International Journal of Education and Pedagogy (IJEAP) eISSN: 2682-8464 | Vol. 5 No. 1 [March 2023]
Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijeap
INVESTIGATION INTO USING REFLECTIVE LEARNING THROUGH ONLINE PORTFOLIOS TO IMPROVE NOTE-
TAKING SKILLS FOR CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING AMONG ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS
Hai Phong Le1*
1 Faculty of University of Languages and International Studies, National University, Hanoi, VIETNAM
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Article Information:
Article history:
Received date : 5 March 2023 Revised date : 17 March 2023 Accepted date : 23 March 2023 Published date : 30 March 2023
Le, H. P. (2023).INVESTIGATION INTO USING REFLECTIVE LEARNING THROUGH ONLINE PORTFOLIOS TO IMPROVE NOTE- TAKING SKILLS FOR
CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING AMONG ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS. International Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 5(1), 157-171.
Abstract: One of the most important skills for consecutive interpreters is note-taking. However, trainees may face challenges when learning this skill, such as difficulty recalling notes during interpreting or experiencing cognitive overload. Despite this, there are not many studies on effective techniques for teaching and acquiring this skill or helping students develop their own systems. While online portfolios are commonly used in professional development and language training, their application in teaching note-taking has not been thoroughly researched. This study aims to investigate how online portfolios can be used to develop note-taking skills for consecutive interpreters on the basis of reflective learning, by analyzing qualitative data from pre- and post-interviews and students' journals, as well as the quantitative data from examining their portfolios.
The findings indicate that students have a positive attitude towards using online portfolios on a weekly basis to practice notetaking and provide insight into the advantages and disadvantages of this approach along with recommendations for improvement. Additionally, following the intervention, noteworthy progress was predominantly evident in the utilization of abbreviations, symbols, and the organization of notes. Although there were positive outcomes overall, the student’s ability to take concise notes is still somewhat constrained, despite some improvement.
Keywords: Notetaking for consecutive interpreting, online portfolios, reflective learning, Effort Model.
1. Introduction
In today's constantly changing world, interpreters play a crucial role in facilitating communication and conveying meanings among people from diverse cultural backgrounds and languages. This situation presents significant employment and educational opportunities, but also poses immense challenges for translator and interpreter training institutes in Vietnam.
Although numerous curricula and courses have been introduced and made available for the purpose of interpreter training in the country over the past two decades, ensuring the quality of teaching is challenging without a strong theoretical foundation. The limited competency of graduates in translation and interpretation resulting from this situation may diminish the profession's credibility to potential employers (Le.H.T., 2017). Thus, it is of utmost importance to elevate the standard and proficiency of learners in these training institutes.
To improve the overall ability of interpreters, it is important to focus on various skills, one of which is the crucial skill of notetaking. While different approaches to notetaking exist, several scholars agree that this skill is essential in consecutive interpreting (Chen, 2021; Chmiel, 2010;
Lee, 2008; Orlando, 2010; Rozan, 1956; Washbourne & Gillies, 2017). Notetaking in consecutive interpretation is often compared to the "skeleton structure" of the original text.
Moreover, this skill is described as aiming to capture a conceptual understanding of the text at a global level (Albl-Mikasa 2008:208). Taylor-Bouladon (2011) also emphasized that the goal is to take notes that represent ideas and serve as memory aids.
It is evident that notetaking is a valuable skill, but the teaching of this skill is often only partially effective. Schmiel (2010) highlighted the shortcomings in teaching this skill as students faced several challenges, including information overload and inexperience in creating their own symbols for notetaking. However, teaching methods that encourage interpreter trainees to develop their own system of notetaking are limited due to the complexity of the skill (Chmiel, 2010; Lee, 2008).
For such purpose, the research examines perspective of the students on the application of portfolios at a university in Vietnam as well as the effectiveness of the method.
Specifically, the research sought to answer the following question:
1. What are the students’ perspectives of the application of online portfolios in improving notetaking skills for consecutive interpreting?
2. To what extent can reflective learning through online portfolios help improve notetaking skills for consecutive interpreting?
2. Literature Review
2.1 Notetaking and Consecutive Interpreting
According to Washbourne and Gillies (2017), consecutive interpreting involves listening to someone speak and then reproducing their message in another language after they finish speaking. This can require a variety of skills, including notetaking, memorization, and using background knowledge to convey the intended message accurately in the target language. One major difference between consecutive and simultaneous interpreting is that consecutive interpreters often have to comprehend longer texts and present their interpretation after a longer delay.
