Advancing both Skills and Ways, Improving Oneself Internally and Externally & Training of Translator

In order to further strengthen the construction of MTI and train high-level translation talents  School of Foreign Studies (the SFS) invited Professor Tao Youlan, the head of the Department of Translation of the College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University, to visit as a guest of The Road to Worldwide Humanities Teacher Forum. Professor Tao gave a lecture on the training of translator competence in translation education. On the afternoon of September 11, 2019, it was held at the Academic Hall, Foreign Language Building. Leaders, teachers and MTI graduates of the SFS participated in the lecture to discuss how to foster students’ competence in MTI education.

First of all, Professor Tao gave a detailed analysis of three basic questions: what is translation; how do teachers teach translation; how do students learn to translate. Based on the market’s demand for middle and high end translation talents under China’s new economic situation, she thinks that the competence of language talents in the new era can be summarized in three aspects: language and culture competence, information literacy and management ability. She also made a particular emphasis on training language talents’ time management and learning ability.
After putting forward the quality of translators, combined with her own teaching experience, Professor Tao offered suggestions on urgent problems in current situation of the education philosophy, curriculum arrangement, teaching methods and evaluation system of translation major in colleges and universities. She pointed out that the key to fostering high-quality translation talents in the new era was to optimize curriculum arrangement, improve curriculum quality and develop personalized curriculum. Professor Tao highlighted that the curriculum arrangement should be oriented to social demands, serve discipline development and respect students’ choice.

In terms of educational philosophy, Professor Tao said that teachers should attach importance to guiding students to accumulate literature in a long term, cultivate their text awareness and enrich their knowledge reserves. Literature accumulation was the foundation of language competence. Only on the basis of solid basic language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, could students have a long-term development in translation. Knowledge reserves determine the translator’s competence. Therefore, teachers should encourage students to read and understand English texts with different themes and genres, so as to consolidate their language skills and expand their knowledge reserves. According to Professor Tao, excellent translation teachers should be skillful, instructive, passionate, patient, enlightening and facilitating.

In regard to teaching methods, Professor Tao encouraged to adopt translation workshops to train students’ translation skills and set up discussion groups to improve their ability to reflect and communicate. In terms of cultivation of translators’ comprehensive competence, she attached great importance on translation practice. Actively and deeply participating in translation practice was an important approach to test, train and cultivate professional competence of trainee translators.

Professor Tao encouraged students to actively learn from practice and improve understanding by reading and translating. She believed that students should be proficient in both Chinese and English. Their translation should be attractive and meaningful. She also told them to be good at thinking and practice diligently. At last, Professor Tao called on MTI students to have a sufficient understanding of translation market, so that they could improve translator competence as soon as possible to To Develop skills and learn the ways to improve and cultivate ourselves to keep abreast of a changing world.

Students should actively face the challenges from the campus to market. Professor Tao is amiable, easy-going and humorous. The lecture was in a lively atmosphere and producedmuch mirth among the audience. After the lecture, there was a lively discussion. Teachers and students from the SFS asked questions about the challenges brought by AI, machine translation, gender distinction of translation major, training method of translation work and academic research. Professor Tao answered them one by one and obtained wide recognition and positive comments.

Up to now, there have been 190 lectures of the series of The Road to Worldwide Humanities. In this lecture, Professor Tao put forward positive and important suggestions for further improving the MTI talent training quality of the SFS and training high level translation talents.