| It is generally agreed that accurate orientation of a course is conducive to providing a guideline for the course design, and plays a decisive role in archiving the pedagogical objective. However, over the past few years, there has been a debate going on over the issue of the orientation of undergraduate interpreting program. Some people argue that interpretation teaching is an integral part of"translation teaching", distinct from language teaching in terms of teaching objectives, principles, and methodology. They advocate the implementation of skill-focused approach to interpretation teaching, which puts more emphasis on skills training than on language training(Liu Heping, 2001a:30;Cai Xiaohong, 2001a:325;Zhong Weihe, 2007:6).Others hold that the essence of the undergraduate interpreting program is largely"pedagogical translation".(Bao Chuanyun,2004:27;Mu Lei, 2008:42;Gile, 1995)This argument is based on two primary factors: firstly, students'language proficiency is far below the required skills for consecutive interpretation; secondly, the existing program with very limited class hours is too short for the interpreting instruction to produce the desired result. They maintain that the priority should be given to the cultivation of students'language competence instead of the mastery of interpreting skills. It is suggested that any attempt to use skill-oriented teaching without taking into account the actual teaching circumstances would lead to a failure.(Zhang Jiliang,2008:93)Owing to the hot controversy over the orientation of interpreting instruction, many teachers nowadays find themselves at a loss as to what pedagogical principles to follow for undergraduate interpreting course. As a result of the absence of the scientific training system, the current interpretation teaching gets bogged down in confusion(Liu Heping, 2005:129). In the face of such a dilemma, the present study attempts to conduct an experimental study to testify the necessity and feasibility of the skill-focused interpreting instruction, aiming at probing into the issue of accurate orientation of undergraduate interpreting course for English majors. With Gile's Effort Models (1995) and Anderson's ACT-R theory (1995) as the theoretical basis, the study aims to address two questions as follows:1. Does the skill-focused approach lead to more gains in undergraduate interpreting instruction (compared with the language-focused approach)?2. What are the students'perceptions of the use of the skilled-focused approach and their feedback to basic skills training? Specifically, it includes three aspects as follows: 1) What is the students'attitude toward skill-focused instruction? 2) How about students'response to specific skills training ? 3) What is the effect of students'self-directed learning upon the acquisition of skills ?The present study integrates quantitative and qualitative research methods to address the two research questions. The subjects for the experiment were 90 seniors of English majors, who were randomly selected with 45 students in the experimental class and 45 students in the control class. The experimental class follows the skill-focused approach with the focus on skills training rather than language training. In contrast to it, the control class implements the language-focused approach, emphasizing more on language training instead of skills training. In the quantitative research, the pre-and post-test results produced by the students in both experimental and control classes were compared in terms of completeness, accuracy, re-expression, adaptability, fluency, articulation and clarity. Statistic techniques such as descriptive statistics, and independent t-test, and Pearson Correlation Coefficients were used to compare and analyze the data of the pre- and post-test.The qualitative research includes a questionnaire survey and an interview. The questionnaire survey is designed to find out the students'general views on the use the skilled-based approach and their feedback to specific skills training, which consists of 22 items concerning the three questions presented above. This interview is conducted to help the researcher gain an in-depth understanding of the questionnaire results. 12 of 45 subjects in the experimental group were chosen for interviews. The major findings of this study are summarized as follows:1. Results indicate that the mean of experimental group (75.56) is higher than that of the control group (70.36) in the post-test, and there is significant difference between them (p=.000). On the whole, experimental group produced better overall interpreting performance than control group in terms of completeness,accuracy, re-expression, and adaptability.2. The survey indicate that the majority of subjects feel positive about the skill-focused approach to interpreting instruction. They agree with the pedagogical principle that more emphasis should be put on skills training rather than language training.3. With respect to feedback to specific skills training, the results are as follows: 1)The majority of subjects find it most difficult to improve the performance of short-term memory. 2) Practice of listening training without taking notes contributes to the acquisition of skills of"catching the main ideas"and"listening for meaning". 3) Strategies of"chunking"and"semantic memorizing"are most commonly used by students in retaining the source language information, particularly when the delivered part is very lengthy or is not entirely coherent. 4) Paraphrasing is the most fundamental and useful means of adaptability, presenting a synonymous version of the original ideas. 5) Most subjects prefer to take notes in the source language since it consumes less processing capacity for beginners.4. The result of the survey also shows that"Campus Interpreting Learning Network"can be used as an effective medium for students to conduct the self-directed learning activities.This study has both the following important theoretical and pedagogical implications.Firstly, this study corroborates the academic argument that the essence of the undergraduate interpreting program is"translation teaching", which is determined by the characteristics, procedure, and law of interpreting. External factors cannot exert a decisive influence on the positioning of the course.Secondly, separate training of interpreting skills is beneficial to upgrading the trainees'processing capacity of individual tasks and optimizing the allocation of limited mental energy, thus leading to performance enhancement in terms of completeness and accuracy.Thirdly, owing to the insufficiency of class hours, autonomous learning should be designed as an integral part of interpreting teaching course."Pre-class interpreting preparation"and"after-class autonomous learning"are beneficial to alleviating the stress of skills training in class and offering more opportunities to practice interpreting after class.Fourthly, interpreting skills are marked by highly professionalism; therefore they must be acquired through specific and concentrated trainings:1)"Principles of understanding"and"identification of main ideas"are fundamental listening comprehension skills. 2) The training of STM should be provided before the training of note-taking skills. 3) More emphasis should be put on dynamic adaptation than on static adaptation in re-expression training. 4) The focus of English-Chinese interpretation training should rest on the identification of main ideas and analysis of links while Chinese-English interpretation training rest on the re-expression of the meaning and adaptation of the form.Fifthly, several essential factors should be taken into consideration regarding the selection of a interpreting textbook:1) Skill-oriented compilation; 2) Rational layout of content; 3) Authenticity of materials; 4) Diversity in topics.Sixthly, the role of a qualified teacher should be defined as an instructor, demonstrator, evaluator, and resources supplier. A teacher without theoretical background and interpreting experience is incompetent in skill-focused interpreting instruction.It is hoped that the present study can offer some inspiration for further studies on interpreting instruction from different perspectives, with a view to improving and perfecting the skill-focused approach. |
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