"Effort Model," which was revised by Gile in 2009, describes the skills required for consecutive interpreting, including note-taking. This model suggests that memory and notes are essential in linking the input and output processing phases. The model is based on two underlying principles: firstly, interpretation requires mental capacity, which is limited for everyone, and secondly, each interpreting task takes up a certain amount of this capacity. When this capacity is exceeded, the interpreter's performance can deteriorate, leading to cognitive overload. While note-taking can aid memory, it can also be harmful if misused. Washbourne and Gillies (2017) suggest that making note-taking more automatic can increase its efficiency.
Orlando (2010) questioned whether note-taking is too individualistic to be taught, and this view is shared by several authors of materials for consecutive interpretation training, including Gillies (2019), Ilg and Lambert (1996), and Washbourne and Gillies (2017). Ilg and Lambert pointed out that while note-taking may be based on a framework, it is challenging to replicate another person's note-taking system over time because it is so personal to each individual.
As far as we have discussed, the matter of teaching and learning notetaking can be quite challenging. Such tasks would require a technique that can enable students to develop their own way of taking notes and use them automatically.
2.1 Portfolios in Interpreter Training
The definition of portfolios as provided by Paulson, Paulson, and Meyer (1991) is that they are a type of assessment system. Zhang and Wang (2004) describe this assessment system as being comprehensive, integrated with the concepts of facts, quality, development, and multi- evaluation.
Li and Yan (2019) found that using portfolios in interpreting courses can provide various benefits, including promoting learner autonomy, self-reflection, and enhancing skills through practice. Han and Fan (2020) also noted the advantages of self-assessment and self-reflection in interpreter training, such as shifting from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach and extending learning beyond classroom hours. Shin's (2020) case study supported the positive effects of portfolios on developing interpreting skills, particularly notetaking and abbreviation usage. Other studies on interpreter and translator training, such as Colina (2003), Haiyan (2006), Kelly (2005), and Rothender (2007), also found portfolios useful in engaging learners, combining integrated skills, and facilitating complementary activities in formal training.
2.3 Reflective Learning
Boyd and Fales (1983) pointed out the great attention to learning from experience in the literature of education and humanistic psychology and the importance of reflective learning as
“the key element in learning from experience” (p. 100). They defined reflection as “the process of creating and clarifying the meaning of experience (present or past) in terms of self (self in relation to self and self in relation to the world),” the product of which is a “changed conceptual perspective” (p. 101).
Schon (1983)’s theory was first developed and demonstrated in ‘The Reflective Practitioner:
How Professionals Think in Action’ in 1983 and then republished in 2017. He pointed out how
“the workaday life of the professional depends on tacit knowing-in-action,” which is a process when the practitioner thinks about their actions while taking them. Such daily practice with
“innumerable judgments of quality” manifests in the way professionals make each action and spontaneous call during their work. These routine responses are made subconsciously and automatically, described as “autopilot mode” by Farrell (2015). The reflection-in-action was the level of reflective thinking where its practitioner becomes aware of knowing-in-action and facilitates “on-the-spot experimentation,” which helps professionals deal with ad-hoc situations. The final stage is reflection-on-action, which emphasizes a cognitive process depending on “retrospection for analysis.” The learner would think back to how things are done and come up with how things can be done differently in the future for better outcomes. The figure below summarizes the three processes mentioned by Schon.
Kolb (1984)’s experiential model was prominent among the earlier ones, stating four steps for reflection: Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation. According to Kolb, a learner can effectively learn through their experience through the process of reflection upon their prior observation or encounters.
Specifically, the process starts with the learner experiencing and observing the phenomenon or practice, followed by a stage of reviewing what happened. The reflection would involve taking advantage of the learners’ repertoire to make meanings of the experience for later abstract conceptualization when they draw certain conclusions. Such findings are what is learned through the process of reflection and conceptualization of patterns from concrete observations.
The final stage would require the learner to translate what they have internalized into practice to see whether the reflection and abstract formulation are productive. A new cycle begins when the student observes the result of their experimentation in reality.
The use of the reflective practice has been emphasized by Boéri and de Manuel Jerez (2011) as they highlighted the importance of training reflective citizens and interpreting professionals.
Reflective thinking and learning help interpreters “develop the ability to work with both dominant and resistant discourses in society.”
