Deaf Education in America: Voices of Children from Inclusion Settings

5. Educational Interpreting

40 A deaf child’s language development, social acceptance, and academic achievement is deeply and profoundly affected by one person—the educational interpreter. As more students move to integrated learning environments, more interpreters are needed to provide access to those learning environments. In fact, an estimated 60% of sign language interpreters work with the estimated 60% of deaf students who learn in mainstream settings (Burch, 2005). But despite the 25 years of mandated services in public schools, there has been little systematic inquiry into the location or the qualifications of the current work force of educational interpreters (Burch, 2002). Because the interpreter is the channel for all communication and instruction, it is important to understand the quality of service of this middle person. Winston (1994a) emphasized that even though an interpreter may be able to provide a form of access, the education establishment does not adequately address the educational and communicative requirements of deaf children in classrooms by simply providing interpretation . Winston believes that before a rational discussion of interpreting can occur, three myths of interpreting must be exposed: (1) the myth that interpreting is a simple substitute for direct communication and teaching; (2) the myth that interpreted education is an “included” education, and (3) the myth that there is an adequate number of qualified interpreters to meet the needs of full inclusion. Interpreting is often assumed to give deaf students equal access to the world of communication and education. But this widely held belief that the interpreter “signs exactly what the teacher says” is known as a fallacy among interpreters and interpreting theory (Winston, 1994a). No matter how skilled the teacher or student, the interpreter is still the one to process the communication, always affecting the message to some degree. The very process of taking in material presented in one language and then conveying it into another language makes the result not the same (Winston, 1994a). Educational Interpreting 5 41 Educational Interpreting Effective interpreters have the skills to interpret everything from algebra to biology to history. But how many educational interpreters are effective? Do they have specialized training in how to interpret within the school system? Do interpreters have a code of ethics that guides them to make good choices and not help students to cheat? Obviously, there is a need for inquiry into the specific elements of educational interpreting. Some questions of importance are addressed within the body of the discourse in the field of educational interpreting, while other questions are left unanswered—representing a need for more research. Unfortunately, the areas that seem of greatest significance to the education of deaf children are those that reveal the most grave of situations. Is There Available an Adequate Number of Highly Skilled Educational Interpreters to Meet the Needs of Deaf Students? As the number of deaf and hard of hearing children placed in integrated settings has soared in recent years, so has a parallel increase in demand for educational interpreters (Burch, 2005; Yarger, 2001). Unfortunately, a severe shortage of qualified interpreters throughout the United States has been a clear concern in the literature (Dahl & Wilcox, 1990; Gustason, 1985; Hayes, 1992; Jones, Clark, & Soltz, 1997; Yarger, 2001). Though the research on educational interpreting has been scant, it does seem that the answers are highly varied by location. While one interpreter may have graduated from a respected interpreter training program, another educational interpreter may simply have learned some signs from a book. As more and more deaf and hard of hearing students are placed in local school districts, administrators are making decisions about hiring and assigning interpreters—often without knowing the role or the function of the interpreters, or their level of skills (Patrie, 1994). Faced with the difficulty of hiring and evaluating interpreters in a language they do not know, many have turned to the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (Schick & Williams), a tool now being used in 15 states to evaluate the skills of educational interpreters (Schick & Williams, 2003). Still, most interpreters report that their interpreting skills were not evaluated before they were hired (Jones, Clark, & Stoltz, 1997), nor have they been since (Yarger, 2001). Chapter Five 42 Without formal certification or degree requirements for educational interpreters, the variety of abilities is alarming. Jones, Clark, and Stoltz (1997) surveyed 222 educational interpreters in three states and found that many interpreters have been poorly trained and lack certification. This finding was reemphasized...