ESSAY - MONICA ADRIANA RUBIO

Essay

POSTULATE B

Leonardi (2010), translation enhances critical reading skills, improves grammatical awareness and language proficiency, facilitates vocabulary acquisition, and develops intercultural competence.

The translation in the learning process is something unmentionable, at least in the context I learned and now I’m teaching. Speaking about translation in learning is something that exists, is real, we use all the time but deep inside our hearts, there is something yelling that is wrong. For many years I’ve been taught that translation is really wrong for our students and now, to find that translation is important and part of the process is something that blew my mind. It feels like the guilt is gone and now the objective is to learn how to use correctly the translation in our teaching.

According to this postulate, I consider that translation is a good tool since we use it wisely. It is not only to let the students use it without a guide or a purpose; using it with a specific purpose may produce excellent results for our students and it will become an important resource for us as teachers. Now I feel that the challenge is bigger because it is necessary to be aware of which are our students needs and learn how the translation will help them to improve in their different skills.

In my personal experience, translation has been one useful option in my learning process, maybe it wasn’t the best one but it really helped me to learn, to understand, to acquire vocabulary, to learn how to read and understand the context. It was the first instinct I developed in order to understand and know what I was reading or singing in different songs, so, I speak on my behalf, and I believe that it is not that bad to translate, the only thing that changes today is that now I can see that it is necessary to do it right and with the correct guidance to enhance specific areas and skills.