EFL LEARNERS’ TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN NARRATIVE TEXTS: A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF READINGAND MEANING CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

Translation plays an important role in helping EFL students comprehend English texts; however, many junior high school students still experience difficulties in translating narrative texts accurately due to linguistic and contextual challenges. This study aimed to identify the translation strategies used by eighth-grade students in translating English narrative texts into Indonesian and to explore the challenges they encountered and the references they used during the translation process. This study employed a descriptive qualitative research design involving 52 eighth-grade students of MTs Al-Hidayah, Bitung Jaya. Data were collected through observation, translation tasks, and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using Miles and Huberman’s Interactive Model, consisting of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings revealed that students employed four translation strategies: literal translation, idiomatic translation, addition, and omission. Literal translation and addition were the most frequently used strategies (26 occurrences each), followed by idiomatic translation (25) and omission (10). Students also encountered challenges related to limited vocabulary, grammatical confusion, and sentence construction, while relying on dictionaries, Google Translate, AI-based applications, teachers, and peers to support their translation process. These findings contribute to translation education at the junior high school level by providing insights into students’ translation practices and may assist English teachers in designing more effective instructional strategies to improve students’ translation competence, vocabulary mastery, and grammatical awareness.