Translation revisited for

low-proficiency EFL writers

Mun Woo Lee

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This study describes the implementation of a translation method in an EFL
writing classroom and shows how a specific group of learners responded to the
method. Using a ‘practical action research’ framework, the researcher designed
and implemented the proposed translation method through four stages of
writing over three consecutive semesters. The participating students, all of
whom had very low levels of English proficiency, showed clear improvements in
both their confidence and their actual capacity for English writing. The findings
of this study are expected to work as a reference for second or foreign language
teachers who wish to apply the proposed method in their classrooms in the
future. The study also contributes to the field by emphasizing the affective and
linguistic advantages of translation tools and offering new insights into the
monolingual paradigm of English-only classes in second language teaching and
learning.

Introduction Translation, by which ‘a text from one language is reproduced in another

language’ (House 2014: 1), is proposed here as a viable approach to
L2 teaching and learning, because it inherently involves comparison
of two languages and because L2 learners are inevitably required to
undertake translation during learning. Learners depend on their L1
when they learn an L2 (Kellerher 2013), and this dependency has been
shown to enhance their awareness of their native language, help them
to systemize L2 structures and grammar, reduce their anxiety about
learning a new language, and eventually assist in their development of
multilingual competence (Pan and Pan 2012). However, scholars have
long believed that translation ‘should be banned’ from L2 classrooms:
first on the grounds that the use of the L1 in L2 learning hinders learners
from acquiring the target language; and second because translation is a
major part of the grammar-translation teaching method, which is seen as
representative of rote and context-reduced language teaching (Cook 2010).
Translation has thus been regarded as taboo (Cook ibid) in many EFL
contexts, in which accessibility and exposure to the target language are
generally more restricted than in ESL contexts. However, as a high level
of L1 dependency is quite natural for EFL learners (Kellerher 2013), it
may not be appropriate to position translation as taboo in such settings.
Indeed, studies have shown that EFL students regard translation as a

ELT Journal Volume 72/4 October 2018; doi:10.1093/elt/ccy007  365

© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Advance Access publication April 10, 2018
 very useful approach to English learning (Liao 2006; Calis and Dikilitaş
2012), but few studies have focused on the potential positive aspects
of translation in EFL contexts, and these studies have failed to provide
teachers with professional and practical guidance on implementing
translation in their classrooms. More studies are needed to systemize
translation methods to ensure that EFL students and teachers can deploy
them effectively, rather than feeling guilty about using this so-called ‘old-
fashioned’ approach.

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Thus, this study delves into the effects of translation and its potential
implementation in an EFL classroom, focusing on L2 writing by low-
proficiency students. To produce L2 writing, students are required to
synthesize their orthographic, lexical, and syntactic knowledge, and then
revise and refine their work before finalizing it (Kim 2011). This process
is, of course, challenging for all L2 learners, regardless of their proficiency
level, but it is especially challenging for low-proficiency learners, due to
their limited linguistic ability. Unsurprisingly, low-proficiency L2 writers
depend heavily on their L1 to produce L2 writing. In fact, the use of the L1
in L2 writing is a common strategy among L2 writers (Leki, Cumming,
and Silva 2010), regardless of their L2 proficiency. However, according
to Woodall (2002), low-proficiency English learners rely more on their L1
when they produce L2 writing, and their use of their L1 during L2 writing,
or language switching, occurs across various activities, such as generating
ideas, planning, and metacommenting (Weijen, Bergh, Rilaarsdam,
and Sanders 2009). During actual writing, low-proficiency learners use
their L1 mainly to determine the equivalent L2 lexis and/or grammatical
structures by referring to dictionaries (Wang 2003). More specifically, they
translate previously written L1 texts into the L2.
The practice of translation in L2 writing has clear advantages: it increases
learners’ attention to L2 use (Sasaki 2004) and helps them to express their
ideas fully in line with their cognitive level (Wang and Wen 2002). Thus,
the use of translation in L2 writing, when implemented properly, has the
potential to help students escape a vicious-circle dilemma in which their
low proficiency in English limits their ability to practise writing, and their
proficiency as L2 writers consequently remains low. However, similar
to studies focusing on L2 learners’ positive perceptions of translation
in L2 learning (Liao 2006; Calis and Dikilitaş 2012), studies related to
translation and L2 writing have to date failed to provide specific guidelines
for the effective use of translation methods in these settings, particularly
EFL classrooms. As a teacher-researcher who has seen many EFL students
and teachers use translation methods in their writing classrooms, and
suspect that the popularity of translation in EFL contexts reflects the
suitability of this approach, I propose the following research questions:
(1) How can translation be applied in an EFL writing classroom, especially
for low-proficiency English learners? (2) What are the effects of translation
in an EFL writing classroom, especially when implemented with low-
proficiency English learners?