Dangerfield and Napier (2016) pointed out the need to motivate interpreter-trainees “to aim for expertise by improving their skills through self-reflective practices, via supported environments such as ongoing mentorship, training, and professional development” (p. 1). The notion appears to be consistent with Kuhn and Dean (2004) as they put the metalinguistic into the spotlight, which requires the development of critical thinking skills through creating awareness and reflection upon practitioners’ own thinking and the others’ reasoning.
Furthermore, as interpreters might not always receive peer feedback as they generally work alone in many cases, they are not likely to have constant access to valuable peer assessment and feedback. Therefore, reflection or self-evaluation skills are significant (Dangerfield &
Napier, 2016). The authors also stated that self-reflective practice should be “explicitly taught to student interpreters” to ensure that “the student interpreter has comprehensive strategies to effectively work in a wide variety of assignments.” Holewik (2020) regarded the reflective practice as a powerful tool for self-assessment or evaluation, which are highly useful for interpreter trainees.
Bown (2013) attributed higher employability to cognitive, reflective frameworks and practices during interpreter training. The frames would pose as a means to scaffold students’
development and acquisition of “necessary key tools for professional practice and lifelong learning.” Calvo (2015) believed that interpreter-training activities should promote learning in action and knowledge activation as reflective practice. Furthermore, he noted the importance of including tools like portfolios to support situated learning, which would promote further transferability, even way long after their formal training. For this, Lee (2015) also supported reflective learning through the application of reflective learning journals as a tool for identifying weaknesses, overcoming challenges, along with observing one’s own development when it comes to interpreter training.
2.6 Theoretical Framework
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework Explaining the Use of Online Portfolios in Improving Notetaking Skills for Consecutive Interpreting
The diagram above demonstrates the theories used in the action research project as a basis.
Gile’s Effort Model (2009) would explain the broad picture of interpreting components, including the position and relations of notetaking to the others. More importantly, the Model suggested the approach needed to improve the skills, which involves making each more automatic and efficient. Yet, literature on notetaking skills for consecutive interpreting has pointed out the highly personal nature of notetaking patterns, indicating no point in copying another’s system. Therefore, constant practice does not guarantee improvement in the skills.
As there is a debate about whether notetaking skills are too personal to be taught, this study took the approach of using reflective learning to guide students to gradually develop their own notetaking systems and guidance toward mastering such. Learning cycle models proposed by Schon (1983), Kolb (1984), and Gibbs (1988) were taken into consideration to design the portfolios as step-by-step guidance towards reflective processes to reinvestigate and overwrite old ways of notetaking with more personalized and efficient patterns, potentially constructing new “thinking-in-action,” or automatic operations.
On the other hand, Rozan’s principles of notetaking for consecutive interpreting were chosen as a foundation to show students what aspects of notetaking to develop. Multiple studies mentioned in the literature review have shown that the notetaking system in more contemporary times is still based on the core of Rozan’s well-known rules. The researcher in this study has also condensed seven principles into four main criteria to serve as a self-evaluation guideline for students and a rubric for the researcher to rate portfolios for quantitative data.
In general, the highly reflective nature of portfolios, accompanied by further modification of reflective learning models and guidelines on self-assessment based on Rozan’s principles, poses a great potential to cater to the need to make notetaking more automatic but personalized manner suggested by Gile’s Effort Model (2009).
3. Methodology
3.1 Pedagogical Settings and Participants
The study involves 12 students who are enrolled in a Consecutive Interpreting course at a university in Hanoi. The researcher, who is also the course instructor, will be conducting the study throughout the semester. The participants are advanced-level third-year undergraduates between the ages of 20-21 who have passed the VSTEP exam with a C1 band or higher, indicating their proficiency in English. They have completed prerequisite courses in Social and Academic English and are familiar with reflective writing and journaling. However, they have not previously used portfolios to improve their note-taking skills for consecutive interpreting or any other purposes. The use of portfolios will commence in the fourth week of the semester, and participants will be required to submit weekly entries on the Google Classroom online platform.
3.2 Design of the Study
A qualitative research design, with interviews and journals, was adopted to investigate students’ perspectives of using portfolios in improving notetaking skills for consecutive interpreting over 6 weeks.
3.3. Data collection and analysis:
Pre-intervention interviews, post-intervention interview and journals, which are typical qualitative data collection instruments, were chosen for this study.
