a proposed translation program for developing efl prospective teachers’ bicultural awareness and their performance in translation: an experimental study.

This study aimed at preparing a translation program for prospective teachers of English and investigating its effects in developing their bicultural awareness and performance in translation.  Texts of this program involved topics related to the national (Arab) culture as well as the international (not necessarily Arab) culture.  The subjects of the study were 47 male and female fourth-year students studying at Damietta faculty of education, Mansoura University.  The subjects received a pre-test before studying the proposed program.  Then, they received the post-test immediately after studying the entire proposed program.  Two follow-up tests were applied in order to make sure that the subjects acquired the cultural information involved in the program.  In order to verify the hypotheses of the study, the researcher made use of two instruments that he developed by himself: The Bicultural Awareness Test, and The Translation Test.

Among other findings, there were statistically significant differences between the means of the scores of the subjects in the pre-test and their scores in the post-test, regarding their bicultural awareness and performance in translation, in favor of the latter.  In addition, it was found out that there were no statistically significant differences among the means of the scores of the subjects in the post-test, follow-up 1 test, and follow-up 2 test, regarding bicultural awareness.  The study included suggestions for further studies, and recommendations for more effective teaching of translation, and better utilization of the national as well as international cultures in the programs of foreign language teacher education