Exploring student interpreters’ engagement with different sources of feedback on note-taking

ABSTRACT

Note-taking is a critical part of interpreting teaching and learning. During note-taking training, feedback is crucial to help student interpreters hone relevant skills, and the effectiveness of feedback hinges on students’ engagement. This case study investigates students’ affective, cognitive, and behavioural engagement with feedback on notes from two major sources: peer and teacher. Eight student interpreters were recruited and divided into two groups. The feedback texts, interpreting notes, study journals, and interview transcriptions were coded and analysed. While the two groups both had positive and negative feelings, they preferred teacher feedback. Students’ cognitive engagement showed differences in meta-cognitive operations. Some students’ behavioural engagement was inconsistent with the other two dimensions. The results suggest that students should utilise different sources of feedback to achieve their learning goals, and the study provides some insights for teachers to improve feedback activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpreting
• note-taking
• feedback
• engagement
• interpreting pedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruqian Xue

Ruqian Xue is an MA student at the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University, China. Her main research interests include feedback and assessment of translation and interpreting.

Qin Liu

Qin Liu is an MA student at the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University, China. Her main research interests include feedback and assessment of English learning, second language acquisition, and interpreting studies.