Specifically, conducted one week prior the application of portfolios, the pre-intervention interview aimed to gain preliminary insight into participants regarding their background, as well as their current challenges in notetaking practice for later comparison with post- intervention interview to see if the past problems had been tackled. Both interviews would be semi-structured with the hope to identify emergent codes in addition to pre-set ones. The first interview included 4 main questions, inquiring about participants’ prior experience of using
portfolios in developing the skills, if there is any. Sub-questions could be asked to further understand students’ struggles during practice.
Students’ journals would serve as an instrument for the researcher to investigate students’
perspectives of portfolios during the intervention. Participants were asked and to complete weekly journals with detailed instructions. Each entry would also be submitted along with weekly portfolio entry to make sure that participants reflected on their experience of using portfolios right after completing it.
The post-intervention questions were designed after the analysis of students of journals as more potential themes and subthemes might be added then. The interview encompassed 7 main questions and 10 possible sub-questions to provide better understanding of participants’
perspective and shed light on any confusion or inconsistence during the analysis of the previous instruments.
Responses collected from journals would be divided into themes and subthemes through the coding techniques. In particular, the recurring themes would be organized and prepared for further discussion. Before interviews went into the same process, they were transcribed into written text for better analysis.
Thanks to online portfolios, multiple data forms were collected, including both participants’
notes taken for consecutive interpreting practice and recordings of their performance. Only notes and recordings of the first version for each week were collected to assess participants' notetaking more authentically. The aim was to gauge how students took notes during their first- hand consecutive interpreting experience. Having listened previously would leave students already aware of the main message, thereby neglecting their ability to multitask between listening, processing information, memorizing, and writing down notes. Furthermore, students’
recordings of the first versions in each week also came into play as they would reflect on whether notetakers could recall what they had written beforehand.
Repeated measures ANOVA was used to investigate the improvement of notetaking skills through 6 points of time, rather than 2 in Paired sample t-tests. P-value was important because it can represent the significance of the changes over time. There are two possible scenarios:
a. If the p-value (sig.) < Level of significance (α = 0.05 = 5%), there is a statistically significant difference.
b. If the p-value (sig.) > Level of significance (α = 0.05 = 5%), there is NO statistically significant difference.
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1 Students’ Perspectives of Portfolios
4.1.1 Difficulties Encountered in Note Taking Before the Intervention
A pre-intervention interview was conducted to gain more insight into participants background and perspectives of challenges regarding notetaking practice. The data shows no participants had prior experience of using portfolios for improving notetaking skills. Also, interviewees reported great challenges when started out with note taking in the first few weeks of the course, before the use of portfolios, namely slow note taking speed, difficulty in recalling from notes, and lack of motivation for practice.
To begin with, many students reported low note-taking speed as one of the biggest hurdles when it comes to jotting down for later interpretation. In the pre-intervention interviews, several students attributed high speech pace of speaker and their lower writing speed to their inability to keep up with the source text. External components like speaker’s pace or the text’s length were recurrent among students, especially in earlier weeks. Likewise, some would believe their innate speed of writing was to blame, while some reported having troubles with both.
Furthermore, language-related issues coming from the source text were mentioned, including speakers’ use of colloquialism, or new words, leading to more time required to note down.
Students emphasized the cases of speakers using prolix language or uncommon lexical resource, which intimidated them into writing down full words rather than abbreviations, fearing that they would not be able to interpret them if done otherwise. Therefore, this could explain why students previously believed lengthy speech would hinder them from taking notes for interpretation. Furthermore, students wrote new words or those they could not understand in their notes. Yet, they did not clearly perceive their words as being wordy or impractical.
These tactics used by students were against the first principle of note taking, noting down ideas, not words, as suggested by Rozan (1956). Jotting down words that were not processed showed that would not help interpreters produce their equivalents due to time constraints as a nature of consecutive interpreting not allowing them to use dictionaries. On the hand, this behavior would mean interpreters waste valuable time on writing down unusable input, while more efforts should be allocated to listening, processing information and coping techniques in tackling lexical gaps.
The second challenge that were commonly confronted, according to students’ responses in the first interviews, was the inability to effectively recall from notes. This perhaps was the most frequently recurrent problem, among students’ answers.
Additionally, memory is one aspect emphasized by students when it comes to rereading notes for encoded information. Although failures in recalling details are likely to because by poor or ineffective use of memory, most responses focused more on their notes being unintelligible or disorganized rather than the process of comprehension and memorization.
