Students’ Proficiency and Challenges in Filipino-to-English Translation: The Case of Filipino Senior High School Students in a Private Institution

Abstract

Translation has been considered an important linguistic skill for ESL students and is used as a remedy to repair linguistic barriers. This study is interested in exploring the proficiency and challenges encountered by Filipino students in Filipino-to-English translation. A class of twenty-seven (27) senior high school students in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) strand participated in this study. Employing sequential explanatory design, the researchers first administered a Filipino-to-English translation proficiency test, followed by a content analysis of their translations. Quantitative data showed that participants’ quality of translations was evaluated as poor, which is attributable to their lack mastery of both Filipino and English. This encapsulates their difficulty in achieving equivalency. Qualitative analyses revealed that the students encountered lexical-semantic, cultural, pragmatic, and grammatical challenges in translating. In particular, translation errors were mostly in grammar, specifically in pluralization, capitalization, inflections, tenses, subject-verb agreement, demonstrative pronoun use, and fragments. This study emphasizes the importance of effective language teaching practices especially in the Philippines where students are expected to possess proficiency in Filipino (the national language) and English, both official languages of the country.