TRANSLATION AS A TOOL IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

The most important point in language teaching is develeopment of the four major skills, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing for effective communication. Recently, the teachers are avoding the use of translation. This is due to translation being confused with the Grammar Translation Method. However, the translation that we discuss here in refers to the translation actvity, which is foreseen to be used as an activitiy and a tool in foreign language lessons. Translation is unavoidable in the foreign language process. Integration of translation into foreign language lessons provides numerous contributions to the student in addition to having positive reflections on the teacher-student interaction. Use of translation provides language awareness and helps improvement of the vocabulary. Moreover, translation provides the opportunity for evaluation of what is learnt also. In this study, after pointing out the significance of the translation among the four major language skills we aimed to indicate how the translation can be integrated into classrooms. For this aim, at first we emphasized the importance of using the translation as an instrument in language teaching process. In the next step, we mentioned the constructivist approach which claims that the students need to stimulate their mind for a permanent learning. In this sense, we tried to show how to practice the translation with the examples taken from the students’ book.