4.1.2 Students’ Perspectives of the Benefits of Portfolios
The analysis of data collected from journals and post-intervention shows multiple main benefits of portfolios perceived by students, namely reduced cognitive workload, improved notetaking speed, symbols, and note organization, step-by-step guidance, motivation for practicing outside classroom, and opportunities for developing other skills.
Firstly, journals and interviews indicated that students felt less cognitively exhausted as they work more with portfolios. During the intervention, students reported distractions from multitasking of the key problem when it came to note taking
Some others described their use of symbols being more “automatic”, without think much about it. This is consistent with what Giles (2009) suggested in his Efforts Model. Interpreting requires the consumption of mental energy to operate effectively. In other words, if each subskill is not efficient, it will compete with others to expend the “energy”. Therefore, it is important to internalize sub-skills, preferably to the level of operating them subconsciously or near automatically. As aspects of notetaking like using symbols and abbreviations become more automatic and produce less stress, there is more energy available for other tasks like listening comprehension or reformulation.
Secondly, almost all interviewees reported improvement in their notetaking speed, symbols, and organization of notes. Interestingly, there has been a shift in students’ perceptions in speed of notetaking. Initially, they believed they wrote so slowly that they cannot keep pace with the speaker. However, in the later interviews, many stated that while their writing speed remain unchanged, they no longer felt liking “racing with the source text” anymore. In other words, they then felt writing speed is irrelevant and believed that one should rely on memory, abbreviations or symbols to reduce the number of characters they need to write. Furthermore, several journal entries showed that wordy notes only limited their memorization and encoding information rather than help them interpret more details. Many responses in the journals also described how they created new symbols and abbreviations on the weekly basis. Description of more brief notes could be observed commonly in from week 3 to 6.
Additionally, in the post-intervention interview, students also reported the most significant change in their way of organizing their notes was the format of the note itself. They became quite familiar with notating vertically in rows as they could better distinguish different syntax components, as well as between main ideas and supporting details. After first trial of a material, students were asked to assess the note and their performance again, and consequently retried in several attempts, each would further modify how they take notes. They said that the rubrics given in cycle 2 helped them conduct self-assessment better, “changing the structures of their notetaking styles”. Responses from both journals and interviews suggested their improvement in recalling information from notes as a result of more organized ideas. Some stated the classification of ideas using indentations and symbols in notes helped them recalled information better and even more fluent in interpreting.
The interviewees also mentioned detailed guide for home practice as a useful feature of portfolios. Many stated that without a detailed step-by-step outline, they would practice without any directions. Each entry instructs through multiple attempts with a given and a self-chosen material, each of which ought to be followed by self-reflections of strength, weaknesses and self-suggestions for the next try. Instructions regarding how to build glossary and abbreviations
bank were also considered highly helpful so that they could see the “concrete products” of their practice.
Importantly, many participants mentioned motivation increase when they started doing portfolios. In particular, they emphasized they would not practice at home without this activity.
They said since this activity was made a requirement for the course and would be a part of individual assessment, they were obliged to practice at home. However, interviewees said after some first few weeks they felt more confident in interpreting in general and note taking in particular, and the took more interest into the activity later. This possibly indicated that while students started out to do the task with extrinsic motivation, they slowly built up their self- efficacy and maybe intrinsic motivation.
As students spent more time with the activity, they appreciated its helps in helping them improving other sets of skills besides notetaking such as interpreting in general, and vocabulary and listening in particular. Responses in the journals explained because they were required to listen to each material multiple times, they improved their listening skills even more.
Furthermore, several students loved the task of building glossary and abbreviation banks, which pose a good technique for them to develop their vocabulary and terminology in the long term. One interview particularly expressed her intention to maintain this activity even after the course.
Interestingly, while the several benefits of portfolios were mentioned, perhaps the most noteworthy but not realized by students themselves is the shift in students’ mindset from low self-efficacy and self-limiting toward more accurate problem identification, bringing forth more solutions than limitations.
4.1.3 Students’ Opinions on Disadvantages of Portfolios
While students’ weekly journal entries showed repetitiveness as a disadvantage of portfolios, their downsides, based on interview responses, extend to inconsistent efforts, along with difficulty finding material and in self-reflections.
First and foremost, many students complained about how repetitive the portfolio entries are.
