Arabic Language, Literature & Culture 2017; 2(2): 34-39 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/allc doi: 10.11648/j.allc.20170202.11 Challenges and Suggested Solutions of Teaching Translation at Gaza Strip Universities (Palestine) Mohammed H. Al Aqad Asia Europe Institute, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Email address: alakkadmohmad@yahoo.com To cite this article: Mohammed H. Al Aqad. Challenges and Suggested Solutions of Teaching Translation at Gaza Strip Universities (Palestine). Arabic Language, Literature & Culture. Vol. 2, No. 2, 2017, pp. 34-39. doi: 10.11648/j.allc.20170202.11 Received: February 22, 2017; Accepted: March 18, 2017; Published: April 11, 2017 Abstract: This article focuses on the problems of teaching translation that Gaza strip universities that students face. There is no doubt on the important role of translation in human communication, around the world from ancient time up until now. There have been debates about translation methods; some scholars preferred word- for- word whereas others prefer sense- for- sense. This study discusses the learning outcomes of teaching translation in the English departments at Gaza local universities. It is believed that translation courses are taught simply because they have traditionally been part of the English curriculum of bachelor degree. This paper clarifies that translation courses in these universities have only had academic rather than professional goals. To improve the level of these translation courses the paper proposes new solutions to improve teaching translation at university level. Keywords: Translation Problems, Proposes New Solutions, Translation Theories, Professional Translation 1. Introduction Every translation activity has one or more specific purposes. However, universities are interested mainly in the courses of translation just to train and graduate competent and efficient translators, since; mistakes in this field may be disastrous. That is, translation errors on the job may very well lead to disasters. In chemical texts, they can cause fatal poisoning or terrible explosion. In legal translation, they can unlawfully make a defendant lose a crazily expensive lawsuit. In aeronautics, they may bring a plane down from the sky on people's heads. The poor performance of an interpreter can spoil the proceedings of a whole international conference. The universities in Gaza strip have never dealt with such nasty realities, but they are very real! The theory of this paper is that the translation courses at the university are and should be academic rather than professional (Colina 2002). Hence, the university ought to be geared to improve s t u d e n t ’s language skills. Here I propose n e w s o l u t i o n for teaching/learning translation that may return the process of translation to its right track. The teaching of translation at Palestinian universities in Gaza strip has never been controlled by a unified outlook or strategy. This paper has been designed to look into the course outline given in different places of Gaza strip universities to check the objectives of teaching translation. There are some specific problems in the translation process in Gaza strip universities: problems of ambiguity, problems that create from structural and lexical differences among languages. a further problem would be the grammar because there are many structures of grammar poorly understood, in the sense that it isn't clear how they should be represented, or what rules should be used to describe them. Description of the current situation of teaching translation at Gaza strip universities. A number of features distinguishes the current situation of teaching translation at the undergraduate level in Gaza strip universities. All departments of English offer translation courses at the undergraduate level as obligatory courses, but what is really offered is quite arbitrary and depends almost totally on personal initiatives on the part of tutors. Most of tutors who teach translation at Gaza universities are not qualified enough to teach this module. Lots of them are holders of postgraduate degrees in English literature or Education from the local or external universities. Therefore, any tutor in the departments of English who shows interest in teaching Translation may be assigned the course. There are no requirements whatever. Therefore, the trainers are at best