Sociolinguists, scholars who study language and how humans acquire it, believe that there are psychological, social and perhaps genetic factors that allow students to progress more or less rapidly than others. Specialists in semiotics have added that verbal and non-verbal factors influence how well students may learn languages (Hodge, B. 2000, p.21.)

       Although his work may no longer be universally agreed upon, Noam Chomsky has made most of the inroads into language learning theory. According to Chomsky, there are certain language universals. The first is that all languages are learnable. The second states that all languages share certain characteristics, and the third contends that there are rules and principles that speakers apparently follow in making sentences. In the classroom, translation instructors are particularly concerned with points two and three. If all languages share characteristics, instructors should help the student recognize them and use these characteristics in their translation activities. In order to facilitate translation, instructors should make the rules of language available to their students. Chomsky also made a now very famous distinction between language competence and language performance. Competence is just the knowledge the student possesses of the grammar of a language; performance is considered the ability to produce through use of one's competence (Steinberg, 1993: 97).

       In order to understand how adults may excel in language learning, researchers have delved into the ways children acquire language and have established some correlations. The main correlations seem to stem from the knowledge that children understand their native language before they actually speak it. They pick up the rhythm, pitch, stress and melody of the language and imitate the lyrics of the language before they actually speak it fluently first by saying single words, then two-word units, grammatically incorrect sentences and finally logical, correct expressions of meaning (Steinberg, p. 4).

       In addition to understanding a language before speaking it, memory is also extremely important. Children learn languages more quickly when they are able to visualize the object, hear the sound of its name and then store that link in their minds for further retrieval. This fact is linked to basic theories of education from the time of John Locke who emphasized the need for a student to have access to an object so as to internalize its meaning.

       Fromkin and Rodman also emphasized the important role creativity plays in the acquisition of language. Although there may be a certain primitive resemblance between human and animal language, animal language is finite and the messages are stimulus-controlled (1998:13). Human beings write fiction and poetry; they sing songs in duets, and in choirs. Animals do not.

       Research on second-language acquisition is advancing very rapidly. Until Chomsky's research, repetition and mechanical drills comprised the essence of language learning curricula. But classroom drill was found to be insufficient; logic and communication competence are now emphasized.

       Many brilliant approaches to teaching translation are applications of general learning and language learning theory. The functionalist approach to translation as explained in Translating as a purposeful Activity in 1997 by Christiane Nord emphasizes the need to make a translation "purposeful" (p. 1). Translators take practicality into consideration as they transfer a text from one language into another. There are many other approaches, as well.

       In our everyday teaching of language, or language-related activities in the classroom we can take advantage of the above research. Through even such a brief overview, it is clear that instructors who use concrete examples, who introduce creativity into their activities and offer students opportunities to achieve success frequently are offering interesting and beneficial experiences for their students.

       As an example of writing exercises useful to students, which aims at reducing the gap between a native speaker and a translation student, the following has proven successful in improving both language competence and business writing proficiency of student translators. It would be plausible to expand on this sample in a variety of ways by asking students to translate an already well-written e-mail and to compare the English version wit

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