On The Feasibility And Effectiveness Of Peer Review In Translation Teaching

Peer review, also referred to as peer feedback, is a learning mechanism in contrast to the traditional way of teacher review. Its theoretical basis is the collaborative learning theory under social constructivism. Peer review has been applied to the teaching of second language (SL) writing, contributing to the shift from a result-oriented approach to a process-oriented one.By combining quantitative and qualitative researches, this thesis elaborates on the feasibility and effectiveness of peer review in translation teaching. In the quantitative analysis, the author uses data from the peer feedbacks in one Chinese-English translation assignment for the first-year students of the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation of Beijing Foreign Studies University. The students involved total113, all majoring in simultaneous interpretation under the MA or MTI program. Peer review was adopted in the Chinese-English translation course for the two semesters of the first year.50students are chosen randomly as subjects and part of an assignment in the second semester is studied. The researcher calculated the number of feedbacks, categorized them and worked out their correctness. In the qualitative analysis, the researcher gave several examples of peer feedbacks and summarized the comments made by the subjects on peer review.The results reveal that peer review is feasible and effective in translation teaching for translation majors of graduate school programs; feedbacks concentrate on problems in expression and understanding; learners are capable of offering correct feedbacks; and although a small number of wrong feedbacks may mislead the learners, the second drafts show a marked improvement in the quality of translation.In conclusion, the researcher summarizes the major findings, suggests areas for further research and offers advice for instructors who wish to adopt peer review. It is hoped that more translation instructors and learners will pay attention to, discuss and employ peer review to improve the effectiveness of translation teaching and the learning process.