Apart from the section of weekly focus where one core skill of that week was focused through a distinct task, other tasks were practically the same. This is particularly true as the task of self- reflection was repeated each time between interpreting attempts. Students said little to no improvements could be observed after a few times of practice, and therefore their self- reflections after each try would also very similar. As a result, they would often end up writing the reflections with the repetitive content in same session of practice, which is highly tedious.
This could potentially reduce students’ motivation in doing certain tasks of the activity.
Post-intervention interview data also suggested inconsistent efforts in doing portfolios over 6 weeks. Several students admitted not spending adequate time on the activity. According to their explanations, when they were given a big and important work of other courses and were to meet deadlines soon, they would not invest much effort in completing that week’s portfolio entry. This is quite understandable as this portfolio lasted for 6 weeks and required participants to routinely complete similar tasks, it is unlikely that their efforts and level of motivation would be consistent at all times. However, this would suggest if this activity was also used as a method of evaluation in a class, randomly picking entries for scoring would not be reliable. Boughton
(2012) suggested self-selected entries by students or even evaluation of all should be a good choice.
The third downside mentioned by students in the later interview was the setbacks while finding material for home practice. Besides practicing provided in-class material, students were to find their own audio-visual input for practice. Actually, the freedom of choosing one’s own source received mixed opinion throughout the journals and interviews. While almost all participants expressed their love for this activity, a few of them stated the issue of time consumption for finding suitable videos. Some said they sometimes felt overwhelmed when they were presented with so many options.
Ultimately, many interviewees shared their worries about difficulty in performing self- reflection. According to journal entries in earlier weeks, students expressed some struggle in examining their own work and performance to identify the strengths and weaknesses and plan their own solutions. Gradually with more in-class practice as well as teachers’ feedbacks, multiple participants expressed more ease to do the task. However, a few still found it challenging for self-assessment. Their given explanations involved their lack of prior experience in reflective practices like reflective writing or learning. As reflective thinking can be quite complex, it might require time and prolonged exposure for the users to develop this thinking process (Schon, 1979).
4.1.4 Students’ Suggestions to Improve Portfolios
In students’ journals and later interview, three suggestions emerged, namely more interactions, provision of audio-visual materials, and lower repetitiveness.
First of all, many interviewees would love to see more interactions between students for the activity. Most common idea was to make it pair work where two students can work together at home. Notably, most participants believed they should still practice beforehand before exchanging their entries with their peers to not only learn from their works but also to receive feedbacks from others. On the other hand, when asked about groupwork, all students would see them rather ineffective as they believe to develop reflective thinking it is important to keep group members at minimal. Regarding interactions, many also showed their curiosity in others’
works, especially their friends’ banks of abbreviations and symbols. Therefore, recommendation was made upon showcasing outstanding works of some classmates every few weeks. I agree these proposals are potentials and reasonable as pair work and showcases of high-quality works would bring more motivation to the table and also facilitate mutual learning from the constructivist viewpoint.
The next recommendation involves providing students with audio-visual materials. As previously discussed as one potential disadvantage of portfolios to some, the freedom to choose one’s own material for practicing at home received mixed feedbacks. While most agreed this task was enjoyable and useful, some argued it could take a quite amount of time to find a video suitable to their level. Actually, when asked about the possibility of a set of videos catered at the beginning of the course, one still preferred to choose their own material so they can find one that suit their interest and level most
Therefore, to better suit students’ needs, perhaps it is better to provide a video base in advance and make it optional to use it. In other words, for those finding the given material not suiting, they may search for one on their own. It would be ideal to build and classify them into categories in terms of topics and difficulty.
Last but not least, several students suggested some ways to make portfolios entries less repetitive. For instance, rather than asking them to reflect upon every attempt, it is better to reflect after the whole session of practice, making the task of writing less tedious. Some others advocated more better-targeted tasks like those in weekly focus section. These two suggestions are reasonable to be taken into serious consideration. Further revision of portfolios’ format and design might be in need.
