THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON DIFFICULTIES IN CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING FROM ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE OF STUDENTS IN ENGLISH FACULTY AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY Super[.]
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
Rationale
Due to globalization, English become the most prominent language in the world The reality, however, is that not everybody can speak English, fewer still can speak it well enough to communicate effectively Therefore, interpreting is a very important factor in the modern world, it is the bridge for various nations and cultures to exchange their information in multinational conferences When large international corporations now tend to do business with other countries all over the world, interpreting will play a crucial and effective role in successful interactions with people of other countries to ensure that all parties understand each other
For qualified interpreting, they have to be fluent in languages and to be able to think quickly and speak clearly to interpret accurately To meet the increasing need in the interpreting market, there have been an ever growing number of tertiary education institutions becoming involved in the formal training of translation and interpreting professionals.
In the context of Thuongmai University which leads in the fields of commerce, students in the Faculty of English are trained in Interpreting as a compulsory subject for their future job During the process of learning this subject, students usually encounter difficulties as it entails more efforts and different skills in both consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting. Having spent about 4 years studying at Thuongmai University, I have got many experiences, and realized many common obstacles that English-majored students encountered in learning interpreting, especially in consecutive interpreting.
Hence, these matters inspire me a real desire to conduct this study to figure out the difficulties that students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University common encountered when learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese and suggest several possible solutions to help learners overcome difficulties I hope that this result can be a guideline for students in the Faculty of English atThuongmai University.
Previous studies
The researcher has found some previous studies that related with this research.
A recent study of Marta Arumi Ribas(2012) entitled “Problems and Strategies in Consecutive Interpreting: A Pilot Study at Two Different Stages of Interpreter Training” is a contribution to the study of strategic competence in interpreting which analyses the interpreting problems encountered by two groups of students at two different stages of training and the strategies they apply It details and classifies the strategies used to resolve the difficulties and assesses the students’ perception as to whether and how they have successfully completed the task.
In the research 'Effective Strategies for Teaching Consecutive Interpreting' of Debra Russell (2010) described a frame of reference used to shape learning activities that help students to acquire the competencies required for proficient use of consecutive interpreting In addition, they presented a typical progression of skill sequencing and material selection criteria and suggested that programs that structure the teaching of consecutive interpreting.
A study on “Interpreting Errors in Translation " of Séguinot (1990) cited some basic errors such as grammatical and pragmatic errors, and described that learners made different kind of errors at different developmental stages.
In Vietnam context, the research about “A Study of Mistakes and Errors in Consecutive Interpretation from Vietnamese to English” of Dang (2010) indicated two main types of errors namely mistakes in pronunciation and grammar and lexical errors Then he recommended some solutions for both teachers and students.
Nguyen Thi Bich Giang and Nguyen Thi My Duyen (2021) made a research entitled: "An investigation into difficulties in learning Conference Interpretation encountered by English-majored students at Duy Tan University and strategies to cope with" to investigate students’ difficulties that often occur in learningConference Interpretation of English -majored students at Duy Tan University.These difficulties included Lack of knowledge, Wrong pronunciation, Ineffective note-taking skills, Slow-reacting speed The researchers also gave some suggested solutions for learners to overcome their problems in learning this subject.
Based on the research above, the researcher realized that they have similarity with this research but almost studies above were conducted in a larger category.Therefore, this research focused on the students’ difficulties in consecutive interpreting in the environment of university training, especially by English- majored students at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions to cope with.
Aims of the study
The goal of the study is not only help students find out the difficulties encountered in learning interpreting, but also to improve performance, the teaching and study quality of interpreting at the Thuongmai University. Therefore, the specific purpose of that research is to find out what difficulties students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University often encounter when learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese and to research the causes of students’ difficulties Hence, some reasonable recommendations will be made to achieve the original goal of the study.
In short, these objectives can be fulfilled by answering the two following research questions:
1 What difficulties do students usually encounter while learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese?
2 What are the reasons standing behind these difficulties?
3 What suggestions can be offered to help students overcome such difficulties?
Research Subjects
This study is about the common difficulties in consecutive interpreting fromEnglish to Vietnamese faced by English-majored students at Thuongmai University.
