Abstract:

The given paper presents results of evaluation and self-evaluation of students' performances during their practical course of non-verbal communication at our university and their development throughout the term.

Departments of Translation Studies train future translators and interpreters for their jobs. Obviously, in both branches - translating and interpreting - specific skills and competences are needed to be trained. As interpreters are generally exposed to perform in the public, the curriculum of interpreting program needs to offer them an opportunity to improve language competence (including speaking and listening skills), translation competence, or cultural competence. Moreover, in consecutive interpreting when all three participants - speaker, interpreter and listener - can see each other face-to-face (compared to simultaneous interpreting realized in booths), situation is quite different and more specific. Besides verbal communication which conveys the meaning of the words, non-verbal communication which conveys emotions is emphasised, too. The way interpreter uses his/her voice, pauses, hesitations, mimics, gestures, postures, influences participants in communication and situation as a whole.

An important aspect of practice is evaluation and self-evaluation, understanding of mistakes, and avoiding them. As the study shows, the results of evaluation and self-evaluation differ; students tend to evaluate their own performances more critically than performances of their classmates. The study also identifies the factors which have the greatest impact on the performances and results of evaluation and self-evaluation during a term. Generally, they show students' improvement. Of course, the personal characteristics given by CUS characteristics are inevitable and needed to be discussed individually.

Keywords:

Training, evaluation, self-evaluation.