Mental translation and its contribution to communicative language teaching and learning [articol]

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a series of analytical considerations concerning the use of mental translation in communicative teaching and learning English as a foreign language. The main part of the article focuses on the literature review concerning the impact of mental translation method on students’ language acquisition level during their English learning practice. The existing research on this topic has shown that learners use mental translation as a strategy to compare and establish similarities and differences between their first language and the foreign language. Learners create a translational field where they store the results of the similarities and differences between their native language and the foreign language. These mental translation results become some procedural knowledge, stored in their long-term memory. While communicating in a foreign language, learners automatically reuse the information previously stored in their translational field. The last part of the article contains some directions of research in relation to the use of mental translation in communicative language learning and teaching.