The data have colleted, analyzed, and presented to the students in the classroom fo peer review.
How to design an e-portfolio based interpreter training syllabus? To answer this question, we must realize that to become a competent interpreter, one must have the following qualifications: be good at both the source language and the target language, interpretation skills,
encyclopedic knowledge, and the ability to interpret impromptu. These seemingly separate skills are intertwined in the interpreter training course
and must be so treated. Therefore, in designing an e-portfolio based interpreter training syllabus, it must be geared toward generating these related skills. In addition, the importance of self-practice can not be overemphasized, so it should be one of the constituent parts of the training
components. Students should be trained step-by-step, so they should be allowed to refer to the texts when interpreting in the primary phase of training, but eventually, they should wean themselves from the texts and preparation and learn to interpret without preparation in advance and without referring to any written text. Therefore, interpreting without texts and previous preparation should also become the ultimate goal of the training program. In termsofforeign languageenhancement,PowerPointpresentationsin thestudents’foreign languagecan enhance not only students’fluency in English butalso styleofdelivery.In termsofinterpretation skillenhancement,novicestudentsshould berequired to perform sight translation and consecutive interpretation, and advanced students should be required to perform simultaneous interpretation. In terms of self practice, students should be required to practice sight translation and consecutive interpretation and advanced students should be required to perform simultaneous interpretation on their own. There should be no limit as to how much students can practice through self-training. In terms of training in interpreting without preparation or reading the written texts in advance, there are abundance of videos or written texts on the Internet on almost any topic under the sun.
To prevent cheating, students should be singled out to interpret or sight translate
what they have posted for self training. Several participants have brought up the issue of cheating by students who have posted abundance of written texts that they falsely claimed to have sight translated or links of the videos that they falsely claimed that they had interpreted. My solution, based on students’suggestions,wasto spotcheck by asking somestudentsto interpretorsighttranslatewhat they had posted in their self-training folders.
The students should be encouraged to do peer editing. In order for students to learn more effectively, the instructor added a new folder, Peer Editing, to encourage students to practice peer editing and posttheiredited worksin thisfolder.Correcting students’interpretation errorsin interpreting is a thorny issue. As s rule, I avoid correcting them except when the errors are obvious because it is important to develop the students interpretation strategies (such as summarizing, paraphrasing, and gist extracting) when students experience difficulty interpreting.
Students’generallyagreed thatthevideosin theVOA videos,and othermaterialsused in theBLS,aregood training materials.Students generally agreed that the VOA videos, the local news in English, and the topics assigned by the instructor are diversified and quite appropriate. I decided to use VOA videos due to their wide diversity in topics and accents, and they are quite entertaining. Another concern is its length. The fact thateach VOA video isthreeto fourminuteslong makesthem appropriateto match thestudents’shortattention span.However,somestudents proposed to use more speeches, conversations, or important news as classroom training materials, so I allowed those students to choose their favorite speech or conversation videos with equivalent length and difficulty, to replace the assigned VOA videos, but students all decided to interpret VOA videos.
Video recording of self-training to serve as self-training project is not feasible at the moment. Several students suggested using the video recording ofstudents’selftraining and posting itin students’personalfolders.Ithoughtofthisidea myself,buthesitated to enforceitfor technical concerns. It would be troublesome to pass around among students an expensive high quality video camera every semester to film their self-practice sessions and post them on the BLS. On the other hand, the quality would be poor if students use their cell phones to film their practices.
Other professional interpreters or instructors of other universities should be invited, through teacher exchanges, to share their interpretation experience with the students. The instructor invited a TV news writer to give three lectures on translating and interpreting for the television and was warmly welcomed.So onestudentwrotein thefeedback,“Wewould liketheinstructorto inviteprofessionalinterpretersto demonstrateinterpreting, to show us the tricks ortipsofinterpreting.”Itold them thatIam also aprofessionalconferenceinterpreter.In Taiwan mostinterpretation instructors are also part-time conference interpreters. Students have the conception that there are tricks of interpretation and they would like to know these tricks.
I need to let the students know different interpretation strategies, tricks, tips, and how they may be applied to interpreting and training, and I will exchange instructors with other professional interpreters teaching in other universities.
Students should be asked to take notes whenever they interpret consecutively.
