Current trends on MA translation courses in the UK: changing assessment practices on core translation modules

ABSTRACT

Assessment underpins all forms of translator training and is an essential element of any teaching and learning process. By looking at university assessment practices, we can gain an insight into current understandings about the nature of translation practice and what issues are foregrounded in translator education. This paper presents the findings of the second stage of our research into assessment practices on core translation modules of MA Translation courses offered in the UK, and follows on from a preliminary case study conducted at the University of Westminster in 2015 and 2016 with MA Translation tutors and students (n=16; n=53). The research presented in this paper was carried out via documentary research into all universities offering MA Translation courses (n=27) and via a survey which asked a representative of each UK university to fill out a questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by 55% of universities (n=15). The areas explored include universities' learning outcomes, assessment instruments and criteria. In the light of the data gathered, our study aims to discover if and to what extent current assessment practices on the core translation modules reflect the competence-based understandings of the translation process and have adopted new forms of assessment.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment practices
• MA Translation
• survey
• tenets of assessment
• translator competence
• translator education

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the university representatives who generously completed the survey for the purpose of our case study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Huertas Barros and Buendía Castro (2017) for a description of some representative online resources available for translators, particularly for legal translation.

2. Other: Adjustment of LOs to the EMT criteria.