Paper short abstract:

This paper advocates the use of machine translation (MT) for language instruction, with a use case study of DeepL in a Japanese class. It provides further insight into actual applications of MT for learners of Japanese, while urging teachers to explore how AI and pedagogy can coexist.

Paper long abstract:

This paper advocates the use of web-based machine translation (MT), such as DeepL or Google Translate, for language instruction and presents a use case scenario of MT in a classroom setting. MT has made tremendous strides in quality over the last several years and has a great potential to be an effective tool for language learners. Yet, many language teachers do not know how to apply MT to their classes. The paper provides further insight into actual applications of MT by presenting a use case scenario from my third-year Japanese language class.

Section 1 examines the translation quality of DeepL by using the outputs that I have collected from DeepL for the language pair of Japanese and English. DeepL’s outputs show that its quality is as good as that of human translation and therefore is suited for language instruction. Section 2 dives into my use case scenario of DeepL for my Japanese class, which involves the method called “backward translation” (S.M. Lee, 2020). I asked students to first translate their Japanese sentences into English using DeepL, and then back-translate DeepL’s English outputs into Japanese. After this process, students were instructed to compare their own writings with DeepL’s Japanese outputs and analyze the difference(s) between the two. Section 3 discusses students’ reflections on the use of DeepL. Their reflections suggest that the use of DeepL, together with the method of backward translation, not only assists their examination of grammatical errors but also enables their learning of new expressions while enhancing the meta-cognitive use of the Japanese language. Section 4 presents my concluding remarks. I argue that the advancement of AI technologies is exponential and rapid and will profoundly transform the way we teach foreign languages. I urge teachers to get ready for tsunami of AI technologies and start exploring how AI and pedagogy can be complementary.

References:

Lee, Sangmin-Michelle. “The impact of using machine translation on EFL students’ writing.” Computer Assisted Language Learning 33 (2020): 157 - 175.