In view of the current situation of English translation teaching in colleges and universities under the background of big data, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is integrated into the process of English translation teaching in colleges and universities. In this regard, a model for teaching English translation in colleges and universities based on Chinese excellent traditional culture has been designed. Sixty students of grade 2022 of English majors in a school are selected as research subjects, divided into an experimental group and a control group, and the effectiveness of the teaching mode of this paper is examined with the help of a questionnaire and independent sample t-test. It can be concluded that there are significant differences between the two teaching modes in translation theory, translation grammar and reading comprehension (P<0.05), which verifies that the teaching mode of this paper promotes the teaching of English translation in colleges and universities and improves the quality of translation talent cultivation in colleges and universities.