On Translation Course Book Evaluation And Selection

This research aims at trying to establish the system of selecting suitable translation course book through evaluation of two most popular translation course books used in China: Translation Course book: from English to Chinese (《英汉翻译教程》) composed by Zhang Peiji and Yu Yungen, Translation Course book: from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English (《英汉与汉 英翻译教程》 ) composed by Ke Ping.This research is developed according to the evaluation standard set by Van Els (1984:298-311). The study methods of this research are library research, survey and evaluation. The evaluation of the two translation course books is undertaken in four aspects: related theory review, course book syllabus, translation theory and translation skills. Students' needs analysis and evaluation are conducted through questionnaires, and the results of teachers' evaluation is adopted from Zhang Meifang's book. There are two questionnaires for the students to respond. The first one is about the needs analysis and it is divided into two parts. The first part is about translation course and the second part is about translation course book. The second one is about the evaluation of the translation course books that they are using. Survey responses are coded for statistical analysis and entered into a computer database. Two statistical programs, Microsoft Excel and SPSS are applied to analyze the overall frequencies, percentages and other descriptive statistics.It is suggested that in this research the needs of the learners should be analyzed before selecting a translation course book and the course book evaluation can be conducted before selection or referred to if it has been evaluated. Course book adaptation is necessary under present situation and a diagram is given at the end of this research to help choose suitable translation course book.