Iranian Instructors’ Practices and Criteria for Teaching English Translation

Concerning the significant role of translation as a significant field which contributes to intercultural communication, assigning valid criteria for teaching translation is necessary to make sure that the best practices are employed by instructors’ to teach translation skills. This, in return, would help translation students be equipped with better translation skills. However, little research has been conducted to see what training practices translation instructors employ in their translation training classrooms. More significantly, it has been little research to determine the criteria that are behind the practices instructors employ in their translation training classroom. The purpose of the current research was to determine what practices instructors follow in their English translation classrooms and what criteria are behind these practices. To serve this purpose, the classrooms of ten English translation instructors were observed in an Iranian academic context using an observation checklist. Subsequently, the instructors were asked to write about the criteria behind their teaching practices in an open-ended questionnaire. The results of the study showed that the instructors’ practices were consistent with some of the principles made in the literature an inconstant with others. The instructors referred to the criteria behind the translation teaching practices they employed in their classrooms. Implications that these findings have for the field of translation are presented and some suggestions for further research in this area are given.