How to teach revision: tips from an interview study

Revision is an important – sometimes mandatory – step in the production of translations. As such, it is part of the EMT competence framework and increasingly taught in training institutions. Material is available to teachers, but it mainly consists of texts based on personal experience or accounts from the classroom. This article takes stock of a large interview study on revision to make research-informed proposals for revision courses in translation curricula. It addresses four topics: the diversity of revision, the situated nature of revision, the difficulty of the task (including the main faults of young revisers), and the social dimension of revision. Concrete proposals for enriching teaching are put forward, including revising with different time constraints, dividing the task into subtasks and asking students to perform only part of the task, asking students to justify the changes made, and teaching the principles of good communication.