Interpreting trainers in Taiwan tended to compile their own handouts for interpreting courses due to shortage of textbooks, which often fail to incorporate the latest knowledge from different areas of expertise, and the difficulty level of the selected materials might not be suitable for a particular class (胡家榮&廖柏森, 2009).
However, compiling one’s own teaching materials is time- and energy-consuming, perhaps that was why “interpreting teaching materials” and “interpreting teaching activities” were perceived to be the top two pedagogical needs by interpreting trainers in Taiwan (胡家榮&廖柏森, 2009).
For this particular study, developing my own teaching materials was imperative.
First, it was the strategic component of interpreting with the sole direction from Chinese to English that was needed, and the existing interpreting textbooks could not provide enough materials for demonstrations and practices in this regard. Second, this interpreting strategy training was intended to be incorporated into English classes;
therefore, materials normally used for interpreting courses, such as transcripts of formal speeches, might be too technical and monotonous to engage learners. Most importantly, to minimize confounding variables between the experimental (EG) and control groups (CG) in this study, making my own teaching materials was necessary to ensure the comparability of training received by the participants.
This chapter describes the making of teaching materials for both groups, followed by the development of materials for interpreting strategy instruction and back-interpreting practice for the EG.
The Making of Teaching Materials for Both Groups
The use of authentic teaching materials and pragmatic appropriacy are two of the principles in teaching L2 speaking (Lazaraton, 2014). For both the experimental and
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control groups in this study, video clips from Youtube, TV shows, talk shows, movies, online open courses from prestigious universities, and TED talks on different topics were used as materials for listening comprehension, discussions, and analysis. These audio-visual materials, plus sections from popular books, magazines, or newspapers, served as foundation for discussions and debates in class. My self-compiled handouts contained transcripts of almost every video clip played in class, so that the participants could read along with or repeat after the speakers, and then highlight useful expressions.
In terms of analysis, I often pointed out how English native speakers on the video clips structure their thoughts and express themselves, so that the learners could pay attention to both linguistic and pragmatic features. The pragmatic appropriacy of giving opinions, expressing disagreements, and leading discussions and debates was explicitly taught throughout the course in both groups.
The experiment took place in the spring semester in 2016. Both academic and non-academic themes were featured equally. In terms of non-academic themes, both groups were taught systematically how to structure their thoughts and to elaborate on their opinions.
Specific speaking skills included giving summarizing and inferring responses; asking open-ended and follow-up questions in leading group discussions; providing main ideas, supporting details, and conclusions; talking about pros and cons; using transitional words to structure one’s opinions; providing counter-arguments to show one’s objectivity; building persuasive arguments, and expressing disagreements gracefully.
Activities were conducted mainly in the forms of small group discussions and role plays, culminating in debates. The purpose of this set of academic-oriented speaking skills was to equip students with the ability to pass international English proficiency examinations, and more importantly, to survive in real academic settings if they go abroad for further study.
The non-academic themes featured task-based business English and
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conversational English. Both groups worked on a business project in small groups for one month, and gave business pitches as mid-term presentations. Acting out a movie scene was also a one-month project, in which pairs memorized lines and rehearsed, paying special attention to pronunciation, enunciation, and intonation. Weekly themes also included job interviews, animal documentaries, and entertaining traveling shows.
In sum, the teaching materials were mostly from authentic audio-visual and printed sources, with featured skills from various textbooks as supplementary materials. I had been using these self-compiled handouts in undergraduate and adult English classes since 2009. Over the years, the materials, in-class activities, and curriculum had been tweaked and refined, and had reached a stage where no significant modification was needed.
The Production of Materials for Interpreting Strategy Instruction
The interpreting strategies for instruction in this study are authentic and relevant.
They are authentic in the sense that they have been identified in previous empirical interpreting studies and/or recommended by interpreting training textbooks. In other words, they have been used by professional interpreters and/or advanced interpreting students. The strategies are also relevant to L2 learners because they can be applied to L2 speaking. The pedagogical values of these interpreting strategies will be assessed in the next section, followed by a description of my self-compiled interpreting corpuses for strategy demonstrations and exercises.
Selection of interpreting strategies for instruction. The selection of strategies in this study takes language pair (Chinese and English), directionality (A-to-B, L1-to-L2, or Chinese-to-English), and context (EFL undergraduate language classroom) into account, with the purpose of enhancing L2 learners’ ability to deal with their own production problems (as opposed to problems stemming from interaction with interlocutors), and to deal with ideas in mind flexibly, efficiently, and effectively.
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Interpreting strategies in this study are broadly defined as “strategies, skills, and tactics that are problem-solving, problem-preventing, or message-enhancing.” The operational definitions for these three types of strategies are as follows:
1. Problem-solving: Strategies that may enhance interpreters’/L2 learners’
flexibility and resourcefulness with their existing B language/L2 resources in dealing with lexical retrieval problems, A language/L1 interference, language and inter-cultural differences, and other language-related problems.
