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Article published In:
APTIF 9 - Reality vs. Illusion: From Morse code to machine translation
Edited by Frans De Laet, In-kyoung Ahn and Joong-chol Kwak
[Babel 66:4/5] 2020
► pp. 636–654

An empirical study on impact of suggestopedia on student interpreters’ anxiety

| Northwestern Polytechnical University
| Northwestern Polytechnical University

This paper aims to investigate if suggestopedia, a teaching method that advocates “learning with both brains and learning while relaxing”, could help reduce interpreting anxiety and improve interpreting results when applied to interpreting classes. By using this teaching method in an experimental class and comparing the interpreting quality with that of the control class, the paper draws conclusions on the influence of suggestopedia in reducing interpreting anxiety. Two interpreting results and two questionnaires on interpreting anxiety, one before using the method and the other after, are collected to analyze the link between suggestopedia and interpreting anxiety. The experiment took place over eight weeks and involved 51 students. The experiment focused on English-Chinese consecutive interpretation.

Keywords: suggestopedia, interpreting anxiety, student interpreter, empirical study, English-Chinese interpretation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Interpreting anxiety
    • 2.2Suggestopedia
    • 2.3Interpreting anxiety and suggestopedia
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Process
    • 3.3Instruments
    • 3.4Test materials
    • 3.5Data collection and analysis
    • 3.6Suggestopedia in class
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Interpreting Anxiety Scale (IAS) results
    • 4.2Evaluation of participants’ interpreting performance
    • 4.3Links between IAS results and participants’ interpreting performance
    • 4.4Comparison of interpreting anxiety and interpreting performance of the two groups
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 2 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00186.zhu
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