Scope of the study
Because of the limited time and knowledge, this research only focuses on analyzing and emphasizing the common difficulties that students encounter in learning consecutive interpreting with which find out the reasons lead to
The participants in the experiment are mainly English majored students at Thuongmai University; they are second-year, third-year and final-year students who have studied Interpreting at school My research with the hope to help them find out their common difficulties when learning consecutive interpreting and the way to study this subject effectively.
I hope that this thesis will be a helpful reference to other people who are amateur interpreters and motivate students to pursue this career I do expect that it will be useful to readers and people who are interested.
Research methodology
This study is a methodical investigation into the subject of difficulties and suggested solutions in learning English to Vietnamese consecutive interpreting that is a product of a long searching process with a series of activities such as the collection and analysis of data, the evaluation of results, and so on In this thesis, the researcher uses two methods, including quantitative method and qualitative method The interviewers received a questionnaire consisting of a list of questions that was designed to recognize the difficulties that students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University encountered during learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese It aimed to elicit information about the perception and reproduction problems encountered by the students such as memory-related problems, note-taking and linguistic problems such as structure, terminology and so on After answering the questionnaires, the researcher would collect them and analyze the initial database.
Besides, the researcher had a small interview for teachers of Faculty of English in Thuongmai University to find out about the learning situation of students in Interpreting class The results would be done in the ‘recommendations for teachers’ section of chapter 4.
Quantitative methods will help researchers easily calculate, analyze and evaluate sources of information and data That is all comments, conclusion,suggestion given in the thesis are based on the analysis of the data from survey questionnaires responded by the students.
Organization of the study
The study is divided into five main chapters.
Chapter1: Overview of the study
This chapter provides readers with an overview of the study, including Rationale, Previous studies, Aims of the study, Research subjects, Scope of the study, Research methodology and Organization of the study The Rationale is the general introduction about interpreting and the aim of the study Next, the Scope of the study limits the areas of research and targeted subjects of the study The Organization of the study outlines the main parts of this graduation paper.
This chapter consists of five sections as following: Definition of interpreting, Types of interpreting, Consecutive interpreting, Consecutive interpreting stages and Common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese In this chapter, the background knowledge which has influence on the entire conduct of the research will be discussed in this chapter Therefore, all the theories related to this research will be mentioned to help readers understand more about the results of the research.
Chapter 3: Research findings and discussions
This chapter will present details about the methods which were applied to conduct the research Besides, researchers will show the procedure to collect all the data for this survey and any tools or materials are used in the research, give out the reasons why the researcher uses the current methods instead of others Then, the researcher will give an in-depth description of the procedures of data collection and data analysis.
In research findings and discussions, it shows all results that are received and added with some discussion through the survey The researcher will utilize the data collection to draw conclusions about common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese faced by students in English Faculty atThuongmai University The researcher will base on the data collection to find out
This chapter identifies some solutions to improve teaching and learning consecutive interpreting in general and teaching and learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese at Thuongmai University, as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.
Finally, “References” and “Appendix” will be listed on the study's last pages.
A reference list includes books, articles, and web pages, etc that are cited in the study The list is arranged alphabetically by authors The appendix is comprised of transcripts of the experiment materials and interviews with the experiment samples.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of interpreting
Interpreting has been defined in different ways by various scholars Although most theoreticians believe that interpreting is rendering spoken words from one language to another, some aspects of these definitions appear to be different.
According to Catford (1965), translation is described as an “operation performed on languages, a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another” Kade in Nosratzandegan defines interpreting as a form of translation in which the source language text is present, and the target language text is a procedure under time pressure Besides, assumed that interpreting is oral - it refers to listening to something spoken and interpreting it orally into the target language.
While Mahmoodzadeh (1992) defined interpreting as "presenting in the target language, the exact meaning of what is uttered in the source language either simultaneously or consecutively, preserving the tone of the speakers", Pửchhacker
(1994, p.9) referred to interpreting as “translational activity” or in other words, a special form of “translation” and noted that interpreting is an ancient practice that predates even the invention of writing and written translation.
Pochhacker & Shlesinger (2002) believed interpreting was an "interlingual, intercultural oral or signed mediation, enabling communication between individuals or groups who do not share, or do not choose to use, the same language (s)" or “it is immediate oral translation” as Roderick Jones (2002, p.3) said.
Hanh (2006) defined “Interpreting, just like translation, is fundamentally the content of what is being said, and then immediately verbally re-expresses his or her understanding of the meaning in another language”.
The definition of interpreting in the Encyclopedia of Translation Studies
(2001) is the oral translation of oral material in comparison with sight translation which is oral translation of written texts.
In conclusion, in order for the definition to include sight translation, we can define interpreting as “rendering information and ideas from one language into another language by means of speaking Interpreters are concerned with the spoken word They convey orally whether to an individual or a group the meaning of the spoken word, from one language to another” Interpreting requires the ability to accurately express information in the target language Interpreting is not a matter of substituting words in one language for words in another It is a matter of understanding the thought expressed in one language and then explaining it using the resources and cultural nuances of another language, so they can express the source text or speed so that it sounds natural in the target language.
Types of interpreting
There are two main modes of interpreting are: consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting.
In consecutive interpreting, the speaker delivers an idea in segments, which are rather large, and thereafter the interpreter orally translates that which is heard. Note-taking is very important in consecutive interpreting It is an interpreting mode in which the interpreter and speakers take turns This often requires interpreting notes and segmenting the input–getting across the crucial parts while leaving behind the unnecessary.
In simultaneous interpreting, the interpreter orally translates while the speaker is speaking In other words, during most of the simultaneity period the interpreter is listening and speaking at the same time Simultaneous interpreting usually requires special interpreting equipment (booths, console, headphones, etc.) The interpreter must have excellent short-term memory, receptive and productive skills, and specialist knowledge of the given work tools.
Moreover, these interpreting modes can be further divided into subcategories.For example, conference interpreting (booth interpreting), chuchotage (whispered interpreting),high consecutive and low consecutive
Consecutive interpreting
Russel (2005) defined consecutive interpreting as the process of interpreting after the speaker has completed one or more ideas in the source language (SL) and pauses while the interpreter transmits that information to the target language (TL) Jones (2002) stated that a consecutive interpreter is
“listening to the totality of a speaker’s comments, or at least a significant passage, and then reconstitutes the speed with the help of notes taken while listening; the interpreter is thus speaking consecutively to the original speaker”. Finally, consecutive interpreting is defined as the oral translation of the speaker's words into another language when the speaker has finished or pause for interpreting It's mean that the interpreter must give a structured and accurate rendering of the meaning of the statement with no major distortions of meaning, changes to the logical order of the statement or serious omissions of detail.
Consecutive interpreting takes time but may transfer more accurate information (Phelan 2001) The interpreter has to concentratively listen to the speaker, exactly understand, logically analyze the meaning of the message, then conceiving strategies for reformulating the message into the target language.
+ Unilateral: - Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph interpretation
- The whole speech, which may last five, ten minutes, up to half an hour or one hour.
Consecutive interpreting is often used in the following situations:
- Escorting a non-English speaking group within a large gathering of English speakers at a trade fair or exposition.
- Conferences where smaller working parties meet in room which lack telephonic interpreting facilities In this case, interpreters often sit alongside speakers and interpret at intervals.
Consecutive interpreting stages
I = The input stage The interpreter must have excellent hearing and receive the message without interference.
U = Understanding This is the most important stage of the, interpreting triangle Not understanding will result in a breakdown of communication.
D = Deciphering At this stage the interpreter gets rid of a11 the words, retaining the concept, the idea.
T = Transference The concept or idea is now transferred into the other language.
C+C = Context and Culture During the transfer stage the meaning is clarified by cultural and contextual considerations.
Ol = Output 1 The interpreter finds an equivalent idiomatic expression.
O2 = Output 2 The interpreter transfers the meaning.
According to Liu Minhua, there are five stages of in process consecutive interpretation: hearing and listening; analysis and comprehension; memorizing and note-taking; loading from memory and notes; delivery While an interpreter is listening, the process of analysis is involved which, according to the information processing, is for meaning seizing and information comprehension As the processing capacity or volume of memory of an interpreter is limited, they grasp the major ideas and let go the minor ones This stage involves the application of the interpreter’s ongoing assessment of contextual factors influencing the interaction, such as linguistic competence, the experiential and cultural frames of the participants who are interacting, along with their cross-cultural and cross-linguistic experience At this stage the interpreter also determines the output message in order to maintain message equivalence.
