Situation based liaison interpreting curriculum development 1.

Unfortunately, one need to be a Phd candidate or more to expect feedback from the academics, most of them. I tried and get in touch with that Trieste conference of last week but feedback didn't came. However, here is my attempt at an Off-Trieste one-to-one with myself session at "Learning to Liase in Business". I'd rather rename it to "Teaching to Liase in Business".

Re-reading the chapter nine of "Liaison Interpreting - A Handbook", I am impressed at how exact the description of the many situations and roles the liaison interpreter may have to deal and play with. It matches so much my experience as few other descriptions I have read about.

It also implicitly points at how liaison interpreter with a heavy hand on business must be presented to an introductory course like the one I have been teaching for more than 2 years now. I usually start explaining what interpretation can be in terms of technics and settings. I go further explaining what are the core competence of interpretation, starting from listening and understanding the message. Delivering a course of 20 hours in 10 sessions has been following a path changing over time, dwelling on the technics referred to in the introduction, words versus meaning and how interpretation is about meaning transfer, short utterances interpretation, note taking, speech structure with typical pattern like my favorite one I tentatively call "list stuffs", that is, list of items. Applying this in a classroom without any devices besides two large LCD screen, with at times 15 or more students have been a challenge.

Also, the course runs on the stance that it is not only geared at active or budding interpreters, but also at language learners who will find in the "technics" of interpretation strategies to improve, and additionally, new insights into what communicating is all about.

I assume the 通訳メソッドを応用する axis that are displayed on book covers to strategically progress in English, Chinese and recently Spanish are unique in Japan in the sense that they highlight mostly shadowing as the "miracle cure" to progress.

This I leave outside the class as a method I strongly encourage students to explore at home on their own. But inside the class, following a logical, progressive path of learning has always been somewhat difficult, what with the startling differences at times between students in terms of listening or talking competence. And also the ever startling gap they discover by themselves in terms of competence to build well structured messages in their own mother tongue.

A highlight of the course is the one or two sessions of mockup business presentation training. They are usually enjoyed by most students. The preparation comes like this. I select a piece of PowerPoint presentation on a specific topic you can find aplenty over the Net. They have a week to prepare it in a leisurely fashion or more on their own. They are working grown-ups and some are way too busy to request them and do a thorough preparation. The next week, I put a small table and chair adjacent my desk in the classroom, I pretend not understanding Japanese and one by one, they come on stage for a five minutes of interpretation of the presentation I deliver. The listening students are put into contribution when I ask in French through my interpreter to ask questions. Some will do it, which allows the interpreter to work from B to A. I interspace the play with highlights on the issues at stake, not much emphasizing the problems of vocabulary which I think not much relevant, but instead the issues of rendering, wrapping up, and also attitudes that all pertain to the work of interpretation. There are always new situations that allow to stress the problems interpretation has to deal with all the time, unclear statement, wrong statement and how to clarify, what to do with humor, and many other features.

The problem is that business presentation is not the single situation the business liaison interpreter has to deal with. Other situations could be mocked up in a classroom, but presentation especially fit the setting with a real audience called up for participation in not only listening but interacting in the play at work.

The other setting I wish to find a solution to mock up is the small group meeting centered around technical discussion, negotiation and the likes, down to the bare triadic exchange. Splitting the class into groups does not look to fit as a proper approach due to the gaps in competence of students.

An other situation I wish to develop is a mock tour of an installation. It could be based on the description of an object, a factory being by itself a usually very huge object. I remember a large poster like rectangular folding document I owned when I was a child showing in details in the innards of a Boeing 747. I am fancying also walking through Google Streets delivering a description of details to be interpreted on the fly by students one by one. A walkthrough of some industrial facility would be a fantastic practice object too. To be followed ...