Using translation in ESP

A number of recent publications have indicated a renewed interest in the use of translation in ELT. Little has been done, however, to assess the possible contribution of translation to English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This article describes the use of translation activities with one group of ESP learners in Germany. Two activities are described in which mother-tongue input material and a variety of translation tasks were used. In addition to giving rise to relevant and motivating communicative activities, this fostered the acquisition of new language resources by the learners through the provision of precisely defined communicative goals—‘stretching’ learners' existing competence in a controlled manner by means of the firstlanguage input.