Several students have brought up the issue that they need more practice in taking notes for consecutive interpretation. Partly because I intended to train students to extend their short-term memory by interpreting without taking notes and partly because I wanted the students to learn to interpret short sentence correctly, I often asked them to perform short consecutive interpretation. After training them to enhance their short term memory, I will ask them to perform mid to long consecutive interpretation. In addition, I need to insist that students take notes whenever they interpret consecutively.
Students should be asked to interpret on the podium in front of a large audience.
Despite the fact that students all have a microphone in front of them that they use in every class session, they wanted more practice by interpreting with themicrophoneon thepodium.Onestudenteven told me“interpreting with themikeon students’seatsand interpreting on thepodium are different”and they would liketo havemoreopportunitiesto interpreton thepodium.Therefore,studentsshould begiven asmany opportunitiesas possible to interpret on the podium. This may be made possible by asking students to volunteer interpreting, or summarizing, on the podium at the end of each training session.
Students should be required to concentrate all the time to facilitate learning. Some students became absent minded during the class, e.g. when listening to a presentation; however, when I assigned a task that required every student to take turns interpreting, they all concentrated. Therefore, every task in the classroom should get every student involved. Students should have the feeling that they will be asked to interpet any time throughouttheclass;and ifthey don’tconcentrateallthetime,they would failto perform wellwhen itisthierturnsto interpret.
The instructor should introduce websites with speech videos for students to conduct self training.In this class I have introduced the following websites:
Speech bank (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speechbanka-f.htm) ted.com (http://www.ted.com/talks/list)
Research Channel (http://www.researchchannel.co.za/) CNN (http://www.cnn.com/)
BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) NPR (http://www.npr.org/)
VOA (http://www.voanews.com/english/news/) UnitedNations: (http://www.un.org/)
The White House:(http://www.whitehouse.gov/) WTO(World TradeOrganization)(http://www.wto.org/) IMF(International MonetaryFund)(http://www.imf.org/ )
APEC (Asia PacificEconomicCooperation): (http://www.apec.org/ ) Nobel Foundation: (http://nobelprize.org/)
E-portfolio encouraged students to watch lots of videos and practice interpreting.
When asked about the advantages of using e-portfoliosin interpretertraining,onestudentsaid “They enablestudentsto watch alotofvideos”. Anotherstudentcommented,“Thee-portfolio enable students to learn interpreting by visiting their classmates’foldersand practicing interpreting with thewritten textsorvideosthere”.
To sum up, since this was the first time that e-portfolios were used in an interpreter training course, students reacted differently and were eager to offer suggestions for enhancement. It is hoped that the results will shed light on BLS enhanced interpreter training.
7. Conclusion
The results of study indicated that e-portfolio learning assessment may become
an effective means of interpreter training assessment because, if well designed and followed, the rubrics of e-portfolios may serve as guidelines for interpreter training and assessment. However, rubrics have to be clearly presented at the beginning of the course, and time may be taken to explain the rules in detail, so that students may realize on what guidelines they will be evaluated throughout the course and perform accordingly. It is
important to have the guidelines layed out clearly at the begining instead of changing horses in the midstream. However, at the end of each semester, student feedback should be obtained to improve the design of the e-portfolios due to different students, who have different language and
interpretation backgrounds, training environment, and working languages involved. Researchers in future studies are encouraged to evaluate quantatively how effective e-portfolios can be in interpreter training.
Note: The Taiwan National Science Council funded (under the fund number NSC99-2410-H-011-028-) the trip for the author to present the pilot study paper at the Athens Institute for Education and Research (AT.IN.E.R.) 4th Annual International Conference on Literature, Languages &
Linguistics 11-14 July 2011, Athens , Greece .
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Athens Institute for Education and Research
This certifies that Sheng-Jie Chen,
Associate Professor, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, ROC
Participated and presented the paper
“Implementing E-portfolio Assessment in the Undergraduate Interpreter Training Courses—A Taiwan Pilot Study”
at the 4thAnnual International Conference on
Literature, Languages & Linguistics, 11-14 July 2011, Athens, Greece. The official program is available athttp://www.atiner.gr/literature.htm
__________________________________________
Dr. Nicholas C.J. Pappas Vice President of Academics ___________________________________
Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos President