MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TONG THI HUONG LE EXPLORE NOTE TAKING STRATEGIES FOR INTERPRETATION USED BY ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE, 2012 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TONG THI HUONG LE EXPLORE NOTE TAKING STRATEGIES FOR INTERPRETATION USED BY ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES \ FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: PHAM HOA HIEP, D. HUE, 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In order to complete this thesis, along with my own efforts, it was my luck to receive many supports. Firstly, I would like to send my special thanks to my instructor, Doctor Pham Hoa Hiep who has the attitude and substance of a great teacher: he continually and convincingly conveyed a spirit of serious working attitude and inspired me the excitement in regard to researching. Without his guidance and persistent help, this research would not have been possible.
I would like to express my appreciation to all the teachers in English Department of Hue College of Foreign Languages, who had provided me with helpful knowledge as well as helpful advice and supports in the process of conducting the research. In addition, a thank to other learners in M.A class who had given me useful advices and English majored students in interpretation classes of Hue College of Foreign Languages, whose contributions for the thesis’s result were extremely meaningful. I also thank my family and friends who are always by my side, encourage and give me more motivation to complete the research. ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to explore issues in note taking skill required for students majoring interpretation.
Particularly, it attempts to find out the common note taking problems and suggest helpful note taking strategies for students majoring in interpretation. The data for this thesis were obtained through the use of questionnaires distributed to 60 students majoring in interpretation at Hue College of Foreign Languages. Interviews were also conducted with 6 students majoring in interpretation. The findings reveal that students have poor competence in note taking skill.
From students‟ perspectives, common note taking problems such as difficulty in listening, taking short notes, organizing ideas and others are noted. A number of useful strategies which can help develop note taking skill are suggested. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract. Table of contents…………………………………………………………….
List of figures and tables ……………………………………………………….3 Objectives of the study .4 The scope of the study.5 Organization of the study .4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATER REVIEW 2.1 Definition of note taking. Stages in note taking .3 Interpretation and the importance of note taking to interpretation .1 An overview of interpretation .1 Definition and types of interpretation .2 Requirements of interpretation work .3 Interpretation worldwide and in Vietnam .2 Importance of note taking to learning and interpretation .4 Common problems and strategies in note taking .1 Common problems in note taking .2 Strategies in note taking .2 Data collection method .3 Data collection instruments .28 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 Students‟ competence of note taking .1 Students‟ perception of note taking skill .2 Students‟ note taking competence .2 Students‟ difficulties in note taking .1 Students‟ common problems in note taking .2 Major consequences caused by difficulties in note taking .3 Major reasons of difficulties in note taking.3 Students‟ evaluation on self-training process .1 Students‟ perception of self – recommendation of note taking methods .2 Students‟ evaluation on the effectiveness of self-recommended strategies .4 Possible solutions for difficulties in note taking .1 Students‟ self - solutions .2 Major criteria in note taking .3 Strategies for note taking skill .1 Students’ perception on the necessity of pointing out note taking strategies .2 Helpful note taking strategies in interpretation .61 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 5.3 Limitations of the study .4 Recommendations for Further Study .69 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES List of figures Figure 2.1: The process of note taking Figure 2.3: Samples of charts and diagrams used in note taking Figure 4.1: Students‟ perception of the difficulty of note taking skill Figure 4.2: Frequency of note taking in interpretation classes Figure 4.3 Notes‟ quantity taken from speeches Figure 4.4: Main reasons of students‟ difficulties in note taking Figure 4.5: Students‟ perception of finding out own methods Figure 4.6: Frequency of using students‟ own method in class Figure 4.7: Students‟ perception of “usually exercising” Figure 4.8: Common criteria to base on when taking notes Figure 4.9: Students‟ perception of the necessity of pointing out note taking strategies Figure 4.10: Certain useful strategies in note taking List of tables Table 4.1: Common problems in note taking Table 4.2: Helpfulness of students‟ own methods Table 4.3: Students‟ solutions for their problems CHATER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction "Interpreters constitute an integral part of the intercultural dialogue. They build confidence among cultures. They are the “bridge” that connects one cultural world with another, one language with another; they are the link in the chain of cultures." (Resta, 2010: 5) In line with the expanding of global transportation and telecommunication networks, travel and trade between people and countries have increased dramatically in recent years.
Communication becomes vital and has led to a vigorous demand for translating and interpreting. Without interpreters and translators, people would not able to know what American, English, French, Chinese, German people say, and could not read Victor Hugo, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. Typically, interpretation work was originally created when the appearance of language met the demand of goods exchanging between tribes (Jacobsen, 1958) and concurrently is an indispensable career in strong globalized time. When people hear the word "interpreter", they think of someone translating the word and being able to speak two languages well enough to communicate with native speakers, but the skills demanded of interpreters go beyond that.
