TRAINING TURKISH-SPANISH LITERARY TRANSLATORS THROUGH INTERNATIONAL ONLINE SEMINARS: THE IMPORTANCE OF DIGITALIZATION
TRAINING TURKISH-SPANISH LITERARY TRANSLATORS THROUGH INTERNATIONAL ONLINE SEMINARS: THE IMPORTANCE OF DIGITALIZATION

Summary/Abstract: This study examines the international online seminars for training Turkish-Spanish literary translators, organized by the Ispedcev research group at Istanbul University in collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). Grounded in the PETRA-E framework, these seminars aim to develop translational competence and prepare volunteer students for the professional realities of the publishing industry. The initiative utilizes the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model to foster interaction between students from different geographical and economic backgrounds. Despite disparities in language proficiency, participants worked in asymmetric pairs to translate public domain texts, such as Orhan Veli’s verse versions of Nasreddin Hodja tales. Digitalization played a crucial role in this process, employing tools like Zoom for synchronous discussion, Google Docs for collaborative writing, and Padlet for peer feedback. The positive outcomes obtained in the seminars laid the groundwork for the renewal of collaboration between Istanbul University and the Autonomous University of Madrid, leading to a successful application to the “innovation in teaching and learning” project titled Letters in Transit, with the aim of organizing a similar activity in the second semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. Contemporary digital tools offer numerous possibilities in the field of literary translation; however, as demonstrated in this project, when the objective extends beyond the use of online dictionaries toward participatory international collaboration, such tools become indispensable. The process carried out with students from Istanbul University and the Autonomous University of Madrid has proven to be a good practice example. In this context, the present study aims to present in detail the design of the COIL-based model, the ecosystem of tools employed, and the evaluation findings.

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