Action Research in Strategy-based Syllabus Design: Focusing on Korean into English Simultaneous Interpreting Classes

The complex task of simultaneous interpretation (SI) is accompanied by mode-specific constraints such as the linear development of the source language discourse, time and capacity constraints, the split of attention, and many other limitations. Due to these constraints, SI trainees often feel helpless and struggle to keep up with their learning. Therefore, trainees should be taught specific strategies to overcome these constraints. However, under the prevalent belief that "interpreters are born, not made," not much attention has been given to systematically designing curricula or syllabi for SI classes.
This action research aims to explore ways to improve syllabus design for Korean into English SI classes at the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation(GSIT) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies(HUFS). It first attempts to 1) classify the difficulties faced by SI trainees into sub-categories to design syllabi based on learner needs; 2) examine how the types of syllabus evolve as syllabus design changes according to learner needs, learning levels, the broader curriculum, and other factors; 3) evaluate the consequent developments in the learners'' perception of the syllabus and the SI strategies taught in class; and 4) monitor the shift in the teacher''s perception of the syllabus and the learners’ role.
The action research was conducted over a period of 18 months in a spiral of three main repeated cycles of "planning, acting, observing, and reflecting" (Kemmis, et al., 2000). A total of 33 SI trainees participated in the preliminary stage, 12 trainees in the first main cycle, 10 in the second main cycle, and 11 in the third cycle.
The data collected during these cycles came from learners'' journals, online and in-class course evaluation questionnaires, self-assessment reports, and the diary kept by the teacher as researcher. Through primarily qualitative analyses supplemented by the quantitative assessment of learners’ strategy use, the following conclusions were reached.
First, the difficulties learners encounter during SI can be categorized into the four main areas of cognitive processes that are involved in performing SI: listening, production, memory, and coordination(Gile, 2009). This finding suggests a new methodology to systematically investigate the needs of SI trainees.
Second, a multi-layered, mixed syllabus was found to be most suitable for SI classes. All three syllabi selected SI strategies as the contents of the course and followed a process-oriented approach concentrated on the reasons for errors and strategies to overcome those errors, rather than on the words or structures produced by the learners(Gile, 2009).
Third, the changes in syllabus type affected the learners'' perception of the syllabus and SI strategies. Through a qualitative investigation into the learners'' perception of the content selection, grading, and procedures of all three syllabi, this thesis validates the findings from previous research that there is a high level of demand among trainees for SI strategies to deal with specific challenges in interpreting(Takeda, 2010). It also demonstrates that the various claims made regarding the consciousness-raising role of a structural syllabus are valid(Ellis, 1993), as the two syllabi which incorporated a structural element showed significant increases in learners'' conscious use of SI strategies. This thesis also revealed that a strategy-based syllabus has an important role to play in facilitating learners'' utilization of SI strategies by identifying a statistically significant difference between the group of learners who participated in both the first and second cycles and those who participated only in the second cycle, through using a chi-square test(Chi Square=6.188, df=1, p=0.018).
Fourth, the teacher/researcher''s perception of syllabus design and the learners'' role shifted from a teacher-centered one to a more learner-centered one. In the first cycle, the teacher/researcher perceived learners as passive recipients of knowledge, whereas in the second cycle, learners were perceived as active constructors of knowledge. In the final cycle, the teacher/researcher combined the merits of the two previous approaches. This thesis also found that syllabus design can be influenced by practical issues faced by the teacher, such as work overload.
It concludes that a strategy-based syllabus helped trainees improve their self-directed learning abilities and alleviated some of the psychological burdens they feel in the early stages of SI training.
Despite its limitations, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of the challenges that trainees face in simultaneously interpreting Korean into English. It also promotes reflection on the need for systematic syllabus design for SI classes. Finally, it helps other SI educators bypass the trial and error that they may experience when designing a syllabus, as well as reach conclusions appropriate to their own educational context, by describing the process of designing and modifying a syllabus based on the learners'' feedback, the teacher''s self-reflection, and the practical problems arising during implementation. This thesis serves to fill a void in the current literature by offering a first attempt at exploring ways to systematically design syllabi for Korean into English SI classes.