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The EACT project was set up to establish assessment criteria and procedures for different levels of translation competence acquisition, through empirically validated tests chosen by consensus, a first for the area of translation.

EACT focuses on direct translation from English, French and German (first foreign languages in Spanish translator training institutions) and translation between first languages (Spanish-Basque, Spanish-Catalan, and Spanish-Galician). The project’s target languages are Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish.

The participants in EACT include 19 researchers from five Spanish translator training institutions representing different linguistic and geographical contexts: the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Universidad de Granada, the Universitat Jaume I, the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, and the Universidade de Vigo. Additionally, the University of Westminster (UK) has taken part in the project.

EACT is a continuation of the PACTE group’s NACT research project, which established performance levels in translation competence acquisition— three translation levels (A, B and C), with sub-levels, were proposed — and developed descriptors based on five competences for each level.

EACT focuses on translation levels A1, A2 and B1 (introduction to translation and introduction to translation’s fields of specialization), which were described in the NACT project.

As part of EACT, which was launched in October 2019, two empirical studies have been undertaken with students and teachers from the five participating Spanish universities:

1. A study on current assessment practices in translation degree programmes in Spain, for which an online survey of teachers of translation from and into the mother tongue at different levels and in different language pairs was conducted. The survey was completed by 97 respondents and revealed the following needs: a need to progress in terms of objectivity and standardization of assessment procedures and criteria; a need to develop procedures for identifying levels; a need to improve grading scales for correcting translations and assessment rubrics; and a need to reflect the reality of professional translation more accurately.
2. A study on translation level tests, in which tests were designed for translation levels A1, A2 and B1 with different language combinations, with English, French, German and Spanish as source languages and Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish as target languages.  The tests for each level include different assessment tasks that provide information on its descriptors in each competence (language competence, extralinguistic competence, instrumental competence, service provision competence, and translation problem solving competence). Furthermore, grading scales to assess translations and rubrics for each assessment task were developed. The proposal is undergoing an evaluation process, with information obtained from 103 translation students and 42 teachers currently being analysed.

Both studies were approved by the Committee for Ethics in Human and Animal Experimentation (CEEAH) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (11/12/2020 and 15/07/2022 respectively).

The EACT project (PGC2018-094275-B-I00) has been carried out with funding from Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation.