Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate professional interpersonal skills and ethical behavior in any setting.

2. Apply theoretical knowledge of the role and function of an interpreter to interpretations, teams, and consumer interactions.

3. Analyze the interpreting process and set individual goals for improvement.

4. Accurately and effectively interpret the main points and some details of a given source message.

This course will consist of the following activities:

• Regular supervision sessions with instructor to discuss in class interpretations

• Interpret in class for guest speakers

• Regular meetings with a mentor to analyze their work

• Contact speakers and preparing for assignments

• Practice working with teams and setting up the position of the interpreters appropriately for the setting

• Maintain a record of hours spent preparing for assignments, mentoring hours, observation hours, and interpreting hours.

Students will be assessed by interpreting work, completion of community hours, reflections, professionalism, and ethical behavior. Students must complete 60 hours of class time, assignments, mentoring, and community hours. 

Course content includes:

• Continued development of expressive and receptive simultaneous interpreting skills.

• Practice successful communication between the student interpreter and team, consumer, and presenter.

• Develop an understanding of the appropriate location of an interpreter in a given situation.

• Use of appropriate professional dress and demeanor, interpreting techniques, preparation, processing, clarification techniques, and production of an interpretation.

• Development of strategies to control performance anxiety and to become comfortable interpreting in front of an audience.

• Discuss and analyze personal skill development 

• Calculate time spent preparing for, discussing, and performing an interpretation.