Prosody teaching matters in developing speaking skills for Farsi-English interpreter trainees: An experimental study

Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of explicit teaching of prosody on

developing speaking skills for Farsi-English interpreter trainees. Two groups of student

interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at Tafresh University, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (6 female and 6 male students in each group). No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Participants took a pretest before starting the program. The control group listened to authentic audio tracks in English and discussed their contents, watched authentic English movies, discussed issues in the movies and other hot topics, in pairs in the classroom. The experimental group spent part of the time on theoretical explanation of, and practical exercises with, prosodic features of English. The total instruction time was the same for both groups, i.e. 21 hours. Students then took a posttest in speaking skills. The results show that the prosodic feature awareness training significantly improved the students’ speaking skills. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, interpreting programs for training future interpreters, material producers and all who are involved in language study and pedagogy.