Home Study Course in detail

The Course schedule

You can start the course at any time throughout the year, and you can follow it from anywhere in the world, even should change your place of residence. You maintain contact by using postal services, email and/or telephone.

Effective timing of your preparation period requires careful planning.You will benefit most from your tutor’s feedback if you submit a good part of your course work prior to the IoL’s exam registration deadline. This will allow you to gauge your own performance objectively and help you decide realistically when and how to enter for the examination.

Your course must be completed before your scheduled examination session, or within 12 months from enrolment date, whichever is sooner.

Courses may also be completed over a short term period, offering intensive revision for registered examination candidates.

The Course book

The Home Study Course Book provides a framework for the task in hand – translating for the Diploma in Translation.
• It offers advice on managing your study goals, structuring your time, resourcing useful practice materials and on developing self-revision techniques.
• It outlines theoretical aspects of translation and offers tips on developing and improving translation technique in general and under examination conditions in particular.
• It includes guidance on analysing text for the purpose of translation, encourages critical reflection on translation tasks as well as recurrent translation problems and so helps arrive at appropriate decisions and strategies.
• The book also explains the assessment criteria by which your translation performance will be judged. In addition to this, it includes important reading recommendations as well as practical advice for the examination day itself.

Your six translation assignments

Our course focuses on practical translation and includes six translation assignments, which will in turn be evaluated by your tutor. The practice materials include IoL past papers or equivalent texts conforming to examination format. You may select your six assignments in any combination from the following options, which are available in the examination:

General translation – Paper 1
Technology, Business or Literature texts – Paper 2
Science, Social Science or Law texts – Paper 3

Our flexible system allows you to prioritise and, if you have already gained credit for one or more elements of the examination, to concentrate on the remaining areas.

Each assignment is complemented by pre-translation activities as well as post-assessment exercises, both of which are designed to develop your analytical skills. Critical reflection on all aspects of a translation assignment, including its appraisal, will increase your learning experience.

Telephone tutorials

The telephone tutorials offer further opportunity to obtain constructive feedback on your achievements and can be scheduled at strategic intervals throughout the course. Your personal tutor will be available, by appointment, for three tutorials of approximately 15 minutes each, to address specific translation issues you wish to raise and to advise on entering for the exam. If you consider telephone contact impractical you may send questions by email..

Working with your tutor

After enrolment you receive your Home Study Course Book, a selection of texts for translation, and your tutor’s contact details.

Your personal tutor can assist with establishing a study routine and, depending on your start date, suggest a submission schedule for the translation assignments. After an initial period of acquainting yourself with the task as a whole and key translation issues you undertake your first translation assignment and send it to your tutor. It is then assessed and commented upon, normally within ten days of receipt, and returned to you along with suggestions for additional or remedial work and further reading.

You may send your assignments at intervals to suit your personal study plan. In order to chart your learning curve, however, you should allow reasonable study and revision periods between tutor contact.

The support our tutors provide will be at the right level for you – whether you are new to the field of translation or have previous experience. Depending on your particular needs, your tutor will help you select the right study materials, advise you on any areas of performance that require further concentration, and make recommendations regarding your entry to the examination.

Follow-up courses are available for those who wish to extend their practice of translation. Please ask for further details.

Our aims – your route to success

Individualised learner support, whether on campus or through distance learning, will always be fundamental to achieving success. This is why our tutors devote time and explain in detail the merits, as well as the shortcomings, of each of your assignments. There are no easy model answers in translation and your work will be appraised in context. Our system of interaction and response aims to provide the guidance you need – our objective is to help you develop a good understanding of the task of translation and to encourage an independent approach to your learning.

All our tutors are qualified professionals – academics and practitioners – with years of experience in delivering tuition for the Diploma in Translation. We are dedicated to sharing our knowledge by providing guidance, encouragement and help on all aspects concerning this highly challenging Diploma qualification. We believe providing you with truly individual tuition is the most effective way for you to achieve your goal.

For further information please contact

Tel 44 (0)20 8568 7292	Fax 44 (0)20 8569 8409	email s-james@dircon.co.uk
About Distance Learning	Course Fees	Enrolment

30 Enfield Road, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 9PB, England

© Susanne James Associates 1997-2003