Academic Journal of Modern Philology

doi: 10.34616/ajmp.2025.27.5

ISSN 2299–7164

Vol. 27 (2025)

Open Access. Published by Committee for Philology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław Branch and College for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Wrocław. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Marta Chodkiewicz-Nalepa

Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (UMCS), Department of Applied Linguistics

marta.chodkiewicz@mail.umcs.pl

ORCID: 0000-0001-9244-6576

Implementing a Multi-Stage Collaborative Translation Project: Performance and Perceptions of Undergraduate Students

Abstract

This article seeks to evaluate the performance and learning experience of undergraduate students who participated in a multi-stage collaborative translation project. The project was implemented during a practical course in the fundamentals of translation whose core aim is fostering the development of the three translation-specific sub-competences of translation competence according to the PACTE (2003) model. Forty-eight students, divided into eight teams, worked on subsequent projects according to a workflow based on the ISO 1700:2015 quality standard for translation services. The students communicated with a simulated client; carried out selected pre-production activities; and then completed the (1) translation and check, (2) revision, (3) review, and (4) final verification and release stages. The performance of different team members in the project and its evolution over the course of training as well as student perceptions of the learning experience are examined from a quantitative and qualitative research perspective. The study has revealed that the project participants were able to develop hard skills strictly related to translation, soft skills, as well was as the ability to provide translation services, simultaneously bringing to light the challenges that students faced and major issues in their performance. Conclusions are offered regarding the effective organisation of such projects, which may be applicable in similar educational contexts.

Keywords: collaborative translation project, simulated project work, translator education, translation competence, social constructivism, situated learning

Introduction

One of the main goals of the Bologna process is to enhance the employability of graduates, that is their “ability to gain initial meaningful employment, or to become self-employed, to maintain employment, and to be able to move around within the labour market,” which is constantly changing (Working Team on Employability 2009: 5). A gap has, however, been noted between academia and the translation industry (see e.g. M. Orlando 2016), and this also pertains to the Polish context (Marczak, Bondarenko 2022). This gap is to a large extent due to the extensive application of traditional approaches to teaching translation, which is still common in some contexts. For decades, translation has been taught in an abstract, decontextualised manner, based on what has been called the “who will take the next sentence?” (Nord 1997) or “chalk-and-talk” (Kiraly 2012: 123) approach. In line with an objectivist or positivist worldview, objectively existing knowledge – reduced to principles, guidelines, or axioms – is postulated to be transmitted by the teachers to the learners, who store it in their minds. Such conduit or transmissionist instruction, which is contrived and teacher-centred, does not make it possible for students to develop competences useful in the current and future professional translation market (Kiraly 2000, 2012, 2015, 2016).

Recent paradigm shifts in translator education have, however, made it possible to better bridge the gap between academia and the translation industry. These are two post-positivist and student-centred approaches, i.e. the social constructivist (transformative learning) and emergentist (situated learning) paradigms. According to social constructivist theory proposed by Vygotsky, knowledge is actively organised in the individual minds of students during interaction with the social environment. This approach acknowledges the existence of multiple perspectives (and realities) and emphasises the careful application of scaffolding, holding learners in their zone of proximal development. It is founded on socio-cognitive apprenticeship, learner autonomy, and authentic collaborative project work (González Davies 2004; Kiraly 2000, 2015, 2016). The most recent, emergentist paradigm sees learning as a non-linear, dynamic, autopoietic (self-generating and self-maintaining), and unpredictable process (e.g. Kiraly 2016). In this approach, learning is “the result of the complex interplay of processes and only incidentally and occasionally the direct result of teaching” (Kiraly 2015: 28). The teacher orients, scaffolds, and facilitates the learning process, which is socially situated, embodied, context-dependent, and praxis-oriented (Kiraly 2015, 2016; Risku 2010: 101). Learners are able to acquire a bundle of competences, a list of which can be found in translation competence models (e.g. EMT 2022; Göpferich 2009; Kelly 2005; PACTE 2003), though it is difficult to predict exactly which components will develop the most and according to what trajectory (Kiraly 2015).

