Teaching interpretation 1 at school of foreign languages: a brief evaluation and some activity examples

p work in interpretation. 80.7% 19.3% 
The figures shown in this table indicate significant information about how students judged their 
teachers’ teaching methods. Firstly, the areas that were highly appreciated with almost 100% of 
the students were the detailed introduction of the course syllabus and the use of various topics for 
Tran Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 23 - 29 
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students to practise. As a requirement from 
the board of managers, teachers at the 
beginning of a semester must provide a 
course syllabus so that students know what 
they are doing during the course. The topics 
as stated in the syllabus are all different for 
each week; therefore, when the teacher 
strictly followed the plan, students would be 
exposed to a number of familiar 
talks/dialogues. Apart from these two good 
aspects, the students had negative opinions 
towards several points. The first, and the most 
noticeable one was the materials provided for 
preparation prior to coming to the next class. 
100% of the students claimed that the 
teachers should significantly increase this act. 
The fact is if they did not know what they 
would study next, they would be passive in 
looking for appropriate contents, knowledge 
related to culture and society for their 
interpretation. This may result in their 
unreadiness to participate in the lesson. 
Moreover, the teachers did not provide 
vocabulary according to themes/topics/ 
categories with 96.1% choosing number 1. 
The fact is if the students could have their 
own little glossary book, their revision of 
useful words/expressions would be more 
efficient. Regarding the key skills that the 
students were supposed to master, which are 
short-term memory and reaction ability, most 
of them pointed out that their teachers did not 
invest the right amount of time to instruct. It 
seems the students were not trained with 
techniques to retain information in their 
memory for a short span of time. Likewise, 
more than half (67.3%) of the participants 
stated that they needed more practices to 
improve their reaction. Real experience from 
interpreters around the world has proved that 
being able to deal with the existing situations 
while interpreting contributes greatly to their 
success or failures [6]. In terms of in-class 
activities, three fourths (80.7%) of the 
respondents claimed that their teachers mostly 
requested for individual work rather than 
pairs or groups. A similar number of students 
(76.9%) said that the class activities are 
monotonous. If the teachers only used “listen 
and repeat”, “listen and memorize”, “listen 
and interpret”, their teaching procedure would 
be repetitive and probably be demotivating to 
their learners. 
The investigation into the students’ evaluation 
on teachers’ methodologies has pointed out a 
number of problems in teaching the subject. 
Despite the significance of the subject, there 
is a mismatch between what is expected and 
what really happened. 
4.4. Students’ attitudes towards the exam 
Screening the students’ summary of their 
attitudes towards the exam, some 
predicaments stood out. First, they did not 
know what topics they would interpret, so 
there was a high level of anxiety for the test 
takers. Furthermore, the topics of the tests 
were not the same as the ones they had 
studied before. Hence, when the audio was 
played, they were put in a shocking status 
even though difficult vocabulary was 
provided to them before listening. Another 
problem was the students had never seen their 
teachers analyse and mark their interpretation 
using a rubric of assessment; therefore, they 
didn’t know what to do. Overall, this subject 
was considered as a pressure for them. 
4.5. Class observation 
The researcher’s notes revealed the same 
results found in the students’ questionnaire. In 
both of the observations, the teachers started 
their lesson by checking homework, then 
taught new vocabulary for the new 
interpretation. There were no lead-in or 
warm-up activities. They also followed a 
sequence in teaching: students listened for the 
first time – teachers paused the audio – 
students interpreted – teachers gave feedback. 
The class atmostphere was quiet and boring; 
few students volunteered to answer. 
Tran Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 23 - 29 
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These observations have shown a correlation 
between what the students expressed in their 
questionnaire and what happened in class. 
5. Class activity examples 
To address the issues of monotony, the lack 
of group work and to better instruct students 
to work on their own, the following activities 
can be applied by teachers of Interpretation 1. 
5.1. News sharing 
News is a rich source for both in-class and 
after-class practices. Teachers can exploit this 
channel to set up a good habit for students. 