Gile (2009,pp.175-176) proposes a model for consecutive interpretation called an' Effort Model of Consecutive Interpreting'; this model is "performed in two phases the comprehension phase (or listening and note-taking phase), and the Speech Production (or Reformulation) phase They are modeled as follows: Phase one: CL=L+M+N+C
L is the listening and analysis component M is the short-term memory operation N refers to the note-taking component As the note-taking functions as the filter to help analyze the information, choose the main points and logical links, it is also a nonautomatic process which occupies some mental energy C is the coordination components which help to make a balance of their interaction when actually the three components are happening simultaneously.
Phase two: CL (reformulation) =Rem+Read+P (Gile, 1995:179)
The Rem component refers to recalling of the segments from memory The Read component means the reading of notes taken during the listening phrase. Actually the two components are complimentary and interacting Clear and logic notes help the interpreter to recall the meaning of source -language speech And they both serve the basis for P-production of the target-language speech.
Phase two is more difficult than phase one as it requires more memory processes In this phase, Rem relates to the retrieval of the parts of speech from the long-term memory If the notes taken by the interpreters are good, they will reduce the Rem processing operations In addition, the interpreter should employ the visual memory to retrieve the speech (Gile, 2009)
A common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese
In order to assess the quality of consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese at Thuongmai University, this paper bases its foundation on the studies of common difficulties that can be encountered by English-majored students in interpreting, which divide the most common difficulties into Linguistic , Listening and Speed, Note-taking and Memory.
Vocabulary contribute to 50% into improving your interpretation skill, this is a very important factor You need to master these factors if you want to become a good interpreter.
According to Chinh (2005), “lexical errors are the types of error, which directly distort the meaning and can lead to misunderstanding" Almost students said that lack of vocabulary leads them to lack of understanding and producing bad interpretation in target language It means that when the students mastered just limited vocabulary, they also lacked understanding of source language (SL) and were hard to convey the meaning to target language (TL).
For English, a word can have many separate meanings that are not related to each other Moreover, specialized vocabulary also became a barrier for interpreter. Simply, when you have no experiences on a field, the first time you hear specialized vocabulary about this field, you will not be able to understand, let alone interpret into another language properly Therefore, mastering all the meanings of each word is extremely important.
Consecutive interpreting is an immediate process, which leaves little margin for thought before action must take place It means using the correct word to express is not enough, but you need to use different sentence structures to convey appropriately and smoothly.
Incomplete sentences occur in speech because the students felt time pressure in their interpretation, their ideas have not been fulfilled, and they lack of grammar that lead them hard to express the ideas (Chinh, 2005) Incomplete sentences become one of the serious problems Since incomplete sentence leads to incorrect meaning or incorrect message, it will make misunderstanding from the client.Incomplete sentence makes bad interpretation product It is called as unfinished interpretation.Incoherent sentences make speech sounds messy, confused and the client cannot catch the information fully.
The close bond between language and culture is undeniable Vandaele (2010) believed that "many of the linguistic problems involved in translating humor cannot be strictly separated from cultural untranslatability, while others are related to linguistic particularities and metalinguistic communication" Hickley’s (2000) stated that "the text could not be transformed to fit the target language culture, not only due to time constraints but also to the fact that the listeners belonged to different cultures".
Every top interpreter have a responsibility to not only understand and be able to fluently speak the target language, they must also have a deep-rooted sense of cultural awareness, regional slang and idioms This requires you to understand all these languages as well as the customs between the two countries in order to use words appropriately In other words, many words, phrases or sentences in one language seem to be understandable, but it is not easy to put them into the ear in another language.One negotiation research study undertaken by the center has found that negotiators from the United States typically communicate their priorities more directly than do their Japanese counterparts because Japanese negotiators are generally good at making inferences Paris (2010) sustains that cultural jokes may be inappropriate and offensive and should, in general, be avoided in the context of dinner parties.
Besides, cultural differences in non-verbal behaviors are a common source of misunderstandings and conflict in the workplace For instance, many westerners like to make eye contact, interpreting it as an indication of interest and honesty. some cultures, averted eyes and non-demonstrable behaviour are a sign of courtesy and respect.
Effective listening is very important for comprehending the discourse in consecutive interpreting Gile (2009,p.160) uses listening and analysis effort as a separate component of interpreting process; he defines it as “consisting of all comprehension- oriented operations, from the subconscious analysis of the sound waves carrying the source-language speech which reach the interpreter’s ears through the identification of words to the final decisions about the ‘meaning’ of the utterance” For obvious reasons, it is essential that interpreters have acute hearing. However, it is quite possible that the interpreters will get nervous when they are listening to the speaker’s speech There are many difficulties in the process that the interpreters listen to the speaker's speech These difficulties affect directly to interpretation's product.
