A Community of Practice for Interpreting: the missing link

COVID19 brought its own online teaching challenges. But that was the easy part. Wait until you hear about the summative assessment challenges! Here is how we did it. That could perhaps help you with your own online final exam approach. Traditionally, assessing conference interpreting is done in so many ways, but always face to face. Some universities assess their students as they interpret live speeches whilst others prefer their students to use recorded speeches. Some universities organise a final panel to assess candidates, others assess recorded exams. This post is not about the format of interpreting exams, but rather about the approach to online exams at a time of crisis. At London Metropolitan University, the format of our interpreting exams is as follows: each module is individually assessed. It could combine one or more of the following formats: practical interpreting exams (consecutive and simultaneous), presentations, essays, and portfolios of practice.  I would like to f...

Bringing individual learners into a transformative collaborative community End of academic year with students and tutors (MA Conference Interpreting - MA Interpreting at London metropolitan University) - celebrating collecting achievements Time flies. Our interpreting students are submitting their dissertations and placement reports whilst a new cohort of students is getting ready to start their Master's in Conference Interpreting. It feels wonderful to celebrate the achievements of students who will soon graduate. But at the same time, I always wonder... what will the new cohort of students be like? How will I manage to bring them together into a cohesive group that works collaboratively, learns and grows with each other's help and support? How will I facilitate the understanding that learning with each other, from each other, is conducive to high achievements, much higher than if they had been competing with one another? How will I be able to induce a collaborati...

Whilst researching Communities of Practice (CoP) as a model for interpreting studies, I increasingly realised, even though I was already aware of it, that interpreters have often been considered to be rare souls and as such quite unique . Rare  and unique  are not the first two features that come to mind when considering Community of Practice (CoP) as a possible framework for interpreting studies or indeed the interpreting profession. Rare and unique But let's take a leap back in time and explore who interpreters were in Antiquity. Interpreters were found where there was a need to solve or avoid conflicts, negotiate business or public relations or indeed, in courts where 'foreigners' were tried. As such their status varied. The Greeks considered interpreters as semi gods; they used the words ' translator'  or  'interpreter'  indifferently which meant ' a human being who performs one of this god's numerous activities (including lin...