A pedagogical approach which falls under the scope of both the social constructivist and emergentist paradigms is project-based learning (see Marczak 2023 for a detailed analysis). Project participants collaborate in carrying out the translation processes, playing the roles of Project Managers, terminologists, translators, and revisers and/or reviewers, in order to provide a functional translation product (Nord 1997) that is in line with the requirements of a simulated or authentic client. This mimics the allotment of tasks in collaborative work carried out at translation companies and in freelance translator networks (Gouadec 2007). In such projects, students thus practise working in conditions that are similar to professional ones, making it a learning experience in which students “are faced with problems that will develop different types of competences,” including translation-related problems, technical problems, organisational problems, and team-work problems (Fernández Prieto, Sempere Linares 2010: 141). The projects may be authentic, i.e. carried out for a real-world client or user (Kiraly 2012; see Li 2022 for a meta-analysis of 11 representative authentic project-based classes) or simulated, that is arranged by the teacher to mimic authentic translation projects. The latter scenario is applied in order to overcome the constraints of authentic projects, such as strict deadlines and high translation quality requirements, and is particularly recommended in the early stages of translator education (Hansen-Schirra, Hofmann, Nitzke 2018). Intra-university projects are also organised to address the ethical issues with students performing unpaid work for clients who would otherwise employ professional translators (see e.g. Paradowska 2021; Way 2016).

Previous studies have highlighted a range of pedagogical benefits of implementing collaborative translation projects. Firstly, they foster the development of both core translation competences and crucial interpersonal skills, the latter being of paramount importance in the contemporary translation market (e.g. Huertas-Barros 2011; Marczak 2023; Moghaddas, Khoshsaligheh 2019; Olvera-Lobo et al. 2009; Paradowska 2021; Prieto-Velasco, Fuentes-Luque 2016). It follows that such projects are associated with improvements in students’ post-project translation performance (e.g. Bayraktar Özer, Hastürkoglu 2020; Moghaddas, Khoshsaligheh 2019; Prieto-Velasco, Fuentes-Luque 2016). Secondly, the integration of modern technologies within these collaborations is instrumental in developing students’ technological proficiency (e.g. Marczak 2023; Olvera-Lobo et al. 2009; Paradowska 2021; Prieto-Velasco, Fuentes-Luque 2016). Thirdly, structuring projects as simulated translation companies, which is an alternative to offering one-off tasks, specifically promotes entrepreneurial and service provision competence (see e.g. Li 2022).

One possible inspiration for the implementation of such projects, making it possible to even better prepare students for working in the translation industry (Biel 2011), has been the ISO 1700:2015 quality standard for translation services1. Apart from specifying the professional competences of team members and the resources required by translation service providers, the standard also necessitates the implementation of a translation workflow, consisting of the pre-production, production (translation and check and revision being obligatory and review and proofreading being optional), and post-production processes. The introduction of such standards in the translation industry has raised the quality of translation (services), translators’ professional competences, and the profile of the industry (Biel 2011; Gouadec 2010), though following them does not always guarantee high translation quality, and they only briefly mention the areas that are key for assuring it (D. Orlando 2015).

In light of the benefits of collaborative project work in preparing students for working in the translation industry, this paper presents the results of a study investigating undergraduate students’ performance in a simulated multi-stage translation project, carried out largely based on the ISO 1700:2015 standard, and the perceptions of their learning experience probed in a survey.

Methodology

This section describes the methodology of the study, including its participants and setting as well as the process of data collection and analysis.

