Kiraly, D. (2000): A Social Constructivist Approach to Translator Education; Empowerment from Theory to Practice, Manchester, UK & Northampton MA, St. Jerome Publishing, 207 p.

This book is a welcome addition to the rapidly developing field of Translator Training. Social constructivist theories have been revolutionizing Second Language teaching for a while now and translation teaching has everything to gain from its insights. As Kiraly argues “[t]ranslators today cannot afford to be linguistic hermits, sitting alone behind a typewriter and surrounded only by dusty tomes. Translators are embedded in a complex network of social and professional activity” (p. 12). Such a standpoint stems from a collaborative view of society which has important implications for the way we guide students in developing the skills they will need as language mediators and full-fledged social agents. The book is divided into nine sections dealing with the philosophy and key principles of constructivist theory for Translator Education and concrete suggestions for classroom instruction. Since his last book, Pathways to Translation (1995), Kiraly has come to see the cognitive science approach to translation teaching, based on the assumption that knowledge is the product of an individual mind, as incompatible with a view of learning as a process of social interaction. This book then seeks to displace an objectivist perspective to translation teaching and proposes some key principles of Social-constructivist Education and how to apply them. The aim is to ensure that graduating students are able to function autonomously and confidently in the professional world. Using his own classroom as a prototype, Kiraly suggests that other constructivist-minded teachers develop their own perspective to suit their particular curriculum and course design requirements. A very useful chapter follows on technology and how best to integrate computers and computer-based tools in a social constructivist classroom. Also useful are the suggestions made for assessment, such as the production of portfolios and peer evaluation, although much more thinking and discussion need to take place in this area to balance out institutional constraints with teaching philosophies. The closing chapter, “From Dead Bodies and Talking Heads to Holistic Second Language Acquisition in the Classroom”, emphasizes how mutually benefiting a communicative approach can be both for Second Language Acquisition and Translation Training. In North America such innovation may no longer be as controversial as Kiraly implies, given the sweeping reforms departments of Modern Languages have had to implement over the last few years in order to cope with budget restraints (see Malena). To view the student as an adult assuming responsibility for his or her own learning and engaging in dialogue with peers, teachers and professionals can no longer be considered revolutionary in today’s world characterized by global communication and the sharing of information. More remains to be done, however, to raise the profile of teaching methodology in translator training through the exchange of views and experiences. Kiraly’s book represents an important step in this direction in that it introduces useful theories to conceptualize how the focus of language and translation teaching needs to be shifted from being teacher-centered or learner-centered to “learning-centered”. Building on the work already done in foreign language learning, as opposed to second language acquisition, Kiraly outlines an approach inspired by Vygotsky’s concept of learning as a social practice. Contrary to Piaget who viewed language as being the instrument of the gradual socialization of the child, Vygotsky saw the child as a social being from birth. According to him, the formative years are spent negotiating individuality through the social practice of language, a process which continues throughout one’s lifetime. Thus the learning process precedes the developmental process in creating zones of proximal development (ZPD). The constructivist teacher will therefore provide just enough guidance to hold the student in his or her ZPD in order to facilitate …