Reform Of Translation Teaching Based On Student Needs Assessment

In the study of translation teaching, scholars have been focusing on the language proficiency of students, subject competence, transfer competence, the relationship between translation theory and practice, curriculum design, translation tests and evaluation. On those topics, scholars have taken a more or less top-down approach, prescribing possible solutions for identified problems from the perspectives of teachers, education administrators and translation companies.However, what the students want from their translation program seems to be missing, and what they think does matter. Students represent one of the two parties directly involved in translation teaching, and as the recipient of translation education, they ought to have a large share in determining the masterplan behind translation programs. That is why this paper sets out to conduct a needs assessment of students in the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation in Beijing Foreign Studies University, and on that basis, intends to answer the research question of what those students want from their2-year program and how to reform the program so that students’ requirements can be better met.This paper includes a questionnaire suvey administered to the students in GSTI, covering students’ information, motivation behind the pursuit of translation and interpretation, theory and practice, language learning, curriculum design and students’ employment preference, subject competence and testing of students’ performance. Based on the statistics collected from the survey, several interviews were conducted with representatives selected from the survey respondents in an attempt to gain deeper insight into the underlying reasons for certain patterns demonstrated by the survey data. With both quantitative and qualitative results at disposal, the paper endeavors to put forward some suggestions on how to improve the translation program of GSTI.