Participants and Setting

The participants of the study (n=48) were second-year students of an undergraduate translation programme held at the Department of Applied Linguistics at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University. The collaborative translation project task was organised during a course in the ‘fundamentals of translation’, which is a two-semester-long practical course in non-specialised translation into the L1 and L2. Its core aim is helping students develop the three translation-specific sub-competences of translation competence according to the PACTE (2003) model. Students learn how to proceed strategically, adopting a dynamic/functional approach towards translation (Nord 1997; Reiss 2000) and engaging in reflective practice. Working in simulations of authentic situations, students first analyse the source text and the translation situation, communicating with the client if necessary, and formulate an adequate macro-strategy. They learn to then identify translation problems and apply micro-strategies in line with the macro-strategy, relying on an adequate combination of internal and external resources. They are trained in the effective use of reliable external resources in solving translation problems as well as in glossary creation and application. A further key area of focus within the curriculum is revising the target text. The course is process-oriented, meaning that each translation task (whether individual or collaborative) involves reporting on and/or analysing the translation process, i.e. the macro-strategy and process of solving the three greatest translation problems encountered. The students also have an opportunity to analyse and improve collaborative translation products and processes (their own and those of other teams), as well as reflecting on the sources of their errors and how to improve their translation performance and competence in the future. As already mentioned, one of the collaborative tasks is the simulation of a professional translation project, which is the focus of the current article. Since all teams contacted the simulated client via the discussion forum (as arranged by the teacher) and communicated with each other using messaging applications (by choice), this was a telecollaborative project.

Data Collection

The students completed a collaborative translation project from Polish into English outside of the classroom. Each team consisted of a Project Manager, a terminologist, two translators, a reviser, and a reviewer. The tasks were carried out according to a workflow largely corresponding with the ISO 17100:2015 standard, and some additional process-related data were reported on, as shown in Table 1. It is important to add that the translators could disagree with the changes in the translation, in which case a discussion was to be held with other team members and final decisions were to be reached collaboratively. Team members could also disagree with the macro-strategy and/or translations in the glossary.

Table 1. Core team member tasks2

Project Manager

Pre-production

Assign team roles

Communicate with client (using forum on course website)

Formulate macro-strategy and send it to team

Assign source text parts to translators

Set deadlines

Production

Monitor deadlines

Merge translations with footnotes and send to reviser; participate in team file exchange

Perform quality checks at any point during assignment

Post-production

Perform final target text verification

Prepare report (including list of tasks + information about satisfaction with team performance, problems encountered, and solutions applied)

Release final target text version along with macro-strategy, glossary, and report

Terminologist

Pre-production

Prepare glossary (table) with key source text terms, their definitions, their translations, and, optionally, contextual examples

Translators

Production

Translate source text using glossary and check target text, communicating with each other if necessary

Describe process of solving three greatest problems in footnotes

Reviser

Production

Revise target text using track changes, comparing it against source text (and possibly solve other issues)

Write brief report on revision process

Reviewer

Production

Review target text using track changes (and possibly solve other issues)

Write brief report on review process

Table 2 presents the characteristics of the 8 source texts, whose readability was assessed using Jasnopis ([at:] www.jasnopis.pl [date of access: 21 Nov., 2025]), a computer application which measures the comprehensibility of texts written in Polish (Dębowski et al. 2015). The texts were arranged in terms of their difficulty level, which, according to Jasnopis, ranged from 4/7 (somewhat difficult text, understandable to those with secondary education or ample life experience) to 7/7 (highly complex text whose comprehension may require specialised knowledge). It should be borne in mind, however, that readability cannot be equated with translatability (see e.g. Hvelplund 2011), and indeed translating text 6 was found to be easier than translating texts 3–5. Owing to differences in translation task difficulty, a different maximum number of points for a fully correct translation (calculated per 300 words) was assigned to each text.

Table 2. Source text characteristics

Proj.

no.

Text genre

Text topic

Text difficulty (/7)

Maximum pts for correct translation

Word number

1

Interview

Detrimental effects of seed oil consumption

4

104

416

2

General interest article

Weather impact on mood

4

104

343

3

Informative article

Ski safety campaign and mountain tourism

5

108

269

4

Internet article

Company description

5

108

310

5

Research article

Implementation of inquiry-based science education

6

110

399

6

Informative article

Dietary treatment of diabetes

6

104

325

7

PowerPoint presentation

Tourism marketing campaign

7

110

318

8

PowerPoint presentation

Teacher working conditions

7

116

428

The projects were analysed in detail in class, which enabled vicarious learning. The team members also received written feedback from the teacher on task performance using a specially designed assessment form, and the translation product and its revisions were assessed and commented for each project stage in a translation evaluation sheet. After receiving feedback from both the students and teacher, the team were invited to complete a follow-up survey concerning, i.a., what they had learnt from playing a particular role in the project (open question), which aspects had been the most challenging (open question), how useful they thought the skills developed might be in the future (5-point Likert scale), and how much they had enjoyed participating in the project (5-point Likert scale).