- The interpreters do not recognize English words in source language: This problem often encountered in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese. Most of the students said that they cannot distinguish English sounds, homophones, especially those with the same pronunciation They confuse phonological and phonological forms, especially some features of slurred speech Normally, they get used to the written words that organized orderly in a textbook Therefore, students find it hard to recognize separate words in the stream of speech These situations are frequently encounter when the message is spoken at such a rapid speed mood that the sentences uttered cannot be spoken word by word As a result, students cannot distinguish or recognize the words they hear and they may mistake with a lot of vocabulary that have the same pronunciation In addition, during consecutive interpreting, speakers will have difficulty hearing numbers, proper names and addresses With a short amount of time, they have to quickly process the information they just heard into the target language.
Actually, if the students miss many important words, this will not bring out good result The solution for the listener is practicing “phonetic or semantic shadowing (repeating, or rephrasing, without a change of language) Lambert (1992,p.262) defines shadowing as “a paced, auditory tracking task which involves immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli, i.e word-for-word repetition, in the same language, parrot style, of a message presented through headphones.” That is, the trainee-interpreters should listen to the ST, imitate the speaker of the ST to learn how to listen and speak simultaneously This method was of a great benefit for students in improving their pronunciation, understanding and paraphrasing abilities.
- The interpreters have difficulties on grasping main ideas of the speaker's speech: Some interpreters can not hear any important information when they try to hear one word and miss other important words of the speech Or because the listener is not able to deduce the main content of the text from the keywords, so they cannot obtain the main idea of the speech If students cannot grasp the main points, failure will be an inevitable result Almost the students cannot recognize the main points in a listening because they concentrate too much on listening to word by word Thus they cannot identify the key words or the content words of the listening tasks, students do not understand the sentence from the source language and anxiety when talking to the target language.
Problems from listening materials and equipment:
- Unfamiliar topic: Other difficulty in learning consecutive interpreting fromEnglish to Vietnamese is unfamiliar with the topic of the listening material as the topics are different in every session As stated by Ribas (2012) that “the novice students usually had the difficulties with lack of understanding and unfamiliarity with the topic in hand” Unfamiliar topics sometimes become a barrier in listening because the listening material may contain many fields in life or society such as a daily conversation, political issue, import-export field which confuse the listener Every field includes specialized words, phrases or terms unfamiliar to the listener, they are totally strange to them Thus, it is very hard for them to listen the speech with full of terminology May the interpreters have learned time in consecutive interpreting, unfamiliar topic will be a serious problem for interpreter if they do not have preparation.
- Different English accents: Yagang (1994) said that the listeners have tendency to get familiar with the accents which they mostly listen An accent is a way of pronouncing language and English is a world language with around 1.5 billion speakers Thus, people speak English in different accents.
A common problem for English-majored students is that they get used to their English teacher's accent When they expose to standard British or American accents, they will have a problem understanding to different accents During the process of learning consecutive interpreting in class, students have to not only deal with a variety of British, American and Australian accents, but might also have Indian or French, etc… Being familiar with different accents helps students become a better English speaker
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Method and procedures
The study was conducted at Thuongmai University The university is located in Hanoi, Vietnam, and was established in 1960 It ranked among the best universities specializing in the commercial field in Vietnam.
To conduct the research on common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese, the research selected English-majored students at Thuongmai University as the participants Most of the students have studied the Interpreting subject at school from the second-year. a) Research methods
In this study, the researcher selected the quantitative research method together with qualitative research one The quantitative method is used when the researchers are going collect and analyze numerical data It can be used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, causal test relationships, and generalize results The qualitative method is used when the researchers are going to study human behavior
The study was carried out based on interviews online and survey questionnaires.
The survey questionnaires were used to seek information about the English major students’ awareness of learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese The survey questionnaire, which was to collect quantitative information, aims to find the vocabulary learning difficulty of English majored students and to give solutions to improve learning consecutive interpreting The questionnaire contains 16 questions In more detail, it is divided into 4 parts Part I is about general information of respondents This part has 3 questions Part II is about standpoint of participants about some factors affecting interpreting skills and the interpreting competence of students It consists of 4 questions Part III is about interpreting difficulties in Vietnamese-English interpreting and in contrast It contains 8 questions And the last part, part V is designed to receive some suggestions from participants to solve difficulties in English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting with 1 questions In general, it can be said that the questionnaire is the most powerful tool for researchers to collect data quickly and fully.