The study The 13 high-school students (six male and seven female) with whom
Participants I worked were all low-proficiency English learners who had defected from
North Korea at school age. Seven of the students participated in the classes

366 Mun Woo Lee

 during the first two consecutive semesters, and the remainder participated
during the third semester. Before arriving in South Korea, they had either
learned no English at all or learned only the most basic elements of the
language, such as the alphabet. Unlike many South Korean students,
they were unable to obtain private instruction in English due to their
unstable financial situations (Lee 2014). Mastering the school curriculum
was the only way to improve their English proficiency. While working
with these students, I realized that their proficiency was at best between

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levels 3 (extremely limited user) and 4 (limited user) as indicated in the
International English Language Testing System criteria. Most importantly,
none of them had ever written even one paragraph in English. In short,
their very low proficiency as EFL writers made them appropriate target
participants.
Teaching these students to write in English was challenging, despite my
extensive teaching experience in secondary- and tertiary-level schools.
Previously, most of my English writing classes had been at university
level, and my students had all been advanced English learners who
benefited from the multiple revisions involved in process-based writing
assignments (Kim 2011). I had also worked as a voluntary English teacher
for students from North Korea, but I had never before conducted ‘writing-
only’ classes for such students. I had begun my sessions with my previous
North Korean students by inviting them to write about themselves in
English and noticed that they thought about what to write and how to
write it using their L1 (Korean) first, before translating their statements
into English. Their heavy dependence on Korean gave me some ideas for
using translation to teach writing to my new class of 13 low-proficiency
North Korean English learners.

Data collection and The framework for this study was based on the concept of ‘practical action
analysis research’ (Creswell 2005: 552). The intention was to improve a specific
class situation via the implementation of a small-scale research project. I,
as one of the participants, decided on the writing topics and organized the
class over three consecutive semesters. The writing topics were directly
related to the students’ experiences and were as follows: (1) Introducing
South Korea to North Korean newcomers I and II; (2) South Korean
school life; (3) How to overcome the greatest difficulties experienced in
South Korean life; (4) Creating a touching story based on the students’
own experiences; (5) Reflecting on a United Nations speech on North
Korean human rights; (6) Introducing famous places in North Korea; and
(7) The advantages of Korean reunification. Although these topics may
seem to have a political agenda, the students enjoyed writing about them
and did not seem concerned about their political significance. In addition,
the topics gave the students a chance to actively participate in various
types of writing activity, such as individual writing (topics 1-I, 3, and
5), pair/group writing (topics 2, 4, and 7), and cartoon drawing-writing
(topics 1-II and 6). Pair/group writing refers to the students working
collaboratively on the same piece of writing, and cartoon drawing-writing
means they write about the given topic along with the self-drawn four-cut
cartoon. At the end of each semester, we gathered the students’ writings
and published them as a booklet targeting international readers.

Translation revisited for low-proficiency EFL writers 367

 I held a 90-minute class once a week for 34 weeks and planned the
classes in such a way that each writing topic would be covered in about
4 weeks. For each topic, the students could expect a similar writing
routine: (1) brainstorming; (2) writing in Korean; (3) writing in English;
and (4) editing and rewriting. After each class, I made reflective notes
on what had proved helpful or unhelpful in the lesson and tried to apply
these insights in the following sessions. I also collected the students’
writing at different stages of completion to make a processfolio. At

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the end of each semester, I administered a written interview to the
students to elicit their evaluation of the classes in general, including
the translation activities involved. The data collected from the students’
writing and written interviews were coded based on two predetermined
themes: the implementation of the translation method and its effects.
I later cross-analysed the comments made in my reflective notes and
added them to the coded data, resulting in three themes: the four
stages of implementing the translation method, the affective effects of
translation, and the linguistic effects of translation.