Data Analysis

The data collected regarding selected aspects of students’ performance in the project and of their perceptions of the learning experience were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

Terminology was scored out of a maximum of 20 points. One point was deducted for each issue observed with regard to the following: (1) term selection (unnecessary item included as term or missing term); (2) definitions (incorrectly structured/used, imprecise, or missing definitions); and (3) target language terms (incorrect term, use of article before term, or use of initial capital letter and final period).

As for translation quality, errors of minor (−0.5 point), major (−2 points), and critical (−5 points) severity were marked. They were additionally tagged as pertaining to source text meaning transfer (unjustified changes in meaning such as meaning shifts, additions, and omissions) and target text adequacy (terminology, style and register, grammar, coherence, spelling and spacing, punctuation, layout, and consistency), based on ITI (2015) criteria, as well as target text functionality/usability. The score for translation quality was calculated by subtracting points for total error severity from the maximum number of points assigned to a particular text. This score was interpreted qualitatively as follows, largely based on the thresholds for particular grades applied at the Department: 95 points and more – excellent quality (translation is of near-professional quality); 88–94.5 points – very good quality; 82–87.5 points – good quality; 76–81.5 points – satisfactory quality; 65–75.5 points – acceptable quality; and 65 points and less – unacceptable quality. Additionally, instances of lack of correspondence between the glossary and translation were noted.

Regarding other aspects of project implementation, which were primarily the responsibility of the Project Manager, communication with the client and the macro-strategy were analysed and scored out of a maximum of 10 points. Issues with translation delivery were also noted (delivery after deadline or of unclean version).

When it comes to the analysis of survey results, responses to open questions were first coded manually for the categories they represented, and then the coded responses were analysed quantitatively for students playing particular roles. Likert scale responses were evaluated by calculating mean scores and standard deviations.

Results and Discussion

This section discusses the results of the study. Most of the aspects investigated did not clearly improve over the course of training, but if improvement was indeed found, this is commented upon.

Terminology Assessment

As shown in Table 3, as many as three of the glossaries delivered were below the acceptability threshold (13 points). The teams had the greatest problem with term selection (6 teams). This included the addition of unnecessary items. These were often general-language items that did not pertain to the domain represented by the text or term fragments. Their translations were not helpful for the translators, sometimes even making it more difficult for them to re-express the text in the target language. On the other hand, in two cases, important terms were missing from the glossary. Moreover, six teams delivered definitions that were incorrectly structured (4), imprecise (3), and/or unnecessarily capitalised and ending with a period (2). In one case, a term was left with no definition. As many as seven teams did not provide fully correct target language terms: typically, one of the terms was incorrect (5 teams), or articles were unnecessarily used before the target language term (3 teams).

It is worth adding that in three cases (teams 2, 3, and 4), a translation for one term from the glossary was not used in the target text, nor was the glossary changed, and in one case, two terms remained in the glossary which were not used in the translation (team 6). In total, the glossaries were not applied by seven translators, with a tendency for improvement.

