OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES AS A MEANS OF FORMING FUTURE TRANSLATORS’ SUBJECT, LINGUISTIC AND TRANSFER COMPETENCES

Abstract

The proposed article represents the experimental experience of applying the method of blended learning at the classes of specialised translation at the Institute of Philology of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The purpose of the experiment was to assess the effectiveness of the blended learning method in comparison with the traditional methods of teaching specialised translation regarding the formation of the subject, linguistic and transfer competences of would-be translators. The introduction of the method into the process of future translators' training was carried out on the basis of the Open Educational Resource (OER) of the Virtual Academy of Sustainability (Bremen, Germany) and was accompanied by an author’s set of exercises. One control group and two experimental groups of respondents participated in the translation experiment. Each group consisted of 11 participants. Before the start of the experiment, the control group had traditional face-to-face translation training, and the experimental groups studied an adapted online course using the blended learning method. In total, 33 multiple translations of the control scientific and technical text were analysed. The criteria for assessing the level of formation of the three types of translator's competences were the indicators of absolute and average frequency of structural and semantic, target discourse, professional discourse mistakes made in the control translation by each group. The results of the experiment have confirmed the author’s hypothesis about the effectiveness of using the blended learning method, first and foremost, to form the subject competence of would-be translators. The experiment has shown a decrease in the absolute frequency of professional discourse mistakes, which correlates with the translator's subject competence. According to the experiment, the introduction of the blended learning method in face-toface training serves as a means of enhancing the quality of translation by improving translator’s three basic competences. The use of the blended learning method in other types of translation activities, in particular, consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, is considered to be perspective for the training of professionals in a variety of majors.