Teachers' Attitudes toward and Use of Translation in the Foreign Language Classroom at Institutions of Higher Education in Croatia Mladen Marinac Polytechnic of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia Iva Barić Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality, Opatija, Croatia Abstract—The role of translation in the foreign language classroom has been changing, but it still remains a contentious issue. The long-lasting debate whether students of foreign languages might benefit from the use of translation in class might have made practitioners insecure in relation to whether using translation is beneficial or not, what methods are best and when to use translation. The aim of this study is to investigate EFL practitioners’ perspective on translation in teachi ng foreign languages. Specifically, it explores language for specific purposes (LSP) teachers’ attitudes toward translation at tertiary-level institutions in Croatia. The data were collected by means of an online questionnaire using snowball sampling method in order to reach a greater number of teachers. The respondents were English, German and Italian LSP teachers from a variety of tertiary-level institutions. The study revealed that in the Croatian context the majority of LSP teachers use translation in language teaching, however, there seems to be a lack of certainty about its usefulness. In addition, LSP teachers' approach to translation appears to be rather traditional given there is no diversity in the methods mentioned. Index Terms—translation in language teaching (TILT), language for specific purposes (LSP), language teaching, assessment I. INTRODUCTION Since the 1980s there has been an ongoing discussion about the use and role of translation in language teaching (TILT) and there is an ever increasing number of publications on this issue (Pym A., Malmkjaer K. & Gutierez-Colon M., 2013). However, under the influence of the long period of exclusion from the language classrooms practitioners still do not feel confident about the reasons and ways of implementing translation into their teaching (Macaro, 2005). Although translation is gaining value in the light of an increasing importance of plurilingualism and multilingualism i.e. increasing value of every language we know and because of the adoption of the cognitive approach to learning of building new knowledge on the existing one (L2 on L1), as well as the inclusion of various methods into language teaching to cater to the individual needs of every language learner, there is still no consensus on the importance, aims and ways of implementation of translation into the foreign language classroom (Tekin, 2010; Almoayidi, 2018). Given that practitioners cannot draw clear conclusions from theory or studies, there is a need to get an insight into the current practice and attitudes of LSP teachers toward TILT. II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE The negative view on TILT generally arises from the negative aspects of the grammar translation method. Probably the most obvious arguments against translation are that it hinders the direct use of the language being learned and therefore influences its production and understanding through L1, and that it is not one of the four skills and, hence, prevents the communicative use of the foreign language (Gündoğdu & Büyüknisan, 2005). Other objections against TILT include the arguments that translation in itself is a very complex task, which can be slow, demotivating and too demanding for the language learner (Tekin, 2010; Cook, 2010). Its artificiality, that is focus on form rather than meaning, as well as accuracy rather than fluency are further objections against its inclusion into the modern foreign language classroom. Malmkjaer (1998) lists more disadvantages, such as: taking up valuable time to teach the four skills, unnatural, misleading students into thinking that expressions in two languages correspond one-to-one, producing interferences, a bad test of language skills, and only appropriate for the training of translators. Although there are surely many disadvantages in the uncritical use of TILT, there are applied linguists who advocate its use and demand a more critical discussion. These linguists propose a new view on translation as an inevitable activity in the language learning process and in language use. One of the most prominent in this area are Guy Cook (2007; 2009; 2010) and Wolfgang Butzkamm (2003; 2011), but also Carreres (2006; 2014) and Gonzales-Davies (2014). ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 8, No. 8, pp. 906-915, August 2018 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0808.02 © 2018 ACADEMY PUBLICATION