Translation as a Means of Improving Learners’ Productive Skills A case study of fourth year students of Arts, University of Khartoum

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent translation has a role in developing language productive skills (speaking and writing) and language learning in general. The results prove that the students’ performance in the second written test is better than in the first one, moreover, students’ performance in the oral test is also better than in the two written tests. According to these results, the paper proves that translation has an effective role in developing language productive skills , communicative competence and English language learning in general. Language productive skills have a complementary role in developing language learning. Success in language learning is measured in terms of learning how to speak the language and the ability to write it. But students feel that classroom –based speaking and writing practice does not prepare them for real world (even at university level). One of the possible solutions of this problem is translation; Newmark (1993: 58) supports this view adding that, translation has a role in developing the four language skills, as a component of a language learning course .