A Survey Of Interpretation Training Institutions In Wuhan And Suggestions For Improvement

China’s internationalization has brought about increasing opportunities of foreign exchange and trade activities which call for direct and cross-language communications. Therefore, high quality professional interpreters have been in high demand in major cities Driven by the undersupply of qualified professionals in the market, interpretation training has become an emerging business in these cities especially in central and eastern China. With growing public awareness of the profession, a prospect career in interpretation has attracted many young people. Being a professional interpreter has become a dream for many college graduates. And for non-English-major students, off-campus interpretation training institutions have become their destination of choice. As one of the national centers for higher education, Wuhan has seen the emergence of two institutions specialized in interpretation training as early as in2001. Over the years, the number of interpretation training institutions has been constantly on the rise and they have trained a number of high quality interpreters.While popularizing the concept of interpretation as a profession in the general public, are these institutions really up to the standard of professional interpreter training? Have the students received professional interpretation training and proper guidance for their future career development? As a trainee in2005and a interpretation practitioner and trainer soon after, the author has a in-depth understanding of the history and development of interpretation training institutions in Wuhan city. Aside from first-hand experiences, the paper uses surveys, in-person and telephone interviews to present the current state of the six major interpretation training institutions in Wuhan in terms of their faculty composition, students source, course setting, teaching philosophy and development status. By comparisons between these institutions and analysis based on theories of both Chinese and overseas translators, the papers summarizes the strengths and weaknesses in their training practices and concludes with suggestions and expectations for their future development.