* Aims: this activity helps learners to 
- practise listening skills every week 
- update their understanding about social and 
cultural knowledge 
- expand their vocabulary in different fields 
- practise interpreting ability 
* Procedure: on week 1 of the course, 
teachers introduce some useful news websites 
for students such as: https://www.news 
inlevels.com/;https://breakingnewsenglish.co
m/; https://tuoitrenews.vn/; https://edition. 
cnn.com/cnn10;https://www.sciencenewsforst
udents.org/ etc. Students then choose a 
partner to work with and decide on one piece 
of news to read or listen to. After that, they 
both construct a summary of the news and 
interpret it into the target language. In class, 
teachers pick one pair of students to perform 
their preparation; one student reports the 
contents of what they read or listened to, the 
other interprets after two sentences by the 
first student. Teachers should remind their 
students that they may start with their topics 
of interests first, but after that they need to 
cover other topics to have a wider pool of 
useful vocabulary. 
5.2. Running interpretation 
The American Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention found positive associations 
between classroom-based physical activity 
and indicators of cognitive skills and 
attitudes, academic behavior, and academic 
achievement (McCaughey, K. 2018) [7]. This 
is to say that teachers should involve physical 
movement for their students while learning. 
* Aims: this activity helps learners to: 
- move and learn at the same time 
- interpret in a fun and competitive way 
- collaborate as a group. 
* Procedure: After preparing ideas and 
necessary knowledge for the output, students 
stand in groups on one side of the class. 
Teachers write the word “Finish” on the 
board. Teachers then play the audio and pause 
after each segment of two to three sentences. 
Groups discuss their interpretation and put up 
their hand to win the turn to translate. Each 
correct translation will give the group a 
chance to send one member to the Finish area. 
The group with all members at the Finish 
position will win. 
5.3. Interpreting with a phone 
Most students nowadays use smartphones, 
and teachers can take advantage of this device 
to teach. 
* Aims: this activity helps students to 
- collaborate in groups 
- practise their interpreting skills 
* Procedure: students are divided into groups 
of three or four. Teachers play the audio and 
pause after each segment, groups discuss their 
interpretation. They then take turn recording 
their translation on their mobile phones. 
Teachers may play their recordings through a 
speaker when they finish. 
6. Conclusion 
The research findings have exposed some 
uncorrelations between the essential position 
of the course and the reality of teaching this 
subject. Despite the fact that Interpretation 
courses are the core of SFL training 
programs, the teachers responsible for this 
Tran Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 23 - 29 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 29 
subject encountered a lot of challenges. First, 
they had no coursebook to officially use in 
class. Second, maybe because no one of them 
was trained to be interpreters or had real 
experience of working in this field, their 
teaching methods did not meet the need of 
their students. SFL should really look into 
these problems and have policies/plans for its 
teachers to improve their knowledge and 
methods of teaching this subject. 
REFERENCES 
[1]. Newmark, P., “No Global Communication 
without Translation” in Anderman, Gunilla & 
Rogers, Margaret (eds.), Translation Today: 
Trends and Perspectives. Clevedon: 
Multilingual Matters Ltd, 55-67, 2003. 
[2]. Nguyễn Thị Như Ngọc, “Khảo sát thực trạng 
hoạt động đào tạo biên phiên dịch tiếng Anh 
tại một số trường đại học tại Việt Nam hiện 
nay”, Kỷ yếu hội thảo giảng dạy biên phiên 
dịch, Đại học KHXH&NV thành phố Hồ Chí 
Minh, tr.3-20, 2016. 
[3]. Nguyễn Quang Nhật, “Giảng dạy môn phiên 
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phương pháp tiếp cận năng lực”, Kỷ yếu hội 
thảo giảng dạy biên phiên dịch, Đại học 
KHXH&NV thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, tr.94 – 
100, 2016. 
[4]. Gravestock, P. & Gregor-Greenleaf, E., 
“Student Course Evaluations: Research, 
Models and Trends”, Toronto: Higher 
Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2008. 
 [5]. Accreditation by testing – Information 
booklet, NAATI, 10-2015. Retrieved from 
https://www.naati.com.au/media/1451/accredi
tation_by_testing_information_booklet.pdf on 
March 10, 2019. 
[6]. Camellia, P., The interpreter’s role”,. 
Translation Journal, V6, No. 2, 95-110, 2014. 
[7]. McCaughey, K., “Skim, scan, and run.” 
English Teaching Forum v56 No.1, 45-52, 
2018. 
Tran Thi Thu Trang TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 23 - 29 
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