ELT and the role of translation in developing intercultural competence

As the main technique of grammar-centred teaching, translation apparently has no use in communicative teaching. However, this contradicts the idea that both translation and language teaching share the common goal of communication. This article argues that the underpinnings of translation coincide with the mediation skills promoted by CEFR and match the intercultural communicative objectives of EFL. The theories concerning the communicative and intercultural nature of translation will be contrasted with the CEFR guidelines. These results will be analysed to understand the translation-related techniques effectively used in the EFL classroom and discuss the role of translation in task-based intercultural communicative teaching.