What makes an effective translation teacher?: a qualitative exploration of effective translation teaching and teachers in the university classroom

This thesis investigates effective translation teaching and teachers in the university classroom through a qualitative exploration including survey research, focus group interview research, classroom observation, appreciative inquiry and case study. The survey and focus group research results in Chapter 2 and 3 show that the key areas which are perceived to help create an effective translation teacher include: profound knowledge in languages and translation, mastery of translation skills and industry experience, engaging and communicative teaching methods, a humorous and inspiring personality, the use of encouragement in giving constructive feedback, and the ability to understand and help students for the purpose of independent learning. The classroom observation, appreciative inquiry and case study research in Chapter 4 and 5 draw on Kiraly's (2000, 2014) social constructivist theory in translation teaching and focuses on the teaching process aiming to discover how effective translation teachers conduct teaching in the classroom in four areas, namely classroom management,classroom pedagogy, classroom communication and teacher roles. The results suggest that effective translation teachers are able to control the whole learning process, facilitate students in independent learning, guide students to be more critical about translation, giving both positive and negative feedback for students to reflect on their own, and being supportive, patient and encouraging to students for better classroom communication and learning outcomes. Although this study has limitations including a small number of participants and lack of variety in teaching contexts and cultural backgrounds, this study may contribute to translator training quality, translation teacher professional development and classroom teaching evaluation. This study can also be applied to other translation teaching contexts so that all teachers can find their own ways to motivate student thinking and achieve quality teaching, making independent learning possible and teaching outcomes more effective.