A Comparative Study On Interpretation Teaching Between University English Undergraduate Courses And Interpretation Training Agencies

Although studies on translation have seen tremendous achievements, the way forward for interpretation theories is feasible but bumpy. As a key step for interpretation practice, interpretation teaching is faced with numerous problems and difficulties due to the lack of efficient theories.This thesis targets at the differences between the interpretation courses for undergraduate English majors and interpretation classes in interpretation training agencies. It is hoped to find out the major problems in and propose some valuable suggestion for interpretation teaching through data collection, analysis, study and comparison, in order to help improve interpretation courses and interpretation teaching at large. This thesis adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative researches. The instruments used are questionnaires and online information search. The questionnaire is designed by the author herself and the official websites for all the training agencies are found through the internet access. It finds out that the teaching facilities, funds, numbers of students, mechanisms in the universities are far better than those in the training agencies. However, without a nationally unified syllabus and a general assessment system, some discrepancies still exist between the teaching objectives and the teaching contents (including syllabus), therefore the quality of teaching can not be guaranteed. The profit-driven training agencies'clear and within-reach short-term goals have shed some light on the interpreting teaching for undergraduate English majors. On one hand, the interpreting teachings at university level are always conducted at the will of the teachers. On the other hand, the teaching objectives in universities are either too vague or too big, or too easily forgotten by the students and sometimes even by the teachers themselves.Therefore, it suggests that the formulation of a national and unified teaching syllabus is in urgent need. If the syllabus calls for the universities to cultivate students'actual interpreting capabilities, then a general test for interpreting proficiency like TEM 8 for English proficiency as a whole is proposed to establish. Even if this cannot be achieved in a short period of time, the teachers for the course should make it very clear and measurable at the very first class his/her teaching objectives for the students and constantly remind them of these objectives along with the progress of the course.