Introducing Well-being to the Translation Classroom: Insights from the trenches of COVID-19

Abstract

The abrupt and profound changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused a variety of social and personal situations that negatively affected the wellbeing of teachers and students in higher education thus producing serious emotional strain. Barr (2014) shows that satisfactory student performance can be obtained in an online class accompanied by psychosocial support tools such as: enrichment and remediation tutorials, academic advising, guidance and counseling programs, fitness and wellness resources, spiritual formation activities and faculty-student consultation. This paper aims at testing the effectiveness and the perception of well-being and participative activities in the translation classroom. It presents the findings of a pilot intervention implemented with 42 translation students. The intervention is based on the PERMA theory of well-being and tests 9 well-being and participative techniques. The methodology combines pre- and post-intervention questionnaires and the analysis combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings suggest that although there are no significant quantitative differences, students’ perceptions are positive. Suggestions are discussed together with possible implications for the future.