Interpreters must be linguistic bridge and cultural gaps, which means translating concepts, instead of a literal word-for-word translation. Though interpreters often select few areas of specialty, their working environment is extensive including science, education, environment, trade, legal, etc. People now easily catch the appearance of interpreters in visits, formal conferences or international-guest receptions with the presence of foreigners. Working in such an environment, not only for the mutual 1 understanding, interpreters‟ affair is also helping for enhancing the mutual- relationship‟s development.
Also mentioning about this, Vu Khoan (2011) compares interpretation work as a bridge and if that bridge is cranky and unsecure, it might break international relationship down. Truly, Resta (2010) also regards interpreters as a valuable asset throughout foreign relations. In Vietnam, for a very long time, most of interpreters were those who were only trained with foreign languages within four or five years in universities and had no chance to really major in interpretation skills. Until the middle of 1990s, a number of projects were conducted in Vietnam and since then, the whole society has witnessed the appearance of interpreter staff who are quite skillfully trained (Nguyen Duy Bao Khang).
Documents have shown varied methods in training the job (Bogucki, 2010; Johnson, 2002; Monash University, 2009) with the aim of providing trainees with basic skills used for interpretation. It is required, after the training process, that learners will achieve good linguistic competence, listening and speaking skill, problems-analyzing skill and especially note taking skill. Since people cannot afford to memorize all kinds of information and writing speed is always slower than speaking, Boch & Annie (2005) define note taking as a vital method to help them to recall what has been mentioned before by short forms of words, sentence structures, etc. However, it is not simple to get good notes like that as interpreters cannot jot down every word they hear and even they can do so, notes will be nothing more than a mess.
Thus, in order to make notes done correctly and effectively, interpreters must have judicious strategies. Hue College of Foreign Languages (HCFL) is among of universities teaching interpretation within the last few years and students, hence, are frequently trained to take notes in interpretation classes. However, the way to use strategies in note taking is much personal and students certainly cannot definitely avoid problems while taking notes. Meanwhile, there has been no official research conducted to find out strategies that English majored students in HCFL used to deal with problems in interpretation.
This study, 2 therefore, aims to investigate certain strategies for interpretation used by English majored students in HCFL.2 Rationale According to Jones (2002: 39), "note taking is the essential part of a consecutive interpreter's work done in the activities of understanding, analysis and re-expressions" and consequently, note taking strategies are indispensable to support interpreters' work. Firstly, by using precise and sound strategies, interpreters will know the best ways to shorten the noting time. This is extremely important as the average speech reaches from 125 to 150 words per minute while a normal person can only write 25 words for a minute and undoubtedly, interpreters cannot note down all spoken words within such amount of time (Tran Tri Dung, 2010). Additionally, having appropriate strategies in note taking helps the speech‟s content to be scientifically showed and thus, interpreters will find it easy reviewing and reproducing the transcription.
It is truthful that all those notable strategies are properly used to deal with certain difficulties interpreters often encounter in interpretation. The study, therefore, will be conducted to explore such strategies used in interpretation by English majored students in HCFL.3 Objectives of the study The thesis aims to investigate the note taking strategies employed by English majored students at Hue University College of Foreign Languages (HCFL).The study particularly aims to answer the following questions: 1.What are the difficulties which students often meet when taking notes in interpretation classes? 2.What can be done to help students overcome those difficulties ? 1.4 The scope of the study The study was conducted at HCFL with approximately 60 English majored students in two interpretation classes of HCFL. A half of them are third year students and the rest are last year students. All of them were trained with 3 interpretation in class and frequently used certain strategies to take notes when interpreting.5 Organization of the study The thesis consists of 5 chapters: Chapter 1 presents the reasons and objectives of the study, its scope, and organization.
Chapter 2 reviews the key issues in note taking and its role in the interpretation process. Chapter 3 describes the methods and procedure used to complement the research. Chapter 4 presents the findings of the study in relation to the research questions. Chapter 5 summarizes the key findings and offers suggestions for teachers and students.
\ 4 CHATER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents the background knowledge of the thesis. A review of past researches, projects, surveys, and articles provides us with a principal understanding of note taking skill, interpretation and the vital role of the skill to interpretation work. Definitions of “note taking” and “interpretation” together with three major interpretation types and requirements of interpretation will be presented with a cautious look. The chapter will also present a comprehensive view about the current state of interpretation worldwide and in Vietnam.
It is essential for pointing out and describing how the skill is relevant to interpretive work, major problems and strategies when processing the skill. The chapter will conclude by summarizing the main points of discussion and show the rigor for this study.1 Definition of note taking In learning, besides careful listening to teachers‟ lecture in class, note taking is an indispensable task to students whereby they can store what they cannot remember for later revision. It is hard to deny the fact that how to get an effective note taking from lectures is an essential skill for university study. Hence, what is note taking? A number of note taking‟s definitions and researches on the techniques, strategies or effectiveness of the skill have been carried out.