Findings The translation method used in this study involved translating student-
Implementation produced L1 (Korean) texts into L2 (English) in four stages: brainstorming,
of the translation writing in Korean, writing in English, and editing and rewriting. The
method first session (45 minutes) was usually spent deciding what to write. After
completing this brainstorming stage, the students moved on to writing in
Korean, which usually took two sessions (90 minutes). During this stage,
they produced a first draft of their writing in their native language. The
next stage, writing in English, was the most important of the four stages,
because it involved translation from Korean (first draft) into English
(second draft). This stage usually covered three sessions for each topic (135
minutes). The last session comprised two stages (editing and rewriting),
which were combined into one 90-minute session. Table 1 provides a
summary of each stage.

The effects of the The advantages of using the above-mentioned translation method had two
translation method key dimensions: affective and linguistic.
Affective dimension
The most noticeable outcome of the translation-based writing class was
the students’ increased confidence in English writing. Having written
down their thoughts in Korean first, they were eager to know how
to say the same things in English. In other words, their low English
proficiency did not impede their self-expression in English, which in
turn increased their confidence (Researcher, Reflective Note). The
participants offered positive comments on this method either directly to
me in class or as informal feedback accompanying their second drafts,
as illustrated below.

Participant 5 said, ‘Ms Lee, I am very surprised that I actually wrote this.
I think English writing can be easier than I thought as long as I know
some vocabulary.’
(Researcher, Reflective Note)

368 Mun Woo Lee

Name of the stage Time What the students do What the teacher does
(min)
1. Brainstorming 45 • Discuss the given subject as a whole • Makes sure that the students share their
group in L1 or L2. narratives interactively.
•  Choose individual topics. • Helps to prevent overlap between
• Jot down key points to be covered in students’ topics.
their writing in Korean. • Helps to remove barriers to the
expression of specific ideas as the

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students plan their tasks.
2. Writing in Korean 90 • Write freely about their topics in Korean. For ease of later translation into English
• Shows the students that it is best to
write selectively.
• Helps the students to use Korean
vocabulary and structure their writing.
3. Writing in English 1st: 90 • Translate their Korean drafts into • Does not allow the students to use a
English. Korean–English dictionary.
• Explains to the students that they
are supposed to indicate unknown
segments by leaving them blank or by
making guesses and underlining them.
2nd: 45 •  Complete their translations. • Allows the students to use a Korean–
English dictionary and a thesaurus on
the Web.
• Ensures that the students adapt the
example sentences to their own writing.
• Allows the students to ask questions to
either the teacher or other students.
4. Editing and 1st: 45 • Undertake editing sessions in the form Before the editing session starts
rewriting of one-on-one writing conferences with • Types up each student’s drafts on a
the teacher. single page, with the first draft (in
Korean) on the left-hand side of the page
and the second draft (in English) on the
right-hand side.
• Gives multidirectional feedback on
grammatical points, sentence structure,
vocabulary, and punctuation.
During the session
• Explains the editing points and answers
questions.
• Makes sure that when one student is in
the conference session, the others work
on their revisions until their turn comes.
2nd: 45 • Refine their third drafts in English based • Makes sure that the rewriting is done
on feedback received from the teacher. individually and by hand.
• May draw pictures to accompany their • Collects the students’ work and
writing in the final piece. reorganizes it into a visually attractive,
readable form.

ta b l e  1
The four stages of the
translation method

Translation revisited for low-proficiency EFL writers 369

 Participant 9 said, ‘Thanks to these writing activities, I gained the
confidence to take part in the English speech contest. I did not use
Google Translate or anything. I wrote the sentences for myself.
Of course, my manuscript will need to be revised, but I’m so proud of
myself.’
(Researcher, Reflective Note)
My classmates asked me whether I actually wrote this, and I said ‘yes’ to
them very proudly. Thank you, Ms Lee.

