What is reverse translation?

Reverse translation (also known as ‘back translation’) has been around for a long time, at least as far back as the 16th century when the Spanish humanist, Juan Luis Vives, and the English educationalist and scholar, Roger Ascham, recommended the technique.

It is not complicated: students are given a text to translate from one language to another; later, they translate it back again (without, of course, referring to the original). For example, a text is first translated out of English, into the students’ own language, and the students then translate it back into English.

The point of reverse translation is not to reproduce the original text word-for-word. A final translated product may or may not be helpful. It will be of less significance than the process of getting there, a process through which a language may be learned. This process is likely to have richer learning potential if the work is collaborative. Through the process of working to and fro between languages, learners are presented with multiple opportunities to notice features of language and to experiment with using them. In fact, as one methodologist puts it, it ‘forces noticing in a way that nothing else does’ (Dellar, 2012). It can also draw attention to the cross-cultural nature of translation; it develops learners’ critical use of online technology; and it can be fun. The case for adding reverse translation to any teacher's basic toolkit is a compelling one.

Many variations on the basic idea are possible. Reverse translation can take as its starting point examples of language that have been chosen or scripted to focus on particular points of grammar or vocabulary (see for example Activities 5.5: Model texts, and 5.6: Grammar or vocabulary revision with reverse translation). It can also work with texts that have no focus on discrete language items, and also with texts that the learners have generated themselves. This chapter suggests only a relatively small number of options. It is easy to find others. Which direction to go in?

The early proponents of reverse translation, Vives and Ascham, disagreed about the directions for these translations. Vives thought that learners should begin with a text in their own language, which they should translate into Latin, and then translate back into their own language.