The effects of using mock conferences to teach interpretation skills to the 4th year cadets of the English department at military science academy

Mock conference has been documented as an effective way to prepare interpreters for future professional careers in many institutions. In Vietnam; however, its effectiveness remains inconclusive as research on this activity has been rarely reported.

1 INTRODUCTION

Recent years have witnessed a shift from the

trainer-centred to trainee-centred approach to

training interpreters as the new approach seems to

be process-oriented, contextualized, interactive,

and effective (Kiraly, 2000) One of the most

prevailing activities in trainee-centred approach

to training interpreters is using mock conferences

THE EFFECTS OF USING MOCK CONFERENCES

YEAR CADETS OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

AT MILITARY SCIENCE ACADEMY

ABSTRACT

Mock conference has been documented as an effective way to prepare interpreters for future professional careers in many institutions In Vietnam; however, its effectiveness remains inconclusive as research on this activity has been rarely reported Hence, this study presents the findings of effects of applying this activity to teaching interpretation skills to the

fourth-year cadets of the English Department at Military Science Academy An action research was conducted in one intact group at Military Science Academy via deploying three main instruments

Similarly, the effect of using the model was measured by statistical data Thus, the effect of the

mock conference on the cadets’ performance could be triple-checked The findings revealed that

the new activity did improve cadets’ interpretation skills as it brought about seven key benefits

Hence, it can be concluded that this activity may be a feasible solution to improving the quality

of teaching interpretation skills to the fourth year cadets at Military Science Academy so that they

can lay a good foundation for their future career as interpreters

Keywords: mock conference, activity, effects, interpretation skills, apply

since it is of highly professional and contextualized practice (Roy, 2000; Setton, 2006; Fernández and Sempere, 2010) However, the effectiveness

of applying mock conferences to teaching interpretation at Military Science Academy has still been inconclusive For these reasons, there

is a pressing need to examine the effectiveness

of mock conferences in the context of Military Science Academy

TRAN LE DUYEN * , LE THI CHUYEN **

* Military Science Academy,  duyenletran@gmail.com

** Military Science Academy,  chuyentuan2002@yahoo.com

Received: 13/3/2019; Revised: 09/4/2019; Accepted: 28/4/2019

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

A number of studies related to the implementation

of the mock conference in training interpreters

have been conducted in different parts of the world

Some studies show positive results For instance,

Setton and Dawrant (2016) reveal that conference

models provide trainees with opportunities to

practise in the most realistic situations Davis, Liao

and Lin (2003) also release that mock conferences

enhance learners’ sensitivity to communicative

contexts Likewise, Herrington and Oliver (2000)

and Hung and Chen (2002) unveil that mock

conferences act as a situated learning activity which

provides authentic contexts and enhances

learner-teacher interactions as well as prepares learners

with real-life working environment Moreover,

thanks to the simulated conference, learners are

able to be exposed to real-life situations (Jones,

1984) In addition, as Foster (2008) and Hyland

(1993) put it, this activity motivates learners and

scaffolds them from the classroom to the real

world Besides, Ardito (1999) unseals that in

interpretation training, mock conference mirrors

necessary aspects of pragmatics, inter-linguistic

communication and speech acts Last but not least,

according to Lim (2003), this simulated conference

provides trainees with real-world situations under

controlled circumstances Finally, this activity

facilitates learners to acquire interpreting skills

better (Lee 2005) In a nutshell, mock conference

has been applied in many institutions and its

effectiveness has also been tested However,

most of the aforementioned studies were carried

out in other learning environments It would;

thus, be worthwhile to examine the effectiveness

of the activity in the context of Military Science

Academy By doing so, can a clearer, broader

and more comprehensive picture about the

effectiveness of using mock conferences to teach

interpretation skills to the fourth-year cadets at

Military Science Academy be portrayed

3 RESEARCH QUESTION

This study aims to investigate the research question:

Are there any effects of mock conferences after they have been adopted to teach interpretation skills to the fourth-year cadets of the English Department at Military Science Academy?

4 THE RESEARCH METHOD 4.1 The procedures of data collection

The procedures of data collection were mapped out before the beginning of the first semester of the school year 2017-2018 Having fulfilled the procedure, the researcher directly taught the class

by applying mock conferences throughout the 18 lessons for nearly three months Next, a survey questionnaire was administered to the group Finally, an introspective with 3 most developed,

3 average developed and 3 least developed cadets was carried out, transcribed and analyzed

4.2 The background information about the two groups

In the school year of 2017-2018, there was only one military class of the English department at Military Science Academy studying interpretation Therefore, the intact group was chosen for the study The total number of cadets in this class is 22 They all have the same starting points as they have fulfilled seven academic terms, including seven different modules of translation Thus, they can

be assumed to have a certain threshold proficiency

in translation The last term covers interpretation modules and internship

4.3 Instruments

The three main instruments were used to obtain the data for the study as follows:

Instrument one: A survey questionnaire was

designed on the basis of Likert’s five scales to

find out the effect of using mock conferences on

cadets’ interpreting performance

Instrument two: Videos of the mock

conference were used as one instrument to find out

internal evidence of the research

Instrument three: An introspective interview

was conducted to triple-check the effects of the

mock conference on the cadets’ interpreting

performance

5 FINDINGS

5.1 Findings from the survey questionnaire

The cadets’ ratings of mock conferences are

presented in Table 1 As can be clearly seen in the

table, the percentages of cadets envisaging mock

conferences as a new, captivating, worthwhile,

useful and exciting learning experience are high

More statistically, the proportions of the choice

“totally agree” in the items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 made

by the cadets are 66.4, 39.8, 54.3, 75 and 65.6,

respectively Moreover, 0% is the figure of all the

options of “disagree” and “totally disagree” in all

items These figures decode that mock conferences are of a positive learning experience This also suggests that mock conferences can be perceived

as an effective learning activity as presented in the following table 1

The result of the survey questionnaire on the effects of adopting mock conferences to teach interpretation skills can be uncovered in the following charts 1

Chart 1 The effects of mock conferences of items 1-6 (N=22)

As indicated in the first chart, the number of the cadets choosing the answer “totally agree”

Table 1 Cadets’ ratings of mock conferences as a learning experience

Questionnaire Items Totally agree Agree Quite agree Totally disagree Disagree

1 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my

interpreting lessons are new learning experiences 66.4% 24.4% 9.2% 0% 0%

2 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my

interpreting lessons are captivating learning experiences. 39.8% 36.3% 23.9% 0% 0%

3 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my

interpreting lessons are worthwhile learning experiences. 54.3% 26.1% 19.5% 0% 0%

4 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my

interpreting lessons are useful learning experiences. 75% 16% 9% 0% 0%

5 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my

interpreting lessons are exciting learning experiences 65.6% 28.3% 6.1% 0% 0%

for the six questions concerning their motivations

in applying mock conference in learning

interpretation ranged from less than a half to 20 in

the total of 22 cadets surveyed Similarly, the data

of the cadets ticking “agree” and “quite agree”

options filled the rest of all the gaps Therefore,

there was no room for the options “disagree’ or

“totally disagree” These figures illustrate that the

cadets felt less stressful, more motivated and more

absorbed in this activity In other words, thanks to

mock conferences, the cadets could build up their

confidence in acquiring interpretation skills From

these statistics, it can be concluded that mock

conferences seemed to have positive effects upon

the cadets’ learning motivations

As for the cadets’ acquiring interpretation

skills, the findings from the survey questionnaires

also unveil that mock conferences appeared to

have brought about a plethora of merits The first

plus is the interpretation rotation for each cadets,

which is proved by the fact that the percentages of

cadets’ choice of “totally agree” and “agree” for

the question related to the frequency of rotating

their interpreting turns in the booth were 44.9 and

40.5, respectively This can be confirmed by the

findings from question 11 in which 96.3% cadets

stated their preference for “totally agree” in the

option “mock conferences provides opportunities

for me to practise different real-life situations”

Moreover, being asked if they could have their

creativeness promoted when fulfilling the assigned

tasks of mock conferences, 77.6% informants

favored the choice “totally agree” Question 9

asked the participants whether the conference

model enriched their background knowledge

in terms of both linguistics and interpretation

skills 0% was the proportion of the selection of

all the three scales: “quite agree”, “disagree” and

“totally disagree” In contrast, 88.8% preferred the

answer “totally agree” In addition, having their

interpretation environment familiarized is another

pivotal benefit of utilizing the mock conference

Indeed, 100% informants nodded their head with

the options “totally agree”, “agree” and “quite agree”, leaving no room for the two other scales

“disagree” and “totally disagree” in question

10 Besides, question 12 also uncaps one more benefit of applying mock conferences in teaching interpretation: enabling the cadets to manage their time in a scientific and rational way In short, mock conferences seemed to be beneficial to those who had applied them to acquiring interpretation skills

as seen in chart 2

Chart 2 The effects of mock conferences of items 7-12 (N=22)

The third chart also depicts the positive effects of mock conferences upon the cadets’ interpreting performance At the first glance,

it can be clearly envisioned that the choices

of “totally agree” and “agree” accounted for a weighty net in the overall picture of the four listed questions; whereas, the choice of the rest two scales was made by no informant Statistically,

20 out of 22 respondents picked out the choice

“totally agree” and “agree” in the item stating that they performed better interpreting attainments thanks to mock conferences Furthermore, the figures for the cadets’ selection of “totally agree” for the benefits of conference model in terms

of harnessing collective wisdom, enhancing interactions and bringing all the existing facilities into full play in items 14, 15 and 16 are 2, 13 and

18, correspondingly Therefore, the results of all the aforementioned questions skewed towards the vertical axis as follows

Chart 3 The effects of mock conferences of items

13-16 (N=22)

Chart 4 The effects of mock conferences of items

13-16 (N=22)

The promising outcomes of the application of

mock conferences are also unsealed by the figures

in chart 4 Obviously, the four last questions

were posed with a view to rejecting the doubt as

to whether the model has long-term effects on

the cadets’ career orientation The results of the

questionnaire reveal that the doubt can be rejected

More specifically, only one cadet picked out the

option “disagree” in item 18; whereas, other items

17, 19 and 20 witnessed a high ratio of agreements

among the informants when 16, 21 and 22

participants ticked “totally agree” In other words,

mock conferences result in a significant difference

in the cadets’ orientation for their future job as it is

a context-bound activity (Chart 5)

Together with the aforementioned questionnaires, 19 other questions were designed with a view to getting an insight into their acquisition of interpreting tactics and skills necessary for their future job as what they have been instructed in their textbook Apparently, nearly all the part and parcel requirements, tactics and skills for interpreters have been trained via mock conferences As envisioned in chart 5, the cadets’ total scores for the items concerning the opportunities to train their concentration, comprehension tactics, self-reflecting performance, on-site problem solving skills, note-taking skills short-term memory, preparing real-life-oriented conferences, preventive tactics and public speaking skills were all above 100 out of 120 Moreover, mock conferences also enable them to be exposed

to many other interpreting tactics and skills such

as complying with professional ethics, bridging gaps between two cultures, reconstruction tactics, summarizing skills, anticipating skills, sharing attention between listening ahead and note-takings, monitoring production, simplifying skills,

Chart 5 The cadets’ total scores of skills and tactics acquired from mock conferences (N=22)

reformulating skills and visualizing skills when

the total scores of these items are 59 minimally

and 99 maximally as follows

In a nutshell, from the aforementioned statistical

findings of the study, it is possible to conclude that

mock conferences could have positive effects on

cadets’ interpretation performance and acquisition

of interpretation skills

5.2 Findings from the cadets’ videos and

introspective interview

The research question “Are there any effects of

mock conferences after they have been adopted

to teach interpretation skills to the fourth-year

cadets of the English Department at Military

Science Academy? was fully answered when the

two other angles of the study: the cadets’ videos

and the introspective interview were portrayed

The use of mock conferences uncapped the

following benefits

To begin with, mock conferences were likely

to enhance the cadets’ awareness of autonomy

and cooperative work for better interpretation

performance as they themselves had to fulfill all

the tasks In order to accomplish their assigned

tasks, each group had to explore information

related to the topic they had chosen from different

sources Also, they had to cooperate with each

other to fulfill their job in a smooth way

In addition, mock conferences appeared to

orientate the cadets to study in a systematic and

comprehensive way Indeed, they had to make all

the necessary preparations for their conferences

such as nominating or electing the leader and

other roles for each conference; mapping out the

content outline, the scripts, the procedures and

backgrounds for their conferences Moreover, they

had to rehearse their tasks until all the members had

mastered their roles Finally, they had to present

their conference in the cabin with some unexpected

interference from other groups and lecturers

Moreover, this activity seemed to create

opportunities for the cadets to learn from their own weaknesses and strengths in a frank and free manner Furthermore, the new activity was likely

to pave the way for the cadets to learn from their partner’s weaknesses and strengths Indeed, when fulfilling their mission, they learned from each other and internalized what they had acquired in class and delivered their speeches, discussions and negotiations The role of the teacher, hence, was to guide this “cadet-led” learning by ensuring information quality and to give them the tools to teach each other

