Interpreter Training

This paper reports on interprofessional education (IPE), a teaching and learning strategy that is widely used in healthcare training. IPE is structured and usually situation-based training that involves two or more groups of professionals. Desired learning outcomes for practitioners or trainees of both groups include learning how the other group works and how to optimise working with them, whilst also gaining perspectives of how others see their own group's work. Learning is achieved through participation in real or simulated activities. We address three research questions in looking at the achievement of learning outcomes for both interpreting and medical students: perceived usefulness of roleplay as a component of IPE sessions, perceived increase of knowledge bases and the perceived usefulness of pre-and postinteractional (de-)briefings. Four IPE sessions were conducted involving 153 interpreting and medical students from late 2017 to early 2019 in Australia. A data sample based on 118 survey responses shows high levels of agreement that role-plays are a useful activity in IPE. Further, students record a high level of increase in their knowledge of the other professional group as well as of their own. The value of pre-interactional briefings and post-interactional exchanges is confirmed by all groups of informants.

Academia´s thoughts and graduates' opinions of education at university degree for translators and interpreters: is there a need for revisiting both concept and practice? Abstract The reason for the present study topic is rooted in a thorny situation. On the one hand, there are centuries-long traditions and prolific research in the area of Translator and Interpreter education, both practice and research lay grounds for the stable training of the mentioned specialists. On the other hand, the third millennium has brought to smart life societies, intensive collaborations, harsh contradictions and ideological tensions into the multilingual and multicultural world. The changing and emerging contexts of interpreter and translator's professional activities challenge the current vision of the mentioned specialists' training background and skills, put on the agenda new requirements for those who are expected to act properly to respond to newly diversified societal needs. The research goal is to explore the aspects that might be subject matter for the anticipated revision of T/Is university-based education. The research methodology integrates qualitative and quantitate analysis and rests on theoretical and empirical activities. Materials for theoretical analysis involve publications on the issues under study. The research includes cluster and factor types of analysis to identify gaps between Academia, Industry, and Research regarding the quality of translating and interpreting in socially-focused settings. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to process data. The research findings allow for drafting preliminary recommendations regarding revisiting T&Is' training in the era of globalization. Key words: philosophy of education, translator and interpreter training, third millennium environments for T/Is´training Introduction The Concept of Education for translators and interpreters (further T&I) and mirroring practices were charting their path from ancient civilizations to modern society of digital knowledge. One can easily recall translation and interpretation schools that ran across the past centuries in China, Austria, Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Uruguay, France and other countries, as well. The above schools accumulated local philosophy and other countries' visions of interpreter and translator education. The second half of the 20th century gave birth to international and national professional organizations of translators and interpreters, laid grounds for a common understanding of philosophical thought on T&I education principles, methods, standards for T&I' institutional training and their professional codes of ethics. Degree programs for T&I's have become common for European, American, Asian, Australian universities. Mutual recognition of university degrees in Translation and Interpreting got new impetus due to Bologna process. The UNO, European Commission, and European Parliament also contributed to disseminating promising practices and shaping core curriculum and competencies for T&I education. The institutions have launched and foster network of universities that offer respective degree courses under the core curriculum principles, shared vision of the key competencies, a common principle of T&I qualifications (EMT, 2017; EMCI, 2017; United Nations: the competitive language examination,

The present textbook is the outcome of several years of practical experience in interpreter training in Iranian academic environments, intertwined with a number of relevant research projects. It adopts a ‘cognitive’ approach to interpreting and interpreting competence, and by taking recourse to a special version of task-based learning, which rests on communicative and social constructivist approaches to education, presents and works within a specific ‘model for interpreter training’ to develop the trainees’ consecutive interpreting competence. The theoretical underpinnings of this approach may be best summarized in the following statement: interpreting competence is translation competence plus a cognitive competence, i.e. a set of cognitive sub-competences, unique to interpreting (Mousavi Razavi, 2015).
Despite the fact that there have been a number of efforts aimed at preparing material for interpreting classes, one can dare say that this is one of the first attempts in the local environment, systematically and specifically devised to be used as a ‘textbook’ on consecutive interpreting in Iran. There is undoubtedly plenty of space for improvement after it gets tested and tried in the classroom.
As stated before and within the cognitive framework adopted, the exercises are designed to develop the trainees’ interpreting competence, and not their linguistic competence-which is only one of the sub-competences of the translation competence. This, most probably, is the major difference between this book and its few predecessors in Iran, which were mostly geared toward developing the trainees’ mastery of English language (as their L2), perhaps as a prerequisite to the practice of interpreting.
The fact that mastery over L2 has not received attention here, does not meanthat linguistic competence is not of significance; rather, the idea we are trying to advocate within this cognitive framework is that although linguistic competence, both L1 and L2, plays a vital role in interpreting, it by no means suffices to turn a trainee into an interpreter. Linguistic competence, when combined with other sub-competences, such as cultural, textual, subject matter, and transfer, makes for translation competence. Translation competence, when combined with certain cognitive competences, such as stress management, makes for interpreting competence. Indeed, language proficiency is seen here as a necessary prerequisite to starting an interpreting course, not as its aim. In other words, trainees are expected to have a reasonable mastery over both English and Persian.
So the present textbook does not attempt to teach the students words, expressions, and structures in English or Persian although this may come as a natural result of all language-related learning experiences. At the same time, the trainees are expected to develop their linguistic competence by resorting to numerous other sources available to them, such as textbooks, dictionaries, glossaries, etc. What we ultimately expect the present textbook, and in fact the approach on which it is based, to be able to achieve is to fill the existing gap in the Iranian academia between the objectives of interpreting courses and the actual performance of interpreting trainers. In other words, it seeks to develop the ‘cognitive competence’ necessary to turn a competent translator into a competent interpreter. This ‘mental preparedness’ can hopefully be brought about through application of the techniques and exercises introduced here.
The present textbook comprises two main chapters: 1. Theoretical Considerations, and 2. Consecutive Interpreting, which are further divided into separate lessons to suit class sessions. Chapter one, as the title suggests, deals with certain theoretical information and discussions and provides a brief theoretical background for the trainees. It contains three lessons, each presenting some interpreting concepts, the knowledge of which is indispensable for any interpreting student. Chapter two is itself divided into two separate sections: 1. Preparatory Exercises, 2. CI Exercises. Preparatory exercises are not necessarily concerned with translation; rather they are designed to ‘train the brain’ and prepare it for the task of interpreting. The lessons in the second section contain exercises that require the trainees to perform the task of consecutive interpreting in a real-life-like situation. The exercises will involve English and Persian in both directions. The book is accompanied by a DVD containing all the audio and video files pertaining to the exercises.
A final note to make is that although this book is written in English and deals with a specific language pair (English-Persian) when it comes to the exercises devised, it may, of course with certain modifications, be of use to students of interpreting working with other language pairs as well. The macro-structure of the book needs no change; the instructor, however, will need to be reasonably familiar with the English language and will have to replace the audio and video files in the second chapter of the book with corresponding files in the languages concerned. Ideally, it is hoped that similar textbooks and teaching materials within the same approach will be written to suit the needs of trainee interpreters with different language pairs.