Innovative Practices for Teaching Sign Language Interpreters

Training Interpreters—Past, Present, and Future

CYNTHIA B. ROY Training InterpretersPast , Present, and Future EVER SINCE the formal education of interpreters began, educators have been trying to determine what to teach in order to produce entry-level interpreters who achieve the minimum level of competence needed to perform their jobs successfully. Etilvia Arjona, former director of the translation and interpretation program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, suggested that interpreter training programs should take students to levels in which they "routinely transfer or interpret the message accurately and appropriately , thus bridging the communicative gap in a meaningful manner " (1983, 6). The notion that beginning interpreters should be able to consistently convey accurate and appropriate messages-no matter what the situation or event-is intriguing. Nevertheless, this concept is consistent with the way that other professions construct their educational programs. How best to teach students a body of knowledge, as well as a professional skill, that adequately meets entry-level requirements is a question most interpreter-training programs are still trying to answer. One problem is a profession-wide lack of agreement about what constitutes a basic, or generic, interpreted meeting and what an interpreter must know and be able to do to participate in an appropriate way. Training programs typically base courses and curricula on theories borrowed from translation studies, spoken-language training exercises, and information-processing techniques. They also practice interpreting as it is done in specialized settings such as schools, doctors' offices, and courtrooms. Interpreting courses, consciously or unconsciously, are designed around the concept ofan 1 2 CYNTHIA B. ROY interpreter as a producer of a text-a singular, bounded entity of words, sentences, or signs. In such a framework, the correctness (or equivalence) of the text is central, speakers are secondary, and listeners are typically anonymous. Interpreters are-and students learn to think ofthemselves as-passive conveyors ofothers' words and thoughts. Most programs accept this set of beliefs about an interpreter 's role and pay little, ifany, attention to the nature ofinterpreted situations or to the other participants within such situations. When educators do have a chance to gather and discuss training, they rarely discuss fundamental notions such as those just considered . Rather, they present teaching activities at conferences, which permit only a brief exchange ofideas or activities. Extended discussion , practice, and evaluation are precluded by time constraints. These activities are often presented as random teaching strategies, without grounding in theoretical notions oflanguage, or in interaction among people, or in connections to research. Instructors who take home "new" ideas are often unable to determine their place in a curriculum, and they do not have a sequential, scaffolding learning structure that allows them to incorporate the "new" activity and then proceed to the next stage. Courses thus become haphazard strings ofexercises and activities that lack a clear purpose. However, when educators have advanced training in language study, such as linguistics, and are also researchers, formulating studies to answer questions about learning, their teaching expertise combines with acquired knowledge. They grow professionally as teachers and report that their teaching improves with a new awareness of why students learn the way they do. When successful teachers-those who base their teaching strategies on theory and research-are invited to demonstrate and discuss their own best practices, the profession benefits from their insight and expertise. An educational reform movement already in practice in the United States-the National Writing Project-elicits the best techniques of classroom teachers and asks them to connect their practice to theory and research. This successful professional development model can also work for teachers of interpreters. Thus the contributors in this book each share a teaching practice that they consider particularly effective with their students. TRAINING INTERPRETERS A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF ASL IENGLISH INTERPRETER TRAINING 3 The first collegiate sign language interpreter-trammg programs were established in the mid-1970s and were located in speech communication or deaf education programs in universities or community colleges. Most programs started with one or two interpreter training classes, usually taught by individuals who were experienced interpreters but who had little or no advanced academic training in related fields. The curricula of such programs developed gradually. Most started by teaching sign language, whether American Sign Language (ASL) or contact signing. Mter a year or more, students were deemed ready to begin interpreter training regardless of their general level of education, their abilities in English, or their exposure to Deafadults or children. As these programs...