepares the situations for role-plays. Two of the students are offered to perform, two others are asked to interpret.

8. PRESENTATIONS. Teacher gives some topic to the group of students and offers them to work out the presentation on it (students may choose the topic by their own). Each person in the group has his/her own interpreter. During the presentation they work together. This activity may be given as home task or as a class activity. Possible topics for presentations:

· Medical Ethics - The most basic medical ethic standards;

· The pros and cons of drug legalization;

· Smoking - Facts about smoking;

· Juvenile Offenders - Juvenile offenders should be tried as adults;

· Every child should receive professional help in case of child abuse;

· Human Rights - Workplace discrimination is a violation of fundamental human rights;

· Internet Privacy - How to protect your privacy online;

· Animal Rights - What if animal research results in a cure for AIDS;

· Capital Punishment - The death penalty should be administered in a just way.

9. TONGUETWISTERS. Tonguetwisting is one of the main activities that should be constantly practiced with future interpreters as it improves articulation skills. Teacher prepares tonguetwisters both in native and foreign languages. At the beginning it is better to choose short tonguetwisters. Every lesson you may practice different sounds. For example:

“[ж]”

Ужа ужалила ужица.

Ужу с ужицей не ужиться.

Уж уж от ужаса стал уже –

ужа ужица съест на ужин.

“ [dƷ]”

Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?

10. INTERPRETATION COMPETITIONS. Teacher divides students into teams, offers some information (it may be video or audio texts or a common printed one) and asks them to translate/interpret in a literal, colloquial or official way.

All the activities above help students to develop and improve memory skills, articulation and pronunciation. These are the skills which every interpreter should possess.

After the warming up teacher may offer listening or watching. He/she asks students to write out all unknown words that they here or just hands out ready made vocabulary.

Having listened or watched, the students are suggested an exercise to memorize the words. They see a list of words both in target and source languages. They interpret them as quick as it is possible.

When the words are covered, students listen or watch once again and interpret. If it is an interview, it is better to practice two-way translation (one speaker asks the question in target language, another answers in source language and interpreter works with both).

Having finished with the listening or video of target language, teacher may offer to do the same tasks with the material in source language.

During the lesson of Oral Translation and Interpretation the following set of exercises is preferable to practice:

· Echo-repetition;

· Mnemonics;

· “Snowball”;

· Syntactic expansion;

· Speech compression.

To finish up the lesson teacher may put the students forward to role-play with further interpretation. Teacher prepares the situation on the topic of the audio or video lesson.

The transcript of the lesson above is one of thousand ways to create an effective, active and interesting lesson on Oral Translation and Interpretation.

Литература:

1. Комиссаров В. Н. Пособие по переводу с английского языка на русский. М.: 1965. Ч. 1, 2.

2. Чужакин А. Мир перевода - 2. Practicum. М.: 1997.