Cognitive translation as a substitute for language translation in the teaching of EFL at Algerian secondary schools

Abstract EN

Whilst the teaching of foreign languages has gained a referential tradition to pedagogical disciplines like applied linguistics/educational linguistics, pedagogy, philosophy of education and didactics, it has also become a considerable subject to linguists, sociolinguists, and psycholinguists.

The multidisciplinary nature of foreign language teaching can be interpreted as the product of the interaction between all components involved in the teaching process in which the interactants (teachers/learners) represent social and cultural features; the acts of teaching/learning lie on psychological orientations; and the teaching of languages is based on psycholinguistic guidance.

The present work proceeds within a detail in the teaching of English as a foreign language in Algeria, one in which translation is frequently called upon in secondary schools as one among many consequences of the sociolinguistic reality in Algeria.

The paper is an attempt to propose cognitive translation and interpretation as a substitute for language translation.

The main objective is to join the general belief in the literature about understanding languages through the linguistic and the social logic they carry per se.

Respectively, the proposal has based its conclusions on qualitative and quantitative approaches using questionnaires and interviews by fifth year ENS Oran students during their pre-teacher research works during the years 2018/2019 and 2019/2020.

The questionnaire and the interviews were answered by secondary school teachers in Oran and in Algeria in general.