Another benefit of mock conferences revealed

by the interview and videos is that this activity taught the cadets about the real-life world They had to solve problems facing their community, country, region and the world Likewise, they needed to integrate a wide range of skills and used them in simulated tasks to check their readiness to begin their career as interpreters In other words, the use of mock conference with scaffolding from peers and lecturers may have served as a lever to arm them with real-life scenarios It also served as a bridge joining classroom realism and professional realism, paved the way for them to embark into their career of interpretation Hence, they had remarkable career orientations involved

in professional experiences

Besides, it is possible that mock conferences could bring about cadets’ positive attitudes and motivations towards their interpretation skills Mock conferences activated their imagination and creativity which the cadets were naturally inclined

to do Hence, they enjoyed exploring new places, sharing common experiences with teammates and friends They also strove to conquer the highest rate of their academic attainments as this activity accounted for 25% of their total scores of their interpretation subject

Furthermore, mock conferences built their leadership skills As the cadets had to take turns

to deliver interpretation and to chair their meeting

as well as to guide their group towards their goals,

they themselves developed leadership skills via

teamwork and negotiations

Last but not least, these lessons might have

enhanced mutual interactions between the lecturer

and the cadets and the cadets themselves Most

importantly, thanks to cadets’ reflections on the

lecturer’s tasks, she/he could find out the strengths

and weaknesses to adapt methodology for better

lessons

It would also be interesting to find out that

there was a close correlation between the times the

cadets’ participation in delivering interpretation

during their mock conferences and their academic

attainments of the interpretation subject It

seemed that the more frequently they took turn in

interpreting delivery, the more flying colours they

got In fact, each cadet had to join at least three

different mock conferences for their interpretation

subject However, the group members and the

roles of each member changed from time to time

Of all the conferences, one was performed by two

11-member groups to take place of the mid-term

test The cadets; therefore, had one week to make

all necessary preparations for what they were going

to do; and their turn in delivering interpretation in

the booth was of parity As for the rest cadets, the

number of members in each group varied as the

lecturer assigned them on-the-spot They had no

preparations in advance Hence, each member’s

turn in delivering in interpretation in the booth

was not of equality The following table illustrates

the positive correlation between the figures of

each group member whose turn in delivering

interpretation ranged from three to eight and the

mean scores of all the mock conferences they held

and participated in

However, applying mock conferences to their

interpreting lessons seemed to be a challenging

task to the cadets for many reasons First, they are

fledgling trainees with limited prior contextualized

practices Moreover, interpretation itself is a burdensome subject meanwhile the cadets had never had any chance to deliver interpretation

in reality Another obstacle lies in time strain in completing their task before deadline The final worry is their limited background knowledge of the topic needed for the interpretation tasks

In general, from this study, it might be concluded that mock conferences could be

Table 2 The correlation between the times of the cadets’ participation in delivering interpretation during their mock conferences and the mean scores of mock conferences

Cadets delivering interpretation Cadets’ turns in

during mock conferences

Cadets’ mean scores of mock conferences.

beneficial to the cadets within a tight schedule at the

English Department of Military Science Academy

6 DISCUSSIONS OF THE FINDINGS

After the aforementioned findings have been

presented, it is interesting to unveil that there exists

some coincidence with many other researchers as

follows

First, as the cadets had been promised to

get some marks as a bonus at the end of the

semester, the cadets seemed to enjoy their mock

conferences It is likely that when they took part

in mock conferences, they tended to assume more

responsibility for their learning and their set goals

as mock conferences could allow them to think

critically and become more pro-active, independent

and self-regulated learners The findings are

supported by such researchers as García-Carbonell

and Watts (2010), Fernández and Sempere (2010)

and Foster (2008) Moreover, there seemed to

be some positive changes in the area of personal

achievement orientation and reflect on learning

as a process This is backed by Lee (2011) Apart

from that, mock conferences were likely to be

found to be dual-valued in which they could offer

the opportunity for both the teacher and the cadets

to enhance their mutual interactions as found in

Lin, Davis and Liao (2004) More importantly,

mock conferences seemed to be ideal tools for

the teacher to encourage learners’ autonomy (Lin,

Davis and Liao, 2004)

