Literature Review

Pre/Post Test of the EIPA

The pre/post-EIPA intervention formed formative assessments at critical transition points within the pre-service program. These checkpoints served as external assessments, followed by guided internal feedback, to help Scholars understand and improve their skills both during the transition from language learner to interpreting student (i.e., Pre-EIPA) and the transition from student to professional (Post-EIPA). This type of intervention is founded in research.

Shining a light on...

The PSI Project Director, Dr. Emily Girardin, presented the following literature review in her 2023 dissertation, titled American Sign Language Fluency: A Foundational Competency for Future School Interpreters, which examined the use of formative assessments during key transition points.

Key transition points may include yearly testing (i.e., end of year 1, 2, and 3) or at the transition between ASL coursework and interpreting coursework.

Testing and feedback should be guided by an educator, consistent, relevant to students’ levels of skill, descriptive, and provided in a student-friendly dialogical manner (ACTFL, n.d.). Formative testing at critical transition points evaluates retention of language components as students progress through the curriculum (Roediger et al., 2011) and provides clarity regarding learning gaps in their language fluency, which is informative to both faculty and students (Karpicke et al., 2009; Kornell & Bjork, 2007). Bryk and colleagues (2015) also highlighted the value of testing when they described tools and strategies based on cognitive psychology that support more effective learning, noting one critical component to learning in a manner that makes it stick is active retrieval and avoiding the illusion of knowledge. While literature in interpreter education focuses on pre-program entry screening (Witter-Merithew & Johnson, 2004; Godfrey 2010), the foundational principles are the same—language fluency must be mastered before moving to higher order skills like interpreting (Godfrey, 2010; Winston, 2005).

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, n.d.) encouraged testing and feedback to support the advancement of language proficiency, recommending formative testing to assess the student’s progression.

Ball (2013), in her historical qualitative review of interpreting education, acknowledged the successful completion of interpreter education was directly related to the students’ ASL competence at the time of admission; this has implications for language testing to ensure growth between program entry and exit.

From interpreting students’ perspective, using formative assessments as an intervention provides many benefits to their learning progression.

Formative assessments require retrieval practice to recall the content learned; multiple studies, including Butler (2010) and Carpenter and colleagues (2006), have shown this recall process contributes to the retention and continued application or transfer of the content to different contexts.
Instead of practicing rote responses with an instructor or peers, they will have to recall the content learned up to that point and apply it to unfamiliar, new contexts with a higher order of thinking, such as using ASL in their interpreting work.
Testing supports students in making connections with what they have learned and putting it to practice (Masson & McDaniel, 1985; Roediger et al., 2011).

The use of assessment promotes identification of gaps in students’ self-awareness (Karpicke et al., 2009). Students benefit through improved metacognitive monitoring and self-regulated learning (Karpicke et al., 2009; Kornell & Bjorke, 2007; McCabe, 2011). Through testing, students receive feedback on what they have mastered (Kurz & Taylor, 2008; Roediger & Pyc, 2012), increase their self-awareness regarding their degree of fluency (Fitzmaurice, 2020; Yarger, 2001), and support study habits or use of program resources (Roediger et al., 2011).

From an interpreting program leadership perspective, formative assessments require an investment, but ultimately support greater student learning outcomes and program quality. To ensure quality testing, program leaders must invest time in the development of curricular-based assessments and ensure a careful review process by a team of experts (Roediger et al., 2011). The PSI Project’s intervention with formative assessment was based on this knowledge.

The pre/post-EIPA formative assessments can then provide the program with systematic program evaluation to identify and ensure

fidelity of the curriculum,
beneficial faculty training efforts,
gaps in students’ learning progression, and
necessary remediation supports and resource options (Roediger at al., 2011).

Structured Feedback

After formative assessments, a critical component to avoid the illusion of knowledge is a structured feedback approach (Bryk et al., 2015). Nassaji (2015, 2016) recommended interactional feedback when approaching second language learning and teaching. When working with a second language learner, the aim of interactional feedback is to provide opportunities to discuss communication or linguistic patterns (Nassaji, 2015). This approach to feedback is conversational in nature, although often has instructional purposes.

There are three main components to interactional feedback, including reformulation, prompts and metalinguistic feedback (Nassaji, 2015).

Reformulation, also referred to as input-providing, provides the student the model of the utterance produced accurately (Ellis, 2007; Nassaji, 2016).
Prompts encourage student reflection about the work through posed questions, such as clarification requests (Lyster, 2004; Nassaji, 2016).
Metalinguistic feedback includes the discussion of metalinguistic information with further explanation and information surrounding the correction (Nassaji, 2007).

