Associations between EFL learners' beliefs about and their strategy use of translation in English learning : the case of Iraqi learners

الملخص EN

Learners' beliefs influence their consciousness, attitude towards learning, learning strategies and policies.

Determination of learners' beliefs in language teaching / learning process will be helpful in forming effective learning methods (Büyükyazi, 2010 : 1).

The present paper explores the use of translation by Iraqi university students, particularly with regard to their beliefs concerning translation and using it as a strategy.

Thirty female and male students of English at Basrah University participated.

Two sets of questionnaires were employed : the Inventory for Beliefs about Translation (IBT), and the Inventory for Translation as a Learning Strategy (ITLS).

The results indicate that the participants in the study believe that they use translation tasks to learn all language skills.

The learners have a positive view towards studying translation to improve their English.

According to the results of the Pearson correlation analysis, one significant canonical correlation was found between the composite belief variables and the composite strategy variables which was between B2 and S1.

No other significant statistically relation was found between learners' beliefs and strategy use as it is related to translation as a learning process to learn English.

The results also show that students used a wide variety of learning strategies related to translation.

The participants employ translation as a learning strategy to comprehend, remember, and produce English and they depend heavily upon translation in the process of learning and acquiring English as a foreign language.