In conclusion, the mock conference could

be advantageous to the cadets in the study The

effectiveness could be explained by the design

of mock conferences, the context of learning and

teaching as well as the purpose of the course

7 CONCLUSION

In this study, some major issues concerning the

use of mock conferences to teach interpretation

skills have been taken into account in order to

elaborate the benefits of using this activity in teaching interpretation skills to the fourth-year cadets of the English Department at Military Science Academy An action research was conducted on 22 fourth-year cadets at Military Science Academy Furthermore, an introspective interview was also conducted over 9 cadets (3 most developed, 3 average developed and 3 least-developed cadets) after the interpretation course Cadets’ interpretation videos were also used to illustrate the results of the findings Statistical data was calculated to find out the true effects of adopting mock conferences to interpretation skills The study revealed 7 benefits of applying the mock conference to teaching interpretation skills

to those cadets; namely, serving as a vehicle for enhancing cadet’s awareness of autonomy and cooperative work both inside and beyond the classroom; developing problem-solving skills; orientating cadets to study in a systematic and comprehensive way in which they could entry into their future profession; acting as a bridge where both the teacher and the cadets have opportunity of mutual interactions; raising the cadets’ learning motivation and positive attitudes towards interpretation skills, reflecting the public speaking and inter-linguistic communication skills and bridging between classroom realism and professional realism However, there should

be further studies on this issue so that the generalization of these findings can be made for better outcomes

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HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC ÁP DỤNG HỘI THẢO MẪU VÀO GIẢNG DẠY DỊCH NÓI

CHO HỌC VIÊN NĂM THỨ 4 KHOA TIẾNG ANH – HỌC VIỆN KHOA HỌC QUÂN SỰ

TRẦN LÊ DUYẾN, LÊ THỊ CHUYÊN Tóm tắt: Hiện nay, nhiều cơ sở đào tạo dịch thuật trên thế giới đã và đang sử dụng hội thảo mẫu để

đào tạo phiên dịch viên Tuy nhiên, hiệu quả thực sự của hoạt động này vẫn chưa được kiểm chứng đầy đủ ở Học viện Khoa học Quân sự Vì lẽ đó, nghiên cứu này được tiến hành ở một lớp năm thứ tư tại Học viện Khoa học Quân sự, thông qua ba công cụ nghiên cứu nhằm kiểm chứng hiệu quả của hội thảo mẫu trong dạy môn dịch nói Kết quả nghiên cứu được phân tích dựa trên cơ sở dữ liệu thống

kê từ câu hỏi điều tra, phỏng vấn hồi tưởng và băng video quay được từ hội thảo mẫu nhằm khẳng định hiệu quả thực sự của phương pháp này Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy, hội thảo mẫu mang lại bảy lợi ích trong dạy và học môn dịch nói cho học viên năm thứ tư Khoa tiếng Anh - Học viện Khoa học Quân sự, góp phần chuẩn bị hành trang cho nghề phiên dịch trong tương lai

Từ khóa: hội thảo mẫu, biện pháp, hiệu quả, kỹ năng phiên dịch, áp dụng

Ngày nhận bài: 13/3/2019; ngày sửa chữa: 09/4/2019; ngày duyệt đăng: 28/4/2019

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1 Survey questionnaire

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

This survey questionnaire is designed to investigate the effects of using mock conferences to teach interpretation skills to the

4 th year cadets of the English Department at Military Science Academy You are eligible for the study as you have already finished your interpretation subject Your support in fulfilling the survey will be highly appreciated You can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data.

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

I Personal information: Please cross (x) in the box that is true for you

2 You have been learning English for

10 years more than 10 years

II The followings are the statements concerning the effects of the mock conferences you have applied in your interpretation lessons I would like you to indicate your opinion of each statement by choosing the option that is true for you Your option should be indicated by a cross (x).

Numbers Questionnaire Items Totally agree Agree agree Quite disagree Totally Disagree

1 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons are useful learning experiences

2 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons are captivating experiences.

3 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons are worthwhile experiences.

4 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons are beneficial experiences.

5 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons are motivating experiences.

6 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons create motivations for me to study my interpretation subject better

7 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons create a good learning environment for me to study my interpretation subject

8. The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons create inspirations for me to study my interpretation subject better

9 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons facilitate my acquisition of the interpretation subject better

10 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons build up confidence in my acquisition of the interpretation subject

11 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons ease my pressures on my acquisition of the interpretation subject

12 The mock conferences I have taken part in in my interpreting lessons create more opportunities for me to take turns in delivering interpretation

in the booth.