The Study Effect And Employment Of MTI Students Specializing In English Interpreting

A comprehensive understanding of interpreting learners’ study and employmentis of great significance to improve MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting)teaching and learning. Surveys on this aspect, however, are still limited. Even lessthose which targeted at MTI students. This survey, regarding MTI interpretingstudents from three universities as respondents, aims to look into MTI students’ studyeffect and employment situation after graduation, find out the relationship betweenthem, and discuss the inadequacies and challenges faced by MTI teaching andlearning.A questionnaire was designed for this research, and was then distributed viae-mails. The survey was targeted at MTI interpreting students from three Chineseuniversities, and the response was elicited from three aspects, including MTI students’motivation to apply for this major, their learning experience during two years’ studyand the employment situation after graduation. In the later period of this survey—thestage of information and statistics gathering, and with the aid of the design tool ofnetwork questionnaires—Sojump (http://www.sojump.com/), the results of thequestionnaires were automatically counted up and were gathered into tables anddiagrams. Afterwards, the author also checked all the data carefully and repeatedly.Based on the analysis of the survey results, the author finds out that, most MTIinterpreting students think that their study effect does not live up to the expectationsand many of them cannot seek an interpreting job after graduation, which are not inaccordance with their motivation before enrollment. Meanwhile, the author also findsout that the employment of MTI interpreting students has connection with their studyeffect, which cannot be neglected. There are many factors that affect students’ studyeffect, which can be summarized as: the level of candidates before enrollment cannotmatch the training objective of MTI; the courses are in lack of features, with moreproportion on theory, leading to students’ decreasing of interest and weak or singleexpertise knowledge; the objective of MTI education is not clear-cut, with itscultivation program cannot be in line with the standards of translation market whichpays more attention on field practice. These are all obstacles for MTI students to find an interpreting work. This study has shown that, there still exist problems andchallenges in the teaching and learning of MTI interpreting. Universities and collegesneed to improve their cultivation programs in a timely manner to help students, to amaximum extent possible, deal with their difficulties in finding an interpreting-relatedjob.