Teaching French Translation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the requirements of the labour market. To investigate the gap between the outcomes of undergraduate degrees awarded by the French language department and the requirements of the Saudi labour market.

Abstract

Communication skills in the Kingdome of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are needed because of several reasons. Airports, public and private sectors need translators and interpreters, especially when it comes to administrative procedures, to receive and organize millions of pilgrims during Hajj season every year, along with the tourism and sports businesses which have grown a lot in the last two years, as well as the Kingdom's central position in the world's trade exchange. The demand for translation has grown in Kingdom, especially in the past decade. The religious factor is surely important, but numerous companies, including French ones was attracted to invest and enhance the vision 2030 . The Translation labour market is flourishing in KSA. However, we are wondering if the academic translation courses are effective to rise the challenges and to satisfy the need of private companies, government departments. In this project, our main objective is to prove whether or not the translators’ academic training within King Saud University (KSU) -French department- meets the labour markets’ standards and job opportunities expectations. Our goal is to identify strengths and weaknesses in both theoretical and professional lives, and the intersection between them, because they are meant to complete each other. The gap between the translation job market and the outcomes of translator training programs is attributed to several practices (Salamah, 2022) in recruitment as well as in pedagogical deficiencies or lack of teaching methods (Colina, 2008). Our research review displays and discusses these factors. We excluded all other departments or colleges from this study as our objective is not to compare, but to analyze. This project aims to understand the evolution of practices in Saudi Arabia, since other researchers spoke about the gap between translators’ training courses given within KSU and labour market in the kingdom for several years. If yes, what are the evolutions? If not, what our students think in this fast-changing world, and a fixed academic learning? In both cases, what can we suggest to meet the expectations of the students, the labour market and the new era?