First Court Interpreting Institutito Big Hit!
Thursday, 27 March 2014
ARIZONA-KENTUCKY INTERPRETING INSTITUTITO
Just came back from teaching at the very first one-week court interpreter training institute in Louisville, Kentucky, and I have to say it was a great success!!
Thirty participants got a taste of the mini interpreting boot camp -- for seven days they practiced simultaneous and consecutive interpretation daily, worked on sight translations, took practice court interpreting certification exams, and attended at least one daily lecture on related topics such as legal terminology, interpreting techniques, legal language, firearms and street drugs all in English and Spanish. It was a very INTENSE week; the participants rolled up their sleeves and worked, and worked and worked…
The name INSTITUTITO was coined by John Bichsel, from the University of Arizona’s National Center for Interpretation after Joshua Elliott (Federally Certified Interpreter and Supervisor for the Kentucky courts’ Interpreter Division) had the idea that we should create a shorter version of the 3-week summer institute held in Tucson every June. This great project was the result of some wonderful collaboration between the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts, the University of Louisville, and the University of Arizona’s Agnese Haury Institute for Court Interpreting.
After a lot of conferences calls, emails, review and development of educational material, the Institutito was held in Louisville, and what a success it was!! We had participants that were complete beginners as well as state-certified interpreters with countless years of experience among them.
It was a great opportunity to meet, mingle, brainstorm, and work with people new in the field and with some of the best court interpreters in the region of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and other regions. Some even came from states as far as Colorado and California.
As faculty, I admit I was exhausted at the end, but it was oh, so much fun!!!! Can’t wait for it next year.
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