Self-assessment In English-to-Chinese Simultaneous Interpreting:Accuracy And Students’ Perceptions Of Its Effects

Self-assessment as an effective teaching and learning tool plays a significant role in language education,and it has been increasingly used in interpreter training.In English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting,the source language is not the mother tongue of Chinese interpreters,bringing difficulties for learners to capture and comprehend the information and judge their performances accurately.Meanwhile,multiple factors may lead to variance between self-ratings and teachers’ratings.For instance,students lack the literacy of language assessment or they are uninformed on scoring criteria.Besides,the lack of research on the accuracy and on students’ perceptions of self-assessment,especially at the postgraduate level,hinders the extensive application of self-assessment to interpreter training.Against this backdrop,the current study aims to investigate the correlation between self and teacher assessment and students’ perceptions of self-assessment,based on statistical analysis of self-ratings and teachers’ ratings of 20 English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting recordings and inductive content analysis of the questionnaire about students’ perceptions of self-assessment.Inductive content analysis reveals 21 themes under four general dimensions:Understandings(U),Benefits(B),Challenges(C),and Suggestions(S).Major findings include that:a)with teacher assessment being taken as a yardstick,students tended to underestimate themselves,b)self-assessment and teacher assessment were positively correlated to a weak to moderate degree,c)students with higher teachers’ ratings tended to assess themselves more accurately,d)students who practiced self-assessment more frequently didn’t necessarily receive higher scores from their teacher,and e)students perceived self-assessment as helpful,targeted,and individualized but also embarrassing,time-consuming,demanding,frustrating and even scary.Students also provided valuable suggestions on the design of rating scales.These results may shed light on the practices and perceptions of self-assessment by student interpreters,provide references for interpreters,teachers,and raters,and also contribute to relevant literature.