Higher Education mirrors the shifting nature of society and work. Mobility may provide unparalleled learning opportunities for all stakeholders; however, in order to live and work in plural societies as socially responsible and intercultural knowledgeable citizens, intercultural awareness and intercultural communication skills need to be mastered. In parallel, the relevance of a digital agenda and the studies that attest to the positive student engagement brought about by the inclusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) across all grade levels push educators to seek and incorporate technology-based learning and teaching strategies. Digital Storytelling was implemented in an undergraduate degree in Business Communication, where students discuss and reflect on key issues in Intercultural Communication. Our case study draws on the qualitative analysis of a questionnaire, which intended to understand student perceptions regarding an assignment where they are asked to create Digital Stories and consider on the their own reflection process regarding intercultural differences and communicating across cultures. Our analysis of the 140 questionnaires revealed that Digital Storytelling was able to engage students in a serious and productive debate revolving around technology-enhanced learning and cultural differences, empowering them to construct new personal and group meanings and improve their intercultural awareness.

Teaching translation in higher education has undeniably been impacted by the innovations brought about by machine translation (MT), more particularly neural machine translation (NMT). This influence has become significantly more noticeable in recent years, as NMT technology progresses hand in hand with artificial intelligence. A case study supported by a questionnaire conducted among translation students (bachelor’s and master’s programmes at ISCAP) probed the degree of student satisfaction with CAT tools and revealed that they favour the use of MT in their translation practices, focusing their work on post-editing tasks rather than exploring other translation strategies and complementary resources. Although MT cannot be disregarded in translation programmes, as machine-generated translations make up an increasingly larger amount of a professional translator’s output, the widespread use of MT by students poses new challenges to translators’ training, since it becomes more difficult to assess students’ level of proficiency. Translation teachers must not only adapt their classroom strategies to accommodate these current translation strategies (NMT) but also, as intended by this study, find new, adequate methods of training and assessing students that go beyond regular translation assignments while still ensuring that students acquire the proper translation competence. Thus, as the use of NMT makes it considerably more challenging to assess a student’s level of translation competence, it is necessary to introduce other activities that not only allow students to acquire and develop their translation competence as defined in the EMT (European Masters in Translation) framework but also enable teachers to assess students more objectively. Hence, this article foregrounds a set of activities usually regarded as “indirect tasks” for technical translation courses that hopefully results in the development of student translation skills and competence, as well as provides more insights for teachers on how to more objectively assess students. It is possible, then, to conclude that these activities, such as different types of paraphrasing and error-detection tasks, may have the potential to encourage creative thinking and problem-solving strategies, giving teachers more resources to assess students’ level of translation competence.

The 2019 pandemic had a direct impact on all educational stakeholders. While many teachers and trainers regarded the changes with some scepticism, others embraced the opportunity to integrate technology into their teaching-and-learning methods and resources. As translation trainers, it is essential to follow and understand the translation market. Translators require vast competencies, amongst which is the flexibility to adapt. In translation training, project-based learning (PBL) has been established as an essential teaching-and-learning method, as it has proven to foster the development of essential competencies, since it simulates the translator’s work environment. Thus, the need to implement new strategies within a short timeframe reinforced the practice of PBL. PBL reflects the work of a freelance translator, because it places the student at the centre of the learning process. In these situations, student self-regulation becomes essential, as it is necessary to analyse the market/situation/project received and be flexible enough to adapt to the specific context. As of 2018–2019, ISCAP implemented PBL as the main teaching-and-learning method in its Technical Translation courses. At the same time, on these courses, an ongoing qualitative quasi-experimental study on student self-regulated learning (SRL) began. The purpose is to understand student perception of their self-regulation competence and its development, or lack thereof, after using PBL to complete translation assignments. The study presented in this article aims to examine the possible effects an online-PBL approach may have on a student’s SRL during the pandemic. Students enrolled in the translation courses voluntarily answered a survey on SRL two times: at the beginning and then at the end of the course. The purpose was to analyse and compare each student’s responses before and after using PBL strategies, identifying changes in student perception over a six-month period. Additionally, we compare each group’s results over a period of three years, which includes the lockdown. Statistical analysis showed that a higher level of self confidence in autonomous learning was achieved, but a lower level of belief in the importance and usefulness of the course contents was noted. Additionally, the study revealed that, with the exception of time-management, student SRL increased. Results indicate that PBL is a useful simulation of the translation labour market and that it does enhance essential competencies, amongst which is student SRL.