A Washback Study of Interpreting Contest on English Interpretation Instruction

Abstract

Interpreting contest has important washback impact on interpreting instruction at higher education. A survey was conducted during the National Interpreting Contest in recent years in Shanghai, including questionnaires of 41 contestants (f=25, m=16) and interviews with 7(f= 5, m=2) randomly selected tutors. Findings revealed that 89.74% of the contestants were quite satisfied at the contest in enhancing their confidence and 57.89% agreed that their interpreting skills and competence were improved. Moreover, 92.16% contestants believed that such contest was very necessary or necessary, with 5.26% disagreed and 2.63% uncertain. The contestants gave feedback on the design of interpretation teaching syllabus and teaching approaches, and tutors gave some insights from the contest and the performance of their students in it, which is valuable and worth studying to improve the teaching and education of interpreting in Shanghai and nationwide as well. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether such contest could have positive washback impact on the education of interpreting in China.