A Community of Practice for Interpreting: the missing link

(Photo:  tinyurl.com/fvop5buq) When I’ll look back at life under COVID-19 in a few years time, I will remember two contrasting experiences. On the one hand, a life on “pause” with restrictions of all kinds that all started in the same way: “you cannot…”. And on the other hand, the “fast forward” experience in teaching and learning that required imagination, agility, resilience and a deep sense of care. With access to vaccination, “life after COVID” is in sight. What will teaching and learning look and feel like? Will we fall back into our old habits and take refuge in the traditional face to face interaction? Will we celebrate the flexibility of online learning? Will we take shortcuts and do a bit of both to “make everyone happy”? To tell you the truth, when I speak to colleagues and students, we all share a common experience at present: we are exhausted, trying to survive one day at a time! However, I feel teachers have never felt so committed to delivering the best possible exper...

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...

In my previous post, I presented the three essential ingredients for a Communities of Practice to exist,  as presented by Etienne Wenger . However, let's have a quick recap. Remember what they are?  - a Domain        - a Community   - a Practice Excellent, you remember them all. Let's now try and see if these ingredients work 'in real life'. Today, I would like to illustrate the 'theory' with a concrete example: the Public Service Interpreting and Translation Network Group  (PSITNG). A few words about the PSITNG; the group was launched in 2008. Founding members of the PSITNG are mostly representatives of the PSIT industry who were consulted during the curriculum design of the new Master's in Public Service Interpreting - MAPSI (Health and Legal ) at London Metropolitan University. As course leader of Master programmes in interpreting, I invested quite a lot of time and energy making sure the MAPSI was meeting t...