Perceptions of teachers towards data-driven learning and their influence on a teacher development course design

Although little has been written about language teaching in the field of translation studies, Johns’ (1991) concept of data-driven learning (DDL) has been suggested as a viable way to promote translator competencies and skills within the language classroom. However, most language teachers in Chile are not exposed to approaches involving the use of corpora for pedagogical purposes. Hence, this research aims to produce a teacher development workshop to introduce DDL in a Chilean private translation training institution named Escuela Americana de Traductores e Intérpretes (EATRI). To this end, this case study comprised the following three stages: understanding the teachers’ perceptions of DDL, designing and developing a workshop and evaluating the workshop prototype. In the first stage, audio-recorded interviews were used as the data collection method, and questionnaires were used in the third stage.

The teachers’ initial perceptions towards the feasibility of DDL indicated that the workshop should address (1) DDL teacher training, (2) DDL learner training, (3) DDL inductive and deductive approaches and (4) induction to the translator studies field. These perceptions were used to create a seven-session online workshop produced using Articulate and uploaded on a Moodle platform. Wallace’s (1991) checklist for course design was also used in the design of the workshop. In their evaluations of the workshop, the teachers agreed that their initial apprehensions had been addressed. However, they problematised other issues, such as those associated with empowering language teachers with knowledge of the translation studies field, the possible prescriptivism of the workshop, the development of the teachers’ perceptions, the online delivery method and the promoted level of autonomy. Some of these considerations will
inform the last stage of the courseware development before the first version of the online workshop is tested in the second semester of 2014.