The academic article I referred about in the previous post is raising a big question mark in terms of listening strategies for the non-native learner of Japanese. I have never read anything about the subject. For an interpreter, the listening/understanding rate target is 100%. That's the theory. In practical terms, and whether one is on training or on-the-job mode, the situations are different. What are the audio cues, the stresses to focus on when listening to Japanese? What is so specific that must absolutely not get lost at the understanding level with the topography of the Japanese sentence? The literature referring to that matter seems to solely focus on English as a foreign language. There is nothing I am aware of to pull a string from and think about Japanese instead of English. A conscious self-analysis on the way oneself is listening might be the approach, but if so, how to do it?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Listening skill
Listening skill in B language is paramount to anything else. I am glad to read in the latest delivery of the JAITS 通訳翻訳研究 a text about listening skill for the basic interpreting training by Miyuki Tanaka of 大東大文化大学. The text highlights the gap within interpretation students in Japan between the fairly advanced individuals with those with a net below required competence in their B language, especially at the listening level. As already heard around, schools of interpreting here are perceived by many as a way to beef up ones shortcomings in B language. It certainly explain why there are books here claiming to exploit "interpretation learning techniques" to grow in foreign language acquisition. The author probes into possible ways to exploit what the language trainers know about reinforcing listening competence. I too have a mix of students that all more or less struggle at various degree to understand natural French in audio format. It's a good thing for alternate interpreting trainers as stating as I do that I provide strategies to raise L2 competence from the view point of interpretation. In the text, the author refers to a set of recommendations on things to do and not to do around listening, extracted from David J. Mendelsohn's paper "Learning how to listen using learning strategies" starting on page 75. In there s stated that listening should be done using video, not audio without any clue on the reasons why. In the age of iPod, I am advocating to my student quite the contrary, that is, listen first to audio sources, and not simply from the viewpoint of portability. A quick search in Amazon shows how listening for L2 growth is not a hot topic, whereas in the classroom at least, it's hotter than the sun.
Narrow sets of skills
In a text titled "Interpreter Training at the U.S. Department of State" and published in the recently released "Interpreting and Translation Studies" of the Japan Association of Interpreting and Translation Studies, there is a list of "narrow sets of skills" covered by course segments or modules within the current practice of a seventeen week course for the Department of State. These interpreters have to deliver in any diplomatic settings so the curriculum they go through is holistic. "Liaison interpreting" is featured in the list of 16 items. It would be an overstatement to see in this burying of liaison interpreting a demonstration that as a whole, liaison is but a skill among others. It is, and it is not. It is for diplomatic interpreters. It is not for liaison interpreters. That is why liaison deserves what it is lacking so much : more visibility through more reading material not buried in academic production. Among the list, I read "Guidelines for self-study and practice" and "Terminology enhancement". I would love to hear or read on these two.