The objective of this MA thesis was to offer a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the practice of peer feedback in the context of interpreter training and, specifically, under the Entraînement supervisé framework used in the FTI.
Deliberate practice requires that students work on developing metacognitive skills that will help them to continue improving their interpreting skills through a well-structured goal-oriented practice that allows them to work both autonomously and in groups (Arumi et al., 2006). In that line, studies suggest that when working in groups, peer feedback can help students develop an understanding of the interpreting process and to get valuable information about their own performance from peers that are going through the same process. The question was, how do students apply and view peer feedback in the framework of a deliberate practice approach, such as the FTI’s ES?
To answer the question, I gathered a peer feedback corpus of the consecutive interpreting feedback given by four students inside their own ES group during their second semester to then analyse it and compare it to their answers to a questionnaire regarding the practice of sharing peer feedback during their trainings. The Consecutive ELPs and the ES guide were the basis of the analysis, as it set a timeframe and criteria regarding their peer feedback, serving as a bridge to examine the differences and similarities between the student’s perception of peer feedback and their comments on their peers’
performance during the second semester.
7.2. Findings
The comparison of the corpus and the questionnaire shed light into how the principles of deliberate practice are applied and perceived by the students regarding the development of metacognitive skills in interpreting, autonomous and group learning and goal-setting as a learning tool. It should be noted that the findings are based on a small sample of students and ideally further studies employing the same parameters would provide a richer perspective.
7.2.1. Autonomous and group learning
The findings of the corpus and the questionnaire suggest that students regard peer feedback as a way to learn about the interpreting process. They seem to think that giving and receiving feedback amongst
91
themselves helps them gain insight into the performance of their peers that they can then apply to themselves. This is supported by the amount of times in which peer feedback stimulates discussion about interpreting strategies in general, solutions and possible difficulties that arise in a real-life situation, which allows them to put into words their own thoughts, disagree on how to tackle a difficulty, learn of new ways to face them and ask for advice.
Moreover, students seem to value the feedback from their peers; they found it to be useful to improve their own performance. This applies to both the feedback they receive and the feedback they provide, as seen in the generally constructive tone of the feedback shared during the sessions recorded for the corpus and the answers to the questionnaire.
Students also consider peer feedback a motivational tool that helps them remain positive during a potentially stressful training course. Most of them appreciated the encouragement it provided and pointed out that it was important to keep them motivated.
7.2.2. Goal-setting
If there was an aspect in which the perspective of the students and the peer feedback shared in the corpus significantly differed, that was regarding goal setting. Choosing a personal objective during practice and working towards it is an important part of deliberate practice, as it makes learning more manageable and it helps students focus on different parts of their performance.
In the questionnaire, students seemed to consider goal setting as important to their learning and to peer feedback, but the corpus did not seem to reflect this view, since they seldom discussed their ad hoc personal objective or even voiced it, in many cases. This disconnect has been discussed in the compared analysis and a few reasons have been considered to try to explain this phenomenon. It could be that the group dynamics do not invite the students to set an objective, because of the emphasis put on ES as a space in which students take control of their own learning. As they are freer to set their own rules, it can be harder to maintain the same discipline as in traditional classes. It is possible that there is a lack of internalization of the practical importance of goal setting and further guidance from teachers and TAs is required, so students have a deeper understanding of the need for these objectives and how to define their own.
Another possibility is that the structure of the ES would benefit from greater definition. For example, students have an outline of how to conduct their peer feedback and they tend to follow it (first
self-92
assessment, then original speaker, target language feedback, other comments and advice), so it is possible that creating a schedule and assigning the responsibility of noting the objectives to a member of the group on a rolling basis could help them remember to set objectives and to voice them, the way assistants do when they visit the ES: how to do it and who will be charged with this task could be left for the students to decide on a case by case basis.
7.2.3. Metacognition
Another of the aims of this MA thesis was to understand how students view different aspects of consecutive interpreting indicated in the ELPs and how they apply them to their peer feedback during their ES sessions.
Depending on the categories, there were different overlapping measures about how they perceive the feedback they share with their classmates. Content was the most widely discussed aspect in peer feedback and was rated as very important by the students. However, there is a divide between “main and secondary ideas”, which are discussed often and considered very important, and “logical structure and terminology”, which are seen as equally important but are discussed less frequently, although they are also an integral part of the message. Students may benefit from a stronger emphasis on the latter as it is key to a quality performance (Moser-Mercer, 1996).
Students also consider delivery and pre-interpreting aspects (personal objective, complexity of original, preparation) to be important, but they seldom discuss them during feedback. This suggests that students might not feel as comfortable giving their take on those elements of peers’ performance.
It may be interesting to explore this, if it is due to a lack of understanding of said elements or if students do not know how to improve these elements by themselves.
Moreover, form and style were elements ranked as important by the students taking the questionnaire, but not discussed accordingly during the corpus recordings. Perhaps due to a lack of compatibility regarding target languages in the studied group, but it should be noted that it is not an isolated case.
It could be beneficial in these cases to encourage students who share an active language to organize language-focused ES. This is already attempted between students as “booth meetings” and it would be worth exploring how to use the idea in a more structured and regular manner as part of group training sessions, especially in classes where non-active language compatible groups are common.
93
Advice and solutions were confirmed to be an important part of peer feedback in the corpus and in the students’ opinion, as they appreciate constructive feedback and suggestions on how to improve from their peers.
7.2.4. Perspectives
Finally, since this MA thesis focuses on peer feedback during interpreting practice, it would be interesting to conduct a similar study on simultaneous interpreting peer feedback. It would allow to explore the differences between peer feedback given to performances in the two modes and it would continue to help analyze the impact of peer feedback in conference interpreter training. It would be advisable to conduct during the last semester, as it is when students feel more comfortable with simultaneous interpreting and it is when they start to take the time to listen to each other during their performances in this mode, especially when they can use recordings as an original speech.
7.3. Conclusions
There are still ways in which peer feedback could be improved to be more useful to the students’
learning and performance, for example, by tweaking the present system to try to address shortcomings, such as lack of target language feedback or guidance regarding personal objectives.
However, all the above confirms that peer feedback has a positive impact on the learning process students of conference interpreting undergo during their training, both to improve their performance and to keep a positive outlook on what they yet have to learn, which is helpful to their overall learning both during the program and later on, having acquired the knowledge necessary to keep learning autonomously.
94