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(Participant 7, Processfolio).
The students’ written feedback, which was collected after each semester,
also illustrated their enhanced confidence. All 13 participants mentioned
that they had become more confident not only in writing but in using
English. The following comments illustrate the potential of a translation-
based writing class to specifically enable low-proficiency English learners.

The final product that we all worked on together reminded me of

the previous classes. I’ve always thought that it would be really nice
to write something in English, but I dare not to try it. I thought it
was something that only highly proficient students in English could
do. However, now that I have my own writings with me, I can say
confidently to anyone that I’m also an English writer.
(Participant 1, Written Feedback)
The students felt more motivated to learn and write in English because
they were engaged in something that have become good at.
Frankly speaking, I doubted that I could write things in English at first.
I expected that the class would be something like imitating some sentence
patterns and filling in the blanks. But it was a completely different class
and I strongly recommend this class to other students. They will learn
about English writing and have confidence in English like me.
(Participant 13, Written Feedback)
Linguistic dimension
Not surprisingly, the students’ enhanced confidence was closely related
to their increased proficiency in English writing. Their improvement in
English was the second distinctive theme in my reflective notes, followed
by their increased confidence. In their written feedback, the participants
also stated explicitly that their English proficiency had greatly improved
as a result of the translation-based EFL writing class. Eleven out of the 13
participants mentioned specifically that they had found learning English
grammar, structure, vocabulary, and idiom particularly interesting
because it had enabled them to produce texts that expressed their own
thoughts and opinions.

Participant 14 remembered how to make the comparative degree and

the superlative in English correctly. He wrote ‘prettier’ instead of
‘prettyer’ and ‘most important’ rather than ‘importantest’. I guess in
the near future he will reuse the sentence pattern that he learned today,
‘The harder you study, the more you can get’.
(Researcher, Reflective Note)

370 Mun Woo Lee

 The best advantage I got from this class was that my English proficiency
has actually improved. I could read English texts, but I haven’t written
anything in English before. Now I can express my thoughts in English.
I learned how make English sentences in a meaningful way.
(Participant 6, Written Feedback)
I liked to learn various English expressions through this class. I noticed
that I never forgot the vocabulary I learned in this class, unlike the
words I learnt in other classes. I think the reason why I remember the

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vocabulary is that the text is my writing. I actually used the vocabulary,
instead of just memorizing the words as a list.
(Participant 13, Written Feedback)
In addition, translating their Korean writing into English increased
the students’ awareness of the differences between their L1 and the
L2. For ease of translation, they carefully selected Korean vocabulary
and structures and paid attention to the nuanced meanings of English
(Researcher, Reflective Note). This was especially evident in their
processfolios in stages 2 and 3. For instance, when Participants 12 and 13
worked together to produce a first draft of writing on the seventh topic
(the advantages of reunification), they collaborated closely to choose
sentence structures that could be easily expressed in English. As a result,
they crossed out their first choice of eccel swu epsi hanta1 (do something
constrainedly), and proposed alternatives such as haci anhul swu epsta
(cannot but do something) and hal swupakkey epsta (cannot help doing
something) (Participants 12 and 13, Processfolio). Participant 8, who was
especially fond of using a thesaurus, expanded her English vocabulary by
listing synonyms and antonyms of the various target words (Participant
8, Processfolio). More evidence was gained from my reflective notes as
follows.
In the earlier versions of her writings, Participant 2 used many
Korean words that were difficult to translate directly into English such
as aswipta or cengitulta. Later, she came up with several options for
synonyms and chose the best word for translation.
(Researcher, Reflective Note).
When Participant 1 wrote about some tips for overcoming hardships
in South Korea, he wrote that readers ‘should’ be determined to face
the reality before them. Because the Korean expression that indicates
‘necessity’ is basically fixed to one form (hayyahanta), this student had
to study a range of English equivalents, such as ‘should’, ‘have to’, ‘had
better’ and ‘must’, to find the most appropriate word for his writing.
(Researcher, Reflective Note).

