Old and New Approaches to Translator Training: A Case of Curriculum Design and Translation Competence

Any attempt to move from the old approaches to translation training towards the new ones requires considerable rethinking of curricula. After almost three decades, the BA program in English translation at the universities of Iran has been recently redesigned to response to changes in the market demands. The present study set out to explore the old and the revised curriculum regarding the changes made in their design and development. The objectives of this study are twofold: to compare and contrast the almost thirty-year-old curriculum of the undergraduate program in English translation at the universities of Iran and the recently revised curriculum according to their objectives, curricular content, resources, sequencing, and assessment using Kelly’s (2005) curricular design process; and to investigate the translation sub-competences considered in each curriculum based on the translation competence model proposed by PACTE (2007). The results of this study clearly indicate a significant difference between the old and the revised curriculum of the undergraduate program in English translation at the universities of Iran regarding the established criteria for comparison.