This paper presents a technical curriculum on language-oriented artificial intelligence (AI) in the language and translation (L&T) industry. The curriculum aims to foster domain-specific technical AI literacy among stakeholders in the fields of translation and specialised communication by exposing them to the conceptual and technical/algorithmic foundations of modern language-oriented AI in an accessible way. The core curriculum focuses on 1) vector embeddings, 2) the technical foundations of neural networks, 3) tokenization and 4) transformer neural networks. It is intended to help users develop computational thinking as well as algorithmic awareness and algorithmic agency, ultimately contributing to their digital resilience in AI-driven work environments. The didactic suitability of the curriculum was tested in an AI-focused MA course at the Institute of Translation and Multilingual Communication at TH Köln. Results suggest the didactic effectiveness of the curriculum, but participant feedback indicates that it should be embedded into higher-level didactic scaffolding – e.g., in the form of lecturer support – in order to enable optimal learning conditions.

he Erasmus+-funded international research consortium LT-LiDER develops a range of digital training resources which are grounded in the overarching frameworks of digital and AI literacy and oriented towards practical application contexts in the language and translation industry. These resources can be implemented on a component basis or as a complete curriculum in higher-education language and translation classrooms.

LT-LiDER is an Erasmus+ cooperation project with two main aims. The first is to map the landscape of technological capabilities required to work as a language and/or translation expert in the digitalised and datafied language industry. The second is to generate training outputs that will help language and translation trainers improve their skills and adopt appropriate pedagogical approaches and strategies for integrating data-driven technology into their language or translation classrooms, with a focus on digital and AI literacy.

This paper presents the DataLitMT project conducted at TH Koln – University of Applied Sciences. The project develops learning resources for teaching data literacy in its translation-specific form of professional machine translation (MT) literacy to students of translation and specialised communication programmes at BA and MA levels. We discuss the need for data literacy teaching in a translation/specialised communication context, present the three theoretical pillars of the project (consisting of a Professional MT Literacy Framework, an MT-specific data literacy framework and a competence matrix derived from these frameworks) and give an overview of the learning resources developed as part of the project.