Table 3. Glossary assessment

Project

no. (total score for glossary /20)

Term selection issues (negative pts):

unnecessary item included as term/ missing term

Definition and target language term issues (negative pts)

Incorrectly structured/used definition

Imprecise or missing definition

Incorrect target language term

Use of article before target language term

Use of initial capital letter and final period

1 (16)

-

1 (wrong genus)

-

1

2

2 (15)

2 (unnecessary items)

1 (circularity)

-

-

2

-

3 (18)

2 (unnecessary items)

-

-

-

-

-

4 (11)

7 (unnecessary items)

-

1 (missing definition)

1

-

-

5 (13)

2 (missing terms)

1 (source text term repeated, whole sentence)

1 (imprecise definition)

1

1

1

6 (15)

2 (unnecessary items)

-

-

-

3

-

7 (12)

2 (unnecessary items)

2 (no genus; same definition for 2 terms)

3 (imprecise definitions)

1

-

-

8 (11)

7 (missing terms)

-

1 (imprecise definition)

1

-

-

Translation Quality Assessment

Figure 1 shows the quantitative assessment of translation quality after the completion of particular stages of each project. In a professional ISO-based project, one would expect translation quality to always be high to begin with and to rise with each stage. However, this was not observed in the current study, and a consistent rise in translation quality was only found for one team (5) and nearly the case for two other teams (2 and 3) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Translation quality assessment (points)

Initial total translation quality was found to be acceptable or better in merely two cases – projects 3 (good) and 6 (acceptable), though in the latter case, only one translator actually performed at a satisfactory level. In addition, one out of two translators performed in an acceptable manner in projects 1 and 4.

Translation quality after revision was found to be acceptable or better in only 4 cases. In two cases, translation quality fell drastically (projects 1 and 7) as a result of the revisers introducing critical errors. These revisers had low translation competence, the first one additionally being neglectful. Several students also made unnecessary revisions. Moreover, the reviser in project 8 only improved the very low translation quality only by 1 point, and in project 3, the quality of an already good translation fell by 1 point. In contrast, in three cases, the revisers improved translation quality significantly (2, 5, and 6), or at least in such a way that it became acceptable (4). One other issue worth mentioning regarding reviser performance is the fact that the reviser in project 4 did not use track changes, which resulted in the Project Manager having more tasks to perform and in the final version of the translation being deficient, as the file delivered to the client was not clean.

In the review stage, as many as seven translation products (excluding the one in project 7) were acceptable or of higher quality. In two cases, translation quality fell drastically (6) or slightly (2) with respect to that after the revision process. In other cases, the lesser the increase in quality was after revision, the greater it typically was after the review process. The reviewers made the greatest contributions to projects 1 and 8, where translation quality was unacceptable after revision, though this was not the case in project 7.

After Project Manager verification (which took place following the translators’ acceptance or non-acceptance of changes suggested by the reviser and reviewer), all but one translation product met acceptability criteria. One was very good (project 6); two were either good, satisfactory, or acceptable (2 and 3; 1 and 5; and 7 and 8, respectively); and one was unacceptable (4). In two cases, translation quality was assessed as lower than after review, as it is at this stage that issues caused by the reviser not using track changes properly and problems with layout in the PowerPoint presentations (projects 4 and 8, respectively) were addressed in the assessment. In other cases, translation quality remained similarly high (3) or further increased, sometimes rather drastically (6 and 7), which shows that the Project Managers were forced to and indeed managed to improve translation quality resulting from poorer performances of other team members.

Assessment of Other Aspects of Project Implementation (Primarily Project Manager Responsibilities)

As far as communication with the client in concerned (Table 4), in all cases but one (project 2), all questions were pertinent and asked using understandable language. They typically concerned the target text readers and place of publication. In addition, two Project Managers successfully reported on issues encountered during the translation task and recommended solutions.

However, half of the macro-strategies required improvements. The key functions of the target texts were identified correctly in all but one case (project 4). The most common area for improvement concerned the identification of the target text receivers, and the second most common one was a lack of clarity. It is worth mentioning at this juncture that since other team members were to request that the macro-strategy be improved if they saw fit, the quality of the macro-strategy did not depend exclusively on the Project Manager.

The most severe issue noted in Project Manager performance was not delivering the final translation file within deadline (projects 3, 4, and 7; wrong file format in last case). In the first two cases, the files delivered after deadline were unclean. Moreover, in one case (8), the text had been divided in a way that made it problematic to translate it (in the middle of an enumeration).

Table 4. Communication with client, macro-strategy, and translation delivery assessment

Project no.

