A Study Of Translation Curriculum Test For English Undergraduates

Translation curriculum testing has a very close relationship with translationteaching, which is an effective means of detection, assessment of teaching quality andcan play an active role in translation teaching. Regarding to testing purpose,translation curriculum testing belongs to the achievement test that has a direct contactwith the syllabus, course contents and teaching methods and mainly detects thelearning and teaching of translation teaching. In recent years, researchers at home andabroad have done a huge bulk of theoretical and empirical researches on translationtesting, which has deepened our understanding of translation testing, to some extent,promotes the reform of the translation testing and teaching; whereas the research fortranslation curriculum testing is of a comparatively recent scope in the field oftranslation testing and most of them are just mentioned lightly. Thus, both the theoryand practice are to be greatly strengthened. The purpose of the study is an attempt toexplore the specific issues in translation curriculum testing and makes appropriaterecommendations and opinions, which is of innovative and positive significance.There is no doubt that the test purposes, test types and contents of translationcurriculum testing should be strictly controlled from its establishment to theimplementation in order to ensure that the testing can effectively promote teaching.Nevertheless, translation curriculum testing has not been given sufficient attentionuntil now. Based on the enlightenment from language testing especially Bachman’scommunicative language testing methods and the requirement of teaching syllabus fortranslation, the theoretical framework of this study is formed. Adopting a descriptivemethod and the data through questionnaire and interview, this study aims to find moredetailed problems existed in the translation curriculum testing from the perspective ofEnglish major teachers and students and to put forward the views and measures toachieve the positive role of the testing. Research subjects include 55 translationteachers, 315 students from four kinds of universities.The research results show that so much emphasis is laid on testing translation competence, whereas achievement tests are ignored; the content of translationcurriculum testing has no obvious relationship with that of what students have learnedfrom translation class in that semester; the passing rate of the whole translationcurriculum testing is relatively high, and the incentive is not quite strong; in addition,the amount of subjective questions in translation curriculum testing paper is fargreater than the objective questions; and the other factors that affect students’performance in testing such as time allocation, testing instructions and so on are lessconsidered; according to translation curriculum testing, students indeed find their ownproblems and shortcomings, but the guiding role is not obvious. The author intendedto advance some suggestions accordingly in hope of pushing the development oftranslation curriculum testing and playing the better role in translation teaching,mainly related to test specifications, the relationship between teaching and testing,and test methods and contents.