Table 4.2: The Effectiveness of Online Portfolios
Criteria P-value (sig.) Statistically significance
Conciseness 0.066 No
Abbreviation 0.026 Yes
Symbols 0.021 Yes
Organization 0.016 Yes
Overall 0.011 Yes
Overall notetaking skills of students showed statistically significant improvement over 6 weeks. This is relatively consistent with the general comments of students through journals and interviews. Nevertheless, there were cases of students who witnessed little to no change in their overall notetaking skills. After some fluctuations, the two cases of students 4 and 10 of Student 7 also experienced a slight change in their notetakings. Overall, it can be observed that those with lower scores would reinforce their skills faster, while those with higher scores would see slower or even no positive influences on their notetaking skills. Therefore, portfolios seemed to be a good tool for beginners to lay the foundations for basic notetaking skills, while they might not be as effective for breaking through the learning curve to achieve more advanced skills.
Nevertheless, despite the overall improvement of the scores, the significance of each aspect was not identical. First, in terms of conciseness, there was little significant improvement. This seems to be consistent with research with 120 interpreter students, in which Liu (2010, as cited in Chen, 2016) found their preference for language over symbols and full words over abbreviations. As Chen (2021) used empirical data from professional and trainee interpreters, he found that the notes' density distinguished the two groups since the former showed a lower density. This shows that notes’ conciseness is a common problem for students which are hard to overcome in the short term. According to Pöchhacker (2004), in Andres’ study (2002), she argued that processing overload occurred during the first phase of interpreting. (Chen, 2016) agreed with Andres and believed that because of such metal overload, “students opt for source language notes to avoid saturation during the first phase” (p. 162). This could clarify why students might resort to retaining the source text’s content, leading to denser notes and lower conciseness.
While students’ scores improve greatly regarding organization, less can be seen in using symbols and abbreviations. This seems to be consistent with a study on the effectiveness of training notetaking for interpreters conducted by Chmiel (2010). The author pointed out that students can better “adhere to well-structured lay principles,” but such elements as symbols are not readily transferable to the students’ individual note-taking systems (Chmiel, 2010, p.1).
This might explain why students in this action research showed slower progress regarding certain aspects like symbols or abbreviations than their organization counterparts.
5. Conclusion
The study set out to determine the students’ perspectives of using portfolios in improving notetaking skills. The findings from the study are now shown as follows.
Regarding the major benefits of portfolios, students believed they experienced reduced cognitive workload while interpreting with notes as they felt less mentally exhausted and can focus better. Furthermore, they had developed their better use of abbreviations and symbols and actually had their own system of symbols. Additionally, they perceived their notes as more organized with more indentations to show classifications of ideas or parts of syntax. Students also felt the portfolios offered step-by-step guidance and motivation for home practice. During the activity, they had the opportunities for developing other skills than just notetaking.
On the other hand, a number of drawbacks were also mentioned, consisting of repetitiveness, inconsistent efforts, as well as challenges in finding material and in self-reflection.
Additionally, students had some suggestions on improving the activity were also found as they recommended more interactions, provision of audio-visual materials, and lower repetitiveness.
Specific actions could be pair work, ready-made sets of videos, or more variety of activities.
Moreover, using repeated measures ANOVA to analyze results from students’ portfolio entries has shown statistically significant improvement in their scores in 3 criteria of abbreviations, symbols, and organization, but not conciseness. Yet, the overall performance (calculated by means of 4 scores) was significantly improved. Overall, students’ positive opinions on effectiveness were consistent with the result of the quantitative analysis. However, a closer look into the data would indicate that while portfolios show great significance in assisting new note-takers in consecutive interpreting with developing basic and intermediate skills, there is some limited value to those aiming at a more advanced level of note-taking in a short period like six weeks. In short, the study has successfully answered the two research questions in the given context.
6. Limitations
Firstly, the action research involves the researcher conducting the study in a contextualized, educational setting with a small number of participants, 12 students. This would mean no generalization can be made for other contexts. Instead, this would provide some academic insight for further research or practical suggestions for instructors with resembling settings and conditions.
Secondly, since there is no comprehensive rubric available for evaluating interpreters’ notes, the research adapted one with the in-depth review of literature revolving around notetaking principles and training for consecutive interpreting. Therefore, its validity and reliability remain untested by different sources. At least with multiple raters, hopefully, the scores still consistently reflected students’ performance.
Thirdly, qualitative data like those from students’ journals or interview responses are subject to bias and partiality. Other factors such as teacher-student power distance, introverted personality, or misperception can also affect the quality of the data.
Fourthly, students' portfolios and journals are completed at home, without the observation of the research. There is a possibility that not all parts of the protocol were observed. Nevertheless, it is the admitted nature of action research where the uncontrollability of variables and the environment is one common downside, compared to a positivist approach, controlled experiment.
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