In addition, there was substantial literature in second language acquisition that evaluates how it is used to support development of fluency (Goo, 2012; Lyster et al., 2012; Nassaji, 2015, 2016). Studies show a variety of factors that can influence students’ growth from such feedback. For example, Ammar and Spada (2006) found students with a higher degree of language fluency benefited more from this approach to feedback. Further, Sheen (2008) acknowledged how language anxiety can factor into the effectiveness of feedback. While many factors can contribute to how feedback is received, Carroll (2001) emphasized priority must be given to the educator’s approach to feedback to ensure the student understands the purpose of the feedback, is receptive to the feedback, and has actionable responses in using the feedback moving forward.

While empirical studies on interactional feedback are limited in ASL and interpreter education literature, there are some literature reviews published that speak to the value of feedback in interpreting and various approaches to feedback (Witter-Merithew, 2001).

References

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). (n.d.). https://www.actfl.org/

Ammar, A., & Spada, N. (2006). One size fits all?: Recasts, prompts, and l2 learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 543–574. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44487097

Ball, C. (2013). Legacies and legends: History of interpreter education from 1800 to the 21st century. Interpreting Consolidated.

Bryk, A., Gomez, L., Grunow, A., & LaMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America's schools can get better at getting better. Harvard Education Press.

Butler, A. C. (2010). Repeated testing produces superior transfer of learning relative to repeated studying. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(5), 1118–1133. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019902

Carpenter, S. K., Pashler, H., & Vul, E. (2006). What types of learning are enhanced by a cued recall test? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(5), 826–830.

Carroll, S. (2001). Input and evidence: The raw material of second language acquisition: Volume 25. John Benjamins.

Ellis, R. (2007). The differential effects of corrective feedback on two grammatical structures. In A. Mackey (Ed.), Conversational interaction in second language acquisition: A collection of empirical studies (pp. 339–360). Oxford University Press.

Fitzmaurice, S. (2020). Educational interpreters and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Journal of Interpretation, 28(2), 1–13. https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/joi/vol28/iss2/1

Godfrey, L. A. (2010). Characteristics of effective interpreter education programs in the United States (Publication number: 3444415). [Doctoral dissertation]. ProQuest.

Goo, J. (2012). Corrective Feedback and Working Memory Capacity in Interaction-Driven. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 34, 445–474. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263112000149

Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practice retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17, 471–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210802647009

Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self-regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 219–224. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194055

Kurz, K. B., & Taylor, M. M. (2008). Learning outcomes for American Sign Language skills levels 1 - 4.

http://www.interpretereducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ASLStandards.pdf

Lyster, R. (2004). Differential effects of prompts and recasts in formfocused instruction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 399–432. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263104263021

Lyster, R., Saito, K., & Sato, M. (2012). Oral corrective feedback in second language classrooms. Language Teaching, 46, 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444812000365

McCabe, J. (2011). Metacognitive awareness of learning strategies in undergraduates. Memory & Cognition, 39(3), 462–476. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-010-0035-2

McDaniel, M. A., & Masson, M. E. (1985). Altering memory representation through retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 11(2), 371–385.

Nassaji, H. (2007). Elicitation and reformulation and their relationship with learner repair in dyadic interaction. Language Learning, 57, 511–548. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00427.x

Nassaji, H. (2015). The interactional feedback dimension in instructed second language learning: Linking theory, research, and practice. Bloomsbury.

Nassaji, H. (2016). Anniversary article Interactional feedback in second language teaching and learning: A synthesis and analysis of current research. Language Teaching Research, 20(4), 535–562. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168816644940

Roediger, H. L., & Pyc, M. A. (2012). Inexpensive techniques to improve education: Applying cognitive psychology to enhance educational practice. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 1, 242–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2012.09.002

Roediger, H. L. III, Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice. In J. P. Mestre & B. H. Ross (Eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Cognition in education (pp. 1–36). Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-387691-1.00001-6

Sheen, Y. (2008). Recasts, language anxiety, modified output, and L2 learning. Language Learning, 58, 835–874. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00480.x

Witter-Merithew, A. (2001). Feedback: A conversation about ‘the work’ between learners and colleagues. Distance Opportunities for Interpreter Training Center. http://intrpr.info/library/witter-merithew-talking-about-the-work.pdf

Witter-Merithew, A., & Johnson, L. J. (2004). Market disorder within the field of sign language interpreting: Professionalization implications. Journal of Interpretation. https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=joi

Winston, E. A. (2005). Designing a curriculum for American Sign Language/English interpreting educators. In M. Marschark, R. Peterson, & E. A. Winston (Eds.), Sign language interpreting and interpreter education: Directions for research and practice. Oxford University Press.

Yarger, C. C. (2001). Educational interpreting: Understanding the rural experience. American Annals of the Deaf, 146(1), 16–30. https://doi.org/10.1353/aad.2012.0074