An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Peer Feedback In Interpreting Teaching

The overall aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of integrating peer feedback into interpreting classes in terms of developing students’interpreting performance, and to investigate students’perception of peer feedback activity and how to increase the value of this activity.The participants were62third-year undergraduate students from Foreign Language Department at Changsha University. They were randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group received guidelines of peer feedback before the study, including how to use peer feedback assessment worksheet, criteria for evaluation of interpreting, etc., and students’interpreting were discussed through peer feedback sessions, whereas the control group followed the traditional way of teacher responding. The instruments employed were questionnaires, two tests (a pretest and a posttest), and interviews. The data collected are processed with the help of SPSS17.0.Results of the study indicated that integrating peer feedback into interpreting training had positive effects on the improvement of students’ interpreting performance. Students mostly perceived the implementation of peer feedback in the course as beneficial, that it had led to an overall enhancement of their performance, built confidence, promoted collaboration and conferred a sense of autonomy.It was concluded that implementing peer feedback in an interpreter training course may serve as an effective teaching strategy. Nevertheless, instructors wishing to incorporate the activity into their curriculum design should encourage the students to balance the amount of positive and negative feedback, enhance their capability to give accurate feedback, and introduce interpreting assessment patterns to the students so as to shape their assessment and provide appropriate feedback to peers’performance.