According to Thanajaro (2000), qualitative interview helps the researchers to collect more in-depth insights on participant’s attitudes, thoughts The purpose of interviews is to ask some questions about their personal point of view toward consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese, the researcher can gain more detailed information about common difficulties that they encounter The interviews were conducted randomly among ten students having done the questionnaires.The interview has four main questions related to the difficulties participants face during doing interpreting tests, some factors affect on the interpretation skills as well as suggestions about some solutions to solve them The interview has four main questions related to the difficulties participants face during doing interpreting tests,some factors affect on the interpretation skills as well as suggestions about some solutions to solve them Because of Covid 19 pandemic, the interview can not conduct directly; therefore, the researcher use Zoom to complete it. b) Participants
The sampled population is the English-majored students at Thuongmai University who are at second-year, third- year and final year The reasons why the survey chooses this mode of research according to students’ grades are the followings:
Firstly, Thuongmai University has organized interpreting courses and they have already had learned Interpreting at university Therefore, they have experienced the difficulties they have met while learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese and those difficulties are the cornerstone for this research.
Secondly, they have learned a lot of knowledge about English at TMU They understand the importance and difficulty level of learning English in general and practice interpreting in particular Therefore, they have more experience to help the research be completed.
The participant is a cohort of 110 people, 26 males and 84 females They are students come from English Faculty at TMU They all have taken the interpreting course I chose these students because only those who took the interpreting exam can understand the feelings and difficulties in learning process and in the interpretation time From there, I can get more accurate results for my research The purpose of the research was explained to participants and permission was passed to collect and analyze the research results.
Firstly, researcher designed a questionnaire consisting of simple and specific questions.It consists of 15 questions which are related to the difficulties of students in interpreting course as well some factors affect on their ability in interpreting and some recommendation to improve interpretation skill.
Then the researcher sent the link of questionnaire to participants who have taken interpreting course Before asking the respondents to do the survey, the
After the questionnaire was complete by all of the participants, the results appeared on the site, and the researcher analyzes the data.
The data from questionnaires and all the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim The researcher used Microsoft Office software such asMicrosoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc., to show the results through specific tables and charts The data obtained from the observation was calculated and transferred into numerical form Statistics analysis was performed to specific statistics These figures were presented on tables, bar charts, pie charts for better illustration and explanation.
Findings and discussion
There are 110 fourth– year students of English Faculty at TMU participated in this research They are 24 second year students, 30 third year students and 56 final year students The researcher sent the link of questionnaire to participants who have taken interpreting course The data is analyzed in this part of the study in the below tables and charts which show the answers for questions in the questionnaire The aim of all following in-depth analyzes is providing a closer look at common difficulties in learning English - Vietnamese consecutive interpreting of the students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University who taking part in the survey.
3.2.1 Students’ attitudes toward consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese
3.2.1.1 Standpoint of participants about the importance of consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese.
The first question mentioned in the questionnaire is about learners’ opinion in learning consecutive interpreting to clarify the importance of interpreting skill for each student It is very essential for each student to recognize the role of consecutive interpreting to them as well as their future job.
Question: How is consecutive interpreting important to you?
Not Important Important Very Important
Chart 1 The importance of consecutive interpreting
As clearly shown in the chart that most of students recognized the importance of consecutive interpreting to them 53% of participants agree that consecutive interpreting played a very important role to them as well as their future job There are 40% students said that interpreting skill is important and only 7% of them underrated the role of consecutive interpreting From the above data, we see that most participants understand the importance of consecutive interpreting to them. The searcher also received the same answers when interviewing 10 students of the English department 8 students said that consecutive interpreting is very important for their future jobs as well as essential skills for students in Business English Others students consider it unnecessary in their chosen job after graduation
In the second question, students showed their feelings in the process of learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese The chart 2 bellow illustrated the assessment of the difficulty of learning English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting of English-majored students at TMU.
Question: How do you feel about learning English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting at Thuongmai University?
