Investigating the Problems with Translating Specialized English Texts among Elementary Education Student Teachers

Elementary school teachers should keep pace with the constant changes in educational research, subject knowledge, and teaching strategies. As Farhangian University plays an essential role in the pre-service teacher training, acquainting teacher-students with the specialized language is essential. Therefore, this qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate problems with translating specialized English texts among elementary education student-teachers. The target population was the elementary education student-teachers of West Azerbaijan Farhangian University. 30 students were selected by random sampling. Participants were asked to translate an English text of 120 words into Persian and, in addition, they were also asked to translate a 120-word Persian abstract into English and to calculate how long the translation took. The translation scripts were collected and their content was analyzed and the initial coding was done. Based on the coding, for English to Persian translation, the main categories identified were vocabulary, structure, and comprehension; and two categories including vocabulary and structure were identified for Persian to English translation. Then translation scripts were analyzed based on these categories. The results indicated that little acquaintance with the necessary grammatical structures and principles of effective writing were major challenges for participants. Furthermore, interviews were conducted to identify the steps taken by participants in the translation process and the problems faced in this process. The analysis of the conducted interviews indicated that the majority of the participants hadn’t taken the proper sequence of steps in the translation process.