Introduction

For the past thirty years, scholars dissenting from mainstream second-language-only  methodologies have urged the return of translation to the world language classroom. Translation has officially been shunned for over a century yet has unofficially continued to be used by students and teachers alike (Cook, 2001). Therefore, this should not be the slinking return of the disfavored Grammar Translation Method, but the confident and informed entry of a translation which facilitates and mediates the “transfer of meaning from one language to another” (Colina & Lafford, 2017). For the purposes of this manual, then, translation will be defined as mediation rather than transfer or linguistic equivalence.

Imagine a collaborative group of intermediate language students in the midst of a translation activity thematically based on home remedies. The group is discussing the Spanish saying, sana sana, colita de rana. As the saying has no direct translation to English, the group needs to figure out an equivalent. Some of the students struggle with what “Heal, heal, little frog’s tail” could possibly mean. A student tells the group that in English, her mom would say, “Suck it up. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Another student suggests, “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?” as a possible translation. In another class period, a heritage language student (i.e., a student that has a familial connection with Spanish) points out that in their family, the saying had magical properties, it worked so well. Through translation, the students are using the first and second language to mediate meaning linguistically and culturally and are reaching new levels of intercultural awareness.

This handbook is designed to help you incorporate translation into your world language classroom as a mediational tool for student acquisition of linguistic and cultural meaning. For the purposes of this manual, translation is understood as a process of mediation across languages rather than linguistic transfer or equivalence.

Section 1 presents the historical background of translation in the classroom, followed by a justification of the reintroduction of translation in the classroom in section 2. Section 3 will provide an overview of how to incorporate translation into your classroom, and section 4 offers lesson plans with explanations of how to use them. The handbook ends with section five, a series of more translation activities for you to apply on your own.