2. Problem-preventing: Strategies that may enhance interpreters’/L2 learners’
efficiency in dealing with temporal and cognitive constraints when speaking the target language (B language/L2).
3. Message-enhancing: Strategies that may enhance interpreters’/L2 learners’
clarity and effectiveness in target language use for successful communication.
In a teaching context, interpreting strategies identified in previous empirical research need to be adjusted, explained, or simplified to make strategy instruction more L2 learners-friendly. Interpreting strategies need to be streamlined and reorganized, so that they are more intuitively understandable and easier to be implemented for L2 learners in both into-B interpreting and L2 speaking. To this end, English names for some strategies are revised in this study, and their Chinese names are created. More importantly, strategies are further grouped under four principles that can be upheld in both interpreting and L2 speaking: BE FLEXIBLE, ONE CHUNK AT A TIME, BE CLEAR, and BE CONCISE. To make principles and strategies catchy and memorable, they are reformulated with imperative sentence structures.
Under PRINCIPLE 1. BE FELXIBLE, four main strategies (1-1. Use a more general term, 1-2. Use a similar term, 1-3. Explain, and 1-4. Paraphrase) are included for the purpose of enhancing L2 learners’ flexibility and resourcefulness with their existing English resources in dealing with lexical retrieval problems, L1 interference,
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inter-language and inter-cultural differences, and other language-related problems.
PRINCIPLE 2 is ONE CHUNK AT A TIME, an equivalent of the interpreting strategy of segmentation/chunking. This principle is operationalized into three specific strategies in this study: 2-1. Chunk the source text, 2-2. Preserve linearity, and 2-3.
Produce short, simple, direct, and self-contained sentences in the target language. The purpose of these three strategies is to enhance L2 learners’ efficiency in dealing with temporal and cognitive constraints when speaking English.
PRINCIPLE 3. BE CLEAR is equivalent to the interpreting strategy of explicitation5. Two strategies are specified under this principle: 3-1. (Re)structure messages from main idea to supporting details or from general to specific, and 3-2. Add cohesive words to explicate the logical relationships between ideas.
PRINCIPLE 4. BE CONCISE is equivalent to the interpreting strategy of compression. Subsumed under this principle are two strategies: 4-1. Omit redundant, secondary, superfluous, or repetitive parts of speech, and 4-2. Select important messages. The purpose of the third and fourth principles is to enhance L2 learners’
communicative clarity and effectiveness.
This categorization corresponds to the three defining criteria of interpreting strategies in the present study: Problem-solving (strategies under BE FLEXIBLE), problem-preventing (strategies under ONE CHUNK AT A TIME), and message-enhancing (strategies under BE CLEAR and BE CONCISE). The categorization is designed to make the principles and strategies easier for L2 learners to understand and implement in their interpreting practice and L2 speaking. To make principles and strategies even more intuitively memorable, symbols are also created (in several cases, on-line pictures are copied and pasted). (See Appendix A for Handouts for Interpreting
5 Explicitation is also a norm of interpreting.
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Strategy Instruction.) The following review on the four groups of interpreting strategies follows the order in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1
List of Interpreting Strategies for the Experimental Group PRINCIPLES Strategies
1.
BE FLEXIBLE (靈活變通)
1-1.Use a more general term (往上搜詞): Use a term of higher rank or broader category to replace a word or a list of items/concepts.
1-2. Use a similar term (橫向搜詞): Use an approximation, a synonym, or a near equivalent term, which may be followed by synonymic phrases, examples, or explanatory remarks to enhance accuracy.
1-3. Explain ( 解 釋 ): Describe one or more traits of a concrete concept/item.
1-4. Paraphrase (換句話說): Put ideas in other words 1-4-1. Paraphrase from the opposite angle (反向操作):
A term, phrase, or clause opposite from the intended message is used after “not” or “no.”
1-4-2. Use plain but clear English to disambiguate the meaning of metaphors, idioms, slangs, four-character idioms (成語), euphemisms, quips, figures of speech, etc.
(淺白至上)
2-3. Produce short, simple, direct, and self-contained sentences in the target language. (簡單句)
3.
BE CLEAR (條理分明)
3-1. (Re)structure messages from main idea to supporting details or from general to specific. (重整思路)
3-2. Add cohesive words to explicate the logical relationships between ideas. (加銜接詞)
4.
BE CONCISE (簡潔扼要)
4-1. Omit redundant, secondary, superfluous, or repetitive parts of speech. (去蕪)
4-2. Select important messages. (存菁)
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Principle 1. Be flexible. It can be achieved through 1-1. Use a more general term