Effects Of Self-Assessment On Students’ Performance Of English-Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting

In most of the current simultaneous interpreting training programs in the world,teachers play a dominant role in assessing students’ interpretation performance.However,this assessing model has many drawbacks.First,it can be difficult for a teacher to provide detailed assessment and targeted suggestions for every student in allotted time through class-instructions.Second,students’ inability to scientifically assess their performance may lead to low efficiency in their self-practices after class.Third,student interpreters cannot guarantee continuous progress when they proceed to work as interpreting professionals.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore a more effective assessment model for interpreting training in which students instead of teachers play a central role.Although many researchers find self-assessment useful in improving the learning process and products in various educational settings,few empirical studies so far have revealed the effects of self-assessment in interpreting training,especially on specific aspects constituting the quality of interpretation.The present study adopts Sadler’s theory of formative assessment,feedback and self-monitoring as the theoretical framework,and uses Schjoldager’s and Riccardi’s idea of macro-and micro-criteria for evaluating interpretation to explore the effects of regular self-assessment on student interp reters’ overall performance and individual aspects defining the quality of their renditions.The present study adopts quasi-experiment method and uses quantitative and qualitative methods for data analysis.The experiment involves 18 student interpreters assigned to a treatment group and a control group in a twelve-week self-assessment experiment.Major findings of the current research are:1)Conducting regular self-assessment will generally improve student interpreters’ overall performance of English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting.2)More significant improvements of performance have been achieved in macro-criteria "delivery" and followed by"language" and "coherence and loyalty".3)Greater improvements are found in students’ performance in micro-criteria "confident delivery","excessive repairs" and"idiomatic expressions".4)The majority of the interpreting students think regular self-assessment has positive effects on their overall interpreting performance in general and micro-criteria "articulation","confident delivery","exaggerated fillers","excessive repairs" and "appropriate register" in particular.