Guidelines for Effective TAP (Translation for Academic Purposes) Tutorial Courses

An increasing need is felt by the university students, especially at Master’s or PhD level, to get a satisfactory command of English so as to manage great amounts of technical materials and articles published internationally. Public and private language institutions, however, have not responded to this need properly specially in non-English speaking countries including Iran. Therefore, the only way left for the students is to demand tutorial sessions which are rare, and if existing, of diverse questionable quality. There seems to be a dearth of base-line or criteria released in any form to define and guide the tutors’ approach and techniques which can be in accordance with university students’ needs and purposes. Aiming to fill this gap, the present paper attempts to be a pioneering research in the realm of TAP (Translation for Academic Purposes) tutorial courses and intends to provide guidelines on text selection, role allocation, timing, rate, assignments and other relevant issues in this area. The guidelines are provided based on a post facto case study carried out by one of the authors which created the motive for this research and may further clarify the significance of the issues discussed. The recommended guidelines consist of 5 basic elements and 3 principles. It was discovered, and is expected for others as well, that following these guidelines helps to manage a TAP course in the best and most fruitful way with the least time wasted and with satisfactory result.