This paper presents an overview of some academic work carried out in the Brazilian context that comments on possible advantages and disadvantages of the use of translation in foreign language teaching. The paper brings up the discussion about different uses of the term translation. At first, we concentrate on methodological aspects and propose a division in four methodological uses of translation in foreign language teaching. secondly, we try to show that some of the works that discuss the question of translation in foreign language teaching context do not make a serious theoretical reflection on the concept of translation itself. Consequently, their argumentation on this activity relies on a theoretical concept that is based on the common sense - and that has been criticized over decades by many translation studies theorists. Finally, we propose a dialogue between the academic areas of foreign language teaching and translation studies.
foreign language teaching; translation; methodology