Understanding Perceptions and Practices of Translation Competence among Senior English-Major Students at Nguyen Tat Thanh University

This study delves into the translation competence of seminar students at Nguyen Tat Thanh University, offering a dual perspective from both experienced translation instructors and the students themselves. Employing a robust methodological framework that included in-depth surveys and comprehensive interviews, the research aimed to capture a nuanced understanding of their experiences. Data collected from 80 students provided critical insights into their perceptions of the current translation course, the specific challenges they encountered throughout its progression, and their perspectives on the pedagogical approaches utilized by Translation-majored faculty. Furthermore, the study also solicited valuable recommendations for future course enhancement. The findings illuminate several key areas of difficulty for students, primarily identifying lexical deficiencies, inadequate grammatical proficiency, and struggles with sentence construction as significant hurdles. Students also reported considerable challenges in comprehending implicit meaning within diverse contextual frameworks, highlighting the complexity of genuine translation. Notwithstanding these pervasive difficulties, a notable majority of students expressed general satisfaction with their perceived translation competence, suggesting a degree of confidence despite the identified obstacles. In response to these findings, the instructors offered a range of actionable recommendations, focused on optimizing the course design and implementing targeted improvements to foster enhanced translation competence among future cohorts.