The return of The results of this study suggest that translation has the potential to
translation in EFL become one of the most helpful and contextualized teaching methods
writing classrooms in EFL classrooms, in which students’ absolute exposure to the target
language (English) is more restricted than in ESL contexts. Most EFL
learners are heavily dependent on their L1 in daily life (Woodall 2002;
Kellerher 2013). Therefore, to maximize their proficiency in English, it
is far more efficient to use their L1 than to try to ignore it (Wang and
Wen 2002; Sasaki 2004). The most important question here is ‘how

Translation revisited for low-proficiency EFL writers 371

 to use’ the L1 effectively. The traditional grammar-translation method,
based on rote learning, should be the last method to be implemented.
As evident from this study, translation can be aligned with or embedded
within other teaching methods. The writing class described in this study
was successful because it did not focus exclusively on translation but
involved writing projects based on various learning methods, such as
process-based writing, writing conference, collaborative writing, and
processfolio-making.

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It should be also noted that the writing class described in this study
was designed specifically for low-proficiency EFL learners. Of the many
diverse EFL learners, these students are the most reliant on their L1 and
the most likely to believe that English writing is impossible, as initially
reported by the study’s participants. However, moving from their L1 to
the target language via translation helped the participating students to
overcome their long-held belief that ‘low English proficiency prevents the
learners from writing fluently in English’. As long as they had something
to talk about in their L1, the students could express it in the L2 through
translation (Wang and Wen 2002), and this direct ‘communicative need’
encouraged them to take part actively in the writing task. Most of all, their
sense of achievement more strongly motivated them to involve themselves
in English learning, which in turn improved their general English
proficiency. In other words, the translation method presented in this
study was shown to create a positive cycle, encouraging low-proficiency
EFL learners to develop both their English writing skills and their English
proficiency in general.
This cycle reflects the positive role of the L1 in EFL writing classrooms
(Pan and Pan 2012; Kellerher 2013). Translation has been neglected in
many language classrooms due primarily to the prevalent ‘monolingual
paradigm’ (Cook 2010), according to which ‘L2 learners should focus on
the L2 if they want to be good at it’. The ideological claim underlying the
monolingual paradigm is that learners should abandon their L1 if they
want to gain fluency in a new language. However, gaining proficiency
in an L2 does not necessarily require L2 learners to say goodbye to their
L1 (Kim 2011). Instead, learners can become ‘proficient bilinguals’ with
increased linguistic awareness of the two languages, eventually allowing
them to cross the border between the two languages without obstacles.
Translation involving active L1 usage can thus be viewed as a viable
approach for many L2 educators, especially when students’ mother tongue
is their primary medium of communication. The sample class described
in this study not only illustrates a practical means of implementing the
translation method in an EFL writing classroom, but also suggests new
possibilities for L1 usage in L2 teaching and learning.

Conclusion This study was conducted with a small number of students in

an alternative school with considerable flexibility in curriculum
implementation. Even so, the results of this study shed light on the
issues faced by many EFL educators in regular schools, who are seeking
answers to the questions whether L1 usage should be permitted in their
classrooms and how writing should be taught to low-proficiency L2
learners. As the sample class showed, the most important determinant

372 Mun Woo Lee

 of the success of translation in an EFL writing classroom is teachers’
readiness to implement such a method. To ensure their success, teachers
should design their classes carefully, with a balance between maximizing
students’ participation and playing a helpful facilitating role as teacher.
Although teachers implementing the proposed method will have to
overcome students’ self-doubt and questioning, especially when the
method is first introduced, the results have the potential to greatly exceed
students’ expectations. As a teacher-researcher currently implementing

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this method with another group of low-proficiency English learners,
I hope to see many other empirical studies on this topic in the future.
Final version received December 2017

Notes Pan Y. and Y. Pan. 2012. ‘The use of translation in the

1  Korean data are presented in line with the Yale
romanization of Korean.
2  This work was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean
Government (NRF-2015S1A5A8018239).
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The author
Mun Woo Lee is Associate Professor in the
Department of English Education at Hanyang
University, Seoul, South Korea. Her research
interests include language and identity, language
and ideology, critical discourse analysis, language
teaching/learning from sociocultural perspectives,
teacher professional development, and action
research. She has published a number of research
articles both in local and international journals.
Email: ppohi@hanyang.ac.kr

Translation revisited for low-proficiency EFL writers 373