Translation To Test Vocabulary And Language Skills

Abstract

It is common knowledge that translation has been favored by the majority of foreign-language teachers since the birth of foreign-language teaching started many years ago. Translation requires awareness of native language (L1) and target language (L2) in both language structures and cultures exploring similarities and differences between them. This paper focuses on the applicability of translation as a testing tool not only in the four main languages skills; namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing, but also in other language areas such as vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. However, this paper only focuses on vocabulary and four main language skills. At the end of the study some recommendations for evaluation procedure are given.