The Application Of Project-based Learning To English Translation Teaching In Vocational College

With china’s entrance to WTO and the intensification of globalization, thereappears an increasing interaction between china and other nations all over the world,ranging from aspects such as economy, culture, politics and education; thereforetranslation acts important part in the intercommunication between nations at homeand abroad. The flourishing market calls for application-oriented translation talentswith21st century skills in all walks of life, which includes ICT literacy, cognitiveskills, interpersonal skills，self-&task management. However, there is a contradictionbetween the objective and the current translation teaching approach. So far vocationalcollege’s translation teaching has followed the traditional teaching approach which ismainly adopted by undergraduate schools. It is apparent that this traditionaltranslation approach has a rigid procedure of “presentation-practice-production” thatis lack of career–specific feature of vocational college. The traditional teachingapproach has the weak points that students’ interests are not stimulated and they learnpassively; there is scarce opportunity for students to think independent and learncooperatively. What’s more, it is difficult for students to apply the classroomknowledge to their future job flexibly. it is imperative to explore a new translationteaching approach.Currently, a new teaching model of project-based learning which centers on“project” and “student” thrives in the vocational education; this teaching modelregards Constructivism, Multiple Intelligences Theory and Discovery LearningTheory as its theoretical basis. In project-based learning, students can graduallyconstruct their knowledge system through completion of all kinds of projects, it triesto provide students with a simulative workshop environment during which they candevelop their multiple intelligences through completing projects works and acquireknowledge and necessary21st century kills needed for their future work in theprocess of Discovery Learning.Project-based learning is introduced to china in the late20th century, researcheson PBL in china for more than one decade onward extends from the introduction of its content, theoretical background overseas to the classroom practice and appliedresearch at home. However, most researches are confined in the primary andsecondary school teaching and a small part of research related to polytechnic studentshave been made. project-based learning is far from systematic in English translationteaching, and the cases of the application of this teaching approach to Englishtranslation teaching are not rich hence further research on this field is necessary. Sothe present study tries to introduce project-based learning to English translationteaching in vocational college through exploring a complete translation teachingprogram. The study is aimed to research the effect of PBL and to verify the feasibilityand effectiveness of it.In this study, the author firstly makes an overall teaching program for translationcourse which consists of designing translation projects, making teaching plan fortranslation course and exploiting strategies for implementing translation projects.Then the author conducts an experiment together with questionnaire, interview toexplore the result of the application of PBL to translation teaching in vocationalcollege. After that, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis is employedto give a detailed description of the research data. The conclusion is that theapplication of PBL to translation teaching in vocational college is feasible andeffective. The result of the proficiency tests reveal that there is significant differencebetween the translation scores of EG and that of CG in the post test, students in EGhave made bigger progress compared with students in CG after the experiment. Theresult of questionnaires reveals that PBL helps to enhance students’ interest andarouse their positive attitude towards translation learning. After the experimentstudents in EG act more actively during the class, there are more students who preparefor the course and finish the task assigned by the teacher, they become moreautonomous and collaborative in learning environment. Besides their21st centuryskills such as ICT literacy, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills and self&taskmanagement have been practiced through PBL.What is more, comparison is made between PBL and other instruction modes,and the difficulties and suggestions in practicing PBL are put forward. The author holds that this attempt is significant despite it is far from perfect. In order to makefully use of the advantages of PBL in English translation teaching, teachers need torenew their teaching concepts and reform teaching approach by researching the needsof translation occupation and translation market. This study is hoped to shed light forthe future related studies and contribute to the improvement of English translationteaching in vocational college.