Communi-cation with client (/10)

Macro-strategy

Translation delivery issues: translation sent after deadline or unclean

Score (/10)

Areas for improvement

1

10

6

Target text function interpretation

Key source text feature identification

Logic

-

2

7

10

-

-

3

10

7

Logic

After deadline, unclean

4

10

5

Target text function identification

Clarity

After deadline, unclean

5

10

7

(Secondary) audience identification

Clarity

-

6

10

10

* Broader audience identification desirable

-

7

10

10

* More precise audience identification desirable

After deadline (wrong format initially)

8

10

7

Text genre identification

Target text recipient identification

Major source text deficiency identification

-

Analysis of Survey Results

The current section discusses the selected results of the survey, which was completed by all the Project Managers, translators, and revisers, and all but one reviewer and terminologist.

The Project Managers, the revisers and reviewers, and the terminologists learnt the most and were the most challenged by their core tasks, which were, respectively, organising the team work (including setting and monitoring deadlines), revision, and glossary creation (in particular term selection), as indicated by half or more respondents in each sub-group. As for the translators, although what they found most challenging was the translation task itself, including dealing with particular source text features and reporting on the process of solving translation problems, they declared that they had developed their communication skills the most. Indeed, team communication and collaboration, as well as mutual responsibility, were mentioned by several other students as a learning area and/or challenge. The students also declared that they had learnt to meet deadlines (n = 6), struggled with technical aspects (4), and realised how fit they were for the role played (3). It is worth adding that the Project Managers and translators felt they had learnt to or regarded it as a challenge to perform quality assurance/evaluate the quality of the target text, including revising the target text (7 in total), and the revisers and reviewers found it challenging to transfer source text meaning (3).

Table 5. Student survey results (*1 response per item enumerated)

Learning areas

Most challenging aspects

Response

No.

Response

No.

Project Managers (n = 8)

Organisation (including deadline setting)

4 (1)

Organisation (including deadline monitoring and self-organisation)

6 (1;1)

Quality assurance (including revision)

2 (1)

Being Project Manager for first time; communication; patience; problem-solving; project delivery; report completion; revision; stress management

1*

Fitness for role

2

Mutual responsibility

2

Communication; conflict resolution; decision-making; diligence in future projects

1*

Revisers and reviewers (n = 15)

Revision

13

Revision

8

Identifying ST deficiencies; meeting deadlines; organisation; specific aspects of translation

1*

Translation (source text meaning transfer)

3

Technical issues

2

Fitness for role; meeting deadlines; no challenges

1*

Terminologists (n = 7)

Glossary creation

4

Term selection

4

Meeting deadlines

3

Communication; definition precision; translation accuracy

1*

Attention to detail; collaboration; research skills

1*

Translators (n = 16)

Communication

7

Translation (including specific source text features and translation problem-solving report)

9 (3; 3)

Revision and translation quality assessment

3

Technical aspects

2

Expanding knowledge on text topic

2

Meeting deadlines

2

Gaining experience (in L2 translation)

2

No challenges

2

Glossary application

2

Collaboration and communication; revision

1*

Meeting deadlines

2

Problem-solving

2

Research skills

2

Mutual responsibility

2

Attention to detail; collaboration; macro-strategy application; organisation

1*

As for students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the skills developed thanks to the project, the revisers and reviewers saw the skills acquired as the most useful (mean = 4.3) and the Project Managers as the least useful (mean = 3.8), the mean score for all students being 4.1 (SD = +/– 0.6). Regarding students’ level of enjoyment, the translators enjoyed participating in the project the most (mean = 3.6), whereas the terminologists and Project Managers enjoyed it the least (mean = 3.0 and 3.1, respectively), the mean score for the entire group being 3.4 (SD = +/– 0.7).

Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

The analysis of students’ performance in the study revealed that there are several crucial issues which merit even more attention in class. These are as follows: (1) project delivery within deadline; (2) correspondence between the translation and glossary; (3) translation quality assessment and revision; (4) each team members’ responsibility for the quality of the final translation product; (5) the principles of glossary creation; (6) identification of the target text receivers and clarity of the macro-strategies; and (7) assignment of roles in the project. Regarding the latter, differences in translation competence between team members should be taken into account, in that students with higher competence seem better suited to play the roles of revisers and reviewers. It seems all students would benefit from more effective, individualised training that would better foster the development of their translation (and revision) competence, including more broadly understood quality assurance skills.

The survey results indicate learning gains across several key domains, including those mentioned in the paragraph above. First of all, the students had an opportunity to develop hard skills related strictly to translation (translation, revision/review/translation quality assessment, research, and terminology management), as reported in similar educational contexts (e.g. Olvera-Lobo et al. 2009; Paradowska 2021; Prieto-Velasco, Fuentes-Luque 2016). They also practised their soft skills (personal and interpersonal competence, EMT 2022), which are transferable to other activities and enable self-organisation and management of the work of others as well as collaboration and communication (with a sense of mutual responsibility), and enhanced their service provision competence (EMT 2022; as previously found, e.g. by Huertas-Barros 2011; Olvera-Lobo et al. 2009; Marczak 2023; Moghaddas, Khoshsaligheh 2019; Paradowska 2021). Their first-hand experience in working in such a project made it possible for them to improve their interpersonal skills that are not trained in individual work, taught them what a professional workflow looks like, and showed them how fit they were for the role played. On average, the students perceived the skills developed thanks to the assignment as potentially useful in the future (mean = 4.1), which largely mirrors the results of the study by Gałuskina and Sycz-Opoń (2024), the level of enjoyment typically being lower. It would be desirable to provide future course participants with guidance related to using their interpersonal skills and managing their workload and time (especially that some respondents reported that they had problems organising their work so as to be able to meet other commitments), which may impact not only translator performance but also job satisfaction. Such guidance could be provided by the teacher or based on student research/discussion (Marczak 2023).

In future projects, it is worth using a CAT tool and/or a project management/communication tool (as in, e.g. Gałuskina, Sycz-Opoń 2024; Marczak 2023; Olvera-Lobo et al. 2009; Paradowska 2021; Prieto-Velasco, Fuentes-Luque 2016). Aside from better preparing the students for the professional translation market, this would particularly aid the students in creating glossaries (including the problematic aspect of term selection); applying the terms from the glossary in the translation; checking, revising, reviewing, and verifying the translation (including overcoming technical problems with using track changes); file sharing among team members; and organising and monitoring the project. It could also be useful to explicitly appoint a person that would be responsible for checking the correspondence between the glossary and the target text before the project is delivered, either by amending the workflow chart or listing it as a task that should be assigned to a particular team member.

Last but not least, what might have influenced students’ performance in the study was a lack of motivation, both extrinsic and intrinsic, which may have affected the quality of the translation products delivered (cf. Gałuskina, Sycz-Opoń 2024). The former can be more easily boosted, by making the grade obtained in the project a component of the final grade, possibly based on the individual assessment of the performance of each team member. It should be stressed even more that the skills developed in the project are immediately applicable in the translation internship, which forms large part of the study programme, and are transferrable to professional situations in different fields. It would also be useful to encourage students to be present in class as much as possible as absence in previous classes hindered learning from the projects of other students and the feedback received by them.

This study has shown how a translation project can be applied in the initial phases of translator education and discussed its benefits for translation competence development as well as the issues and challenges that may be expected to arise and how they may be dealt with. It may serve as inspiration for other translation teachers implementing such projects, especially in undergraduate translation courses, and its results will be used to inform the application of the project in future versions of the current course.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to dr Urszula Paradowska for her advice on designing the study, the reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions regarding the paper, and the students that participated in the study.

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1 See the work of Gałuskina and Sycz-Opoń (2024) and Paradowska (2021) for examples of collaborative translation projects implementing this quality standard carried out in the Polish context.

2 The tasks are inspired by those in Paradowska’s (2021) study.

Received:

26.11.2024

Reviewed:

29.12.2024

Accepted:

16.06.2025