The Chinese Interpreting Unit and Learners

As a core unit of the Chinese Translation major within the Bachelor of Arts degree，the basic interpreting skills consists of two 60-minute lectures and two 60-minute tutorials each week over a 12-week semester.The goal of the unit is to enhance students’Chinese-English speaking，writing，reading and listening abilities，and to improve their knowledge of the Chinese language within the specific domain context.There is an emphasis on meaning-based cross-cultural communication，the strengthening of public speaking skills，the boosting of confidence in and between the two languages，and the training of students in the role，theory，ethics，and practice of interpreting skills.

The students who choose to take this unit come from different countries and regions，majoring disciplines in different departments;moreover，some bilingually-competent students study interpreting as a major or minor in their Chinese-English translation studies，and some study interpreting only as a single elective unit to improve their Chinese and English language skills.These students come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds，and their proficiency in Chinese and English differs greatly.Therefore，the Chinese interpreting classes manifest characteristics of internationalization and diversification.The trend of globalization and super-diversity in tertiary education is reflected in the internationalization of universities， where interdisciplinary cross-campus programs and courses are increasing，and students communicate through various networks.As such，they become increasingly mobile both in terms of shuttling across campuses and shifting between reality and virtual worlds(Xu，2014:5).Therefore，in the face of the increasing scale of student enrolments in interpreting studies，the traditional interpreting teaching and assessment methods must overcome these new challenges.