PROJECT METHOD AS AN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY: TRANSLATING KARL MARKUS GAUß´ TEXTS ON DANUBE

Abstract

In teaching translation at universities, instructors still mostly use the traditional teaching concept (frontal): translating at home or in the class – reading aloud the translation – discussion – evaluation of the translation. Students translate various texts (non-fiction or fiction), and the choice of texts predominantly depends on the instructor. Because of the strict time framework students mostly translate several paragraphs from a text which they do not know, so that they are not familiar with the context of the passage. However, there are other teaching concepts, or innovative models which can be applied in teaching translation, like project method. At the Department for German studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of University of Novi Sad, a translation project has been organized as an extracurricular activity in which participated BA, MA and PHD students of German language and literature. They translated together (as a team) two essays from German into Serbian. In this paper the phases of the project, as well as its execution, and results have been depicted, analysed and reflected. The aim is to show the preconditions, advantages and limitations of this teaching concept as extracurricular activity at the university.