An Intercultural Training Design For Volunteer Intepreters Of The Shanghai 2010 World Expo

Intercultural training (ICT), distinguished from other types of training, is exclusively aimed at improving communication and work efficiency in a cross-cultural context. Compared with the U.S. and Europe where ICT has been fully developed, China has just seen it burgeoning in the realm of business. But as one of the biggest residents in the increasingly global village, China is inevitably more and more internationally involved, which is fully proved by its successive winning of the bids for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games and 2010 World Expo. The domain of ICT in China thus needs to be broadened to meet the increasing demand for interculturally competent persons in various areas where the work efficiency is greatly influenced by their intercultural communication competency.This is a special epoch when Shanghai is preparing for the 2010 World Expo. Volunteer training has been included as an inseparable part of the intellectual development and training system for this global event. This thesis seeks to propose an ICT program design for the volunteer interpreters working for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. The thesis starts by clarifying the basics of ICT, i.e. its definitions, training goals and objectives, training contents and training approaches. In Chapter two, it introduces the ICT theories, procedures and principles. Chapter three examines the concept of intercultural communication competence and its theories with a view to providing a theoretical foundation for the training design of volunteers in the next chapter. As the central part of the thesis, Chapters four and five are devoted to the designing of the volunteer training program. Chapter four analyzes the features of volunteers, and particularly the volunteers of international events, and examines the importance and the common practice of volunteer training. In Chapter five, the author proposes a training program for volunteer interpreters for 2010 Shanghai World Expo, following the procedure of assessing the needs, setting the goals, specifying objectives, determining contents, selecting methods, planning sequencing and pacing, implementing and evaluating the training. The concluding chapter summarizes the thesis and points out its limitations and the directions for future studies.