Page 12 - e-Expert Seminar Series: Translation and Language Teaching

of television and research projects designed to promote multilingual learning among children.
ABSTRACT: Although in recent years it seems generally assumed that translation is a natural language-learning strategy, it is well-known that its use was overlooked in most of language classrooms over almost the whole twentieth century (Cook, 2010; Mitchell & Myles, 2004). Fortunately, some recent studies have proved that an optimal use of translation in language teaching-learning situations has substantial potential and offers a vast number of didactic possibilities (Carreres, 2014; Colina, 2002, González Davies, 2004; Pintado Gutiérrez, 2012).
These researches received an important support when the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) divided language activities into four kinds: reception, production, interaction and mediation, which included translating and interpreting. Moreover, it is important to remark that recently the Council of Europe Unit has expanded the notion of “linguistic mediation” to also cultural, social and pedagogic contexts. From that point on, translation has begun to find its place not only in foreign language learning areas, but also as an instrument to improve competence and mediation skills.
This new role of translation in fields other than Translation Studies, mainly in Didactics, has uncovered new realities like that of multi- and plurilingual classrooms. The CEFR proposes plurilingual, intercultural education as the goal of language education, which goes far beyond individual language knowledge. However, the didactic implications of this paradigm shift have not yet found their place in widespread educational practice. The evaluation of this competence is, in particular, one of the lesser-studied aspects. The Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches (FREPA) can be the starting point for reflection on how translation’s linguistic transfer influences students’ plurilingual competences and how to evaluate them.
Pluritav project aims to explore the influence that the inter- or intralinguistic transfer inherent to any translation task can exert on
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