Chart 2 Students’ opinions about the process of learning English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting
The findings collected in chart 2 indicated that almost half of the participants show that learning learning English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting was difficult but interesting with the figure of 48.6%, followed by 36% said that it was difficult and not interesting The percentage of those said learning ESP vocabulary was easy and interesting or easy but not interesting which indicated the lower figures, with around 11.8% and 3,6% respectively Through asking this question, the researcher can affirm this topic is necessary for learners to realize the common difficulties they are in and finding out the reasons as well as solutions to improve it.
3.2.1.2 The interpreting competence of students
Question: What level of English -Vietnamese consecutive interpreting you are?
Chart 3: The interpreting competence of students
It can be seen in the chart that, out of 110 students, six of them are equivalent to 5.4% of the students with excellent competence The students who are good at consecutive interpreting account for 30.9 % equivalent to 34 people The remaining 47.2 % students is average at English listening (52 people) There are 16.5% students (18 respondents) who have bad consecutive interpreting skill All the participants are students of the English Faculty at TMU and their English must meet the school's entry requirements Their language ability is higher than students at other Faculty However, interpreting is an extremely difficult course so the students with excellent competence at consecutive interpreting are not much.
3.2.1.3 Students’ frequency of practicing English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting practice
Less than 1 hour From 1 to 3 hours More than 3 hours
Chart 4: Time to practice English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting
Because consecutive interpreting is very difficult to reach an excellent level,
However, students seem to spend very little time on practicing at home. According to the survey results, only 20% of the students (22 students) say they spend more than three hours per week to practice consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese Most of students spend one to three hours per week learning consecutive interpreting accounting for 46.4% equivalent to 51 students and 33.6%
(37 participants) spend less than one hour per week to practice at home.
Besides, when students were interviewed, some of them shared that they rarely practice consecutive interpreting at home, they only do the homework that their teachers gave them The time to self-practicing is almost zero Therefore, it is very hard for students to approach to any improvement or good result in consecutive interpreting.
The next two questions were designed to find out for students which skill is the most important and which one is the most difficult in English – Vietnamese consecutive interpreting.
The researcher interviewed 10 students about sources to self-learning at home. According to their answers, the available resources online such as VOA, TED Talk, Youtube, television are the main source they choose to practice consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese Because the time for practice interpreting in class is not much, they are the large sources with variety of fields students can find so you can try to interpret on various domains.
In summary, the information collected from the second part of the questionnaire shows the general attitude of students in English Faculty at TMU in learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese Most of the students are interested in this subject and know its importance to each person However, self- study is not paid much attention, so their level is still not high Due to the lack of practice, in the learning process, they still face up with many difficulties.
3.2.2 A common students’ difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese.
In part three of the questionnaire, all the questions were designed to find out the common difficulties of in English – Vietnamese consecutive interpreting that students encounter Then researcher will give out the reasons for these difficulties.
Table 1: The most important and difficult element for students in English –
From the figures in the table, we can see that memory was the most important in their consecutive interpretation with 33.6% The second most important factor for students was note taking (31.8%) 18.3% of participants agree with the statement about language proficiency as the important element in English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting and finally listening with 16.3% Hanh also mentioned to the importance of memory in her research on the subject of note taking in consecutive interpreting in 2006 that: "In consecutive interpreting, only when the speaker has completed the message does the interpreter begin his or her interpretation; the interpreter must have the ability to fully recall what has been said Therefore, good memory is a prerequisite of good interpreting Memory in consecutive interpreting refers to the capacity for storing and retrieving information of the interpreter (p.39).”
However, it is clear that memory and notes are equally important with more than 30% of choices Indeed, memory and note-taking have a closely relation, note taking also support for three other skills to deliver a good interpretation If you have a good memory, you will remember better with more information However, if you combine it with good note-taking skills, you will get even more information It does not mean that students only focus on these two skills, in order to be able to improve their ability to interpret consecutively, students need to improve all four factors above because it will be really difficult if we are shortage of one of them.
The next question is about which element is the most difficult in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese The findings collected in the table 1
20% of students find memory more difficult and and only 14.6% of students choose linguistic proficiency It means that the listening is actually an obstacle to students Many students say that they can not hear the source language clearly and they feel confused in taking notes and converting to target language It has greatly effect to the quality of interpretation’s product.
Problems Never Sometimes Often Always
Table 2 Difficulties related to linguistic
Students answered the question about linguistic difficulties depending on a scale of frequency ranging from never to always This table found most of the students encounter with the difficulties in linguistic and these difficulties is divided into three categories: