Stellenbosch University Language Centre

Tag: Educational interpreting

Online interpreting in the classroom – now even more seamless!

SU lecturers! Does your module use interpreting, or would you like to use interpreting in your module?

The SU Language Centre’s Interpreting Service interpreters are available online to interpret for students who would like to make use of the service.

For the second semester, we’ve tried to make the process easier and much less of an administrative burden. To do this, the Interpreting Service will be scheduling all English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa (where applicable) sessions necessary for interpreting on MS Teams.

Please read the following details carefully to ensure that your module gets confirmed on our timetable.

What has changed?

  • You no longer need to schedule any meetings. The Interpreting Service team will schedule all the meetings necessary to make interpreting happen in your module and invite you, so you have full access.
  • There will only be one link per language (Afrikaans and/or isiXhosa) for the interpreted sessions which students will use for every class during the week. This means you need only place one link on SUNLearn once. Students will not have access to the meeting recording or chat once they have left the session.
  • You will receive an ‘Interpreting Kit’ with links for SUNLearn, QR codes you can use in the classroom and the contact details of the liaison interpreter for your module.
  • You need to confirm the details of the scheduled sessions by accepting the meeting invites and replying to the email your liaison interpreter sends you. Only once you’ve confirmed the details will the module be confirmed on our timetable.

What is the same?

  • You still have full access and MS Teams permissions to all the meetings.
  • You can still stop and start the recording for the English session – in other words, your own lecture – and download the recording for your own purposes. Students will not have access to these recordings unless you have approved it.
  • You can still decide whether the interpreters should record the interpreted lecture – we will never record lectures without your permission. You can download the interpreted lecture for your own purposes. Students will not have access to these recordings unless you have approved it.
  • You can still monitor class attendance. The Interpreting Service will continue to keep a record of the students who use our service and can make this list available to you on request. Tip: Make sure your students understand what you mean by “class attendance”, if this is a requirement for your module – e.g., that they should be physically present in the classroom OR that they can simply listen to the lecture synchronously online.
  • You need to make the link or QR code to the interpreted session(s) available to students on SUNLearn and/or in the classroom. To ensure reasonable application of the Language Policy, all students must have access to interpreting at all times for modules earmarked for interpreting according to your faculty’s language implementation plan.

What can you expect before the start of the semester?

  • All the sessions required to make interpreting happen in your module will be scheduled by 1 February 2024.
  • You will receive an email from your liaison interpreter with your Interpreting Kit by 6 February 2024. Please confirm the details of the scheduled sessions by accepting the meeting invites and replying to your liaison interpreter by 12:00 on 8 February 2024. Please make the link available on SUNLearn or indicate to your liaison interpreter how you will ensure access to interpreting for all students by 12:00 on 8 February 2024.

What if you want to schedule the meetings yourself?

The default option will now be for the Interpreting Service to schedule all meetings required to make interpreting happen in your module. If you would like to schedule the meetings yourself, or if you would like meetings to be set up in a specific way (e.g., for recordings to start automatically in the English session), please let us know by 6 February 2024.

We look forward to another great semester of working together!

If you would like to find out more about interpreting, or if you would like to request interpreting for your module, please contact Christine Joubert or visit the Interpreting Service webpage.

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Teamwork makes the team work: Lecturers’ online partner in multilingualism

Some educational interpreters and lecturers they collaborate with

Success should be celebrated! Recently the Language Centre’s Interpreting Service hosted a collaboration celebration with some of the lecturers who use interpreting during their lectures.

Together we reflected on a semester of working together to create a high-quality multilingual classroom experience for students. It was the first opportunity for some lecturers to meet the interpreters with whom they’ve been working face to face – both an exciting and a strange experience!

Educational interpreting is a free service provided by the SU Language Centre’s Interpreting Service. It is available for modules that qualify according to faculties’ language implementation plans, or where there is a pedagogical need.

Students can benefit immensely from a multilingual teaching and learning space. By bringing different languages into the teaching and learning space, students are given the opportunity to approach learning material from different perspectives and to find the way that resonates best with their learning style. It also allows for more voices to be heard in an authentic way. Therefore, it is critically important for lecturers to understand how educational interpreting on our campus works and how to use it, and to encourage students to make use of it.

Accordingly, interpreting on our campus can be useful and meaningful in many more situations than only where students do not understand the language in which a lecturer presents a lecture. Students sometimes prefer listening to the lectures in Afrikaans for the first few weeks after the commencement of lectures because they may be unsure about the English and the subject terminology.

When they listen to the whole lecture in Afrikaans in real time, it helps them with the transition from school to university. As Dr Christine Steenkamp (Physics) puts it:

In cases where students stop making use of interpreting after a month or two, we don’t see it as meaning that the interpreting was unsuccessful. It might actually mean that it worked, because the transition has taken place and the student can move on confidently.”

Some of the benefits of interpreting for lecturers were also highlighted during the event. Prof Hermann Swart (Psychology) explained that it was invaluable to him to know that he has an online partner who can deal with the Afrikaans so that he can be at his best when he lectures in English. It is a shared goal of lecturer, interpreter and student to include the preferred language of more students in the class, and the fact that he can depend on interpreters to convey the content in Afrikaans to students who understand it better in Afrikaans or simply prefer it in Afrikaans, contributes to his being able to relax more.

Remerta Basson (Financial Accounting) mentioned how impressed she was with the interpreters’ knowledge of subject terminology, and the authentic and natural manner in which they conveyed the content in the interpreted lectures.

Thanks to the innovativeness of the technological team at the Interpreting Service, real-time online interpreting was integrated in the classrooms almost seamlessly. For the students it is as simple as putting on earphones in the classroom there and then!

You are welcome to find out more about educational interpreting by sending an email to juanli@sun.ac.za at the Interpreting Service or visiting our web page.

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Africa Day 2023: Our Africa, our future

In recognition of its wonder and multifaceted nature, the month of May is dedicated to Africa.

Africa Day itself is celebrated on 25 May – this year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (now known as the African Union), founded on 25 May 1963. On this day, leaders of 30 of the 32 independent African states signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and vowed to encourage nation-building through unity and freedom from oppression.

This month, the Language Centre has chosen to highlight the important roles that interpreters have played on the African continent to overcome language barriers – from the professional linguists and praise singers of tribal African societies to the modern-day interpreters who facilitate nation-building and provide access to services by interpreting in national parliaments, conferences, courts and hospitals. And, of course, we also think of the educational interpreters who make it possible for university lectures to be understood in Afrikaans, English, isiXhosa and South African Sign Language.

The practice of interpreting from one language to another on the African continent, as elsewhere, goes back thousands of years.

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In many African societies, the professional linguists or praise singers belonged to a long line of gifted multilingual orators who devised praise songs on important public occasions to celebrate the victories and glorious qualities of the chief and his ancestors.”

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The oral art of West African griots (‘bards’) and Southern African iimbongi (‘praise singers’) continues today, with praise singers acting as modern political commentators.

The hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996 to 1998 marked the first opportunity for many South Africans to become acquainted with the marvels of simultaneous interpreting in the eleven official languages of South Africa. Interpreters facilitated reconciliation during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Since then, they have continued to help to build South Africa as a nation at national and provincial legislatures, municipal council meetings and conferences. Other major employers of interpreters in Africa include the African Union, Pan-African Parliament, UNON (the United Nations Office in Nairobi), SADC (the Southern African development community) and the African Development Bank.

All around the world, sign language interpreters are known for facilitating access to education for Deaf students, but what is less well known is that spoken language interpreters can do the same for hearing students. This way several South African universities make university lectures accessible to students who are not necessarily so comfortable in the language of teaching. At SU, our educational interpreters work in Afrikaans, English, isiXhosa and South African Sign Language.

We celebrate the role interpreting has played over the years to help Africa and its people connect and prosper. At the Language Centre we consider ourselves privileged to be part of that story, and also to be part of the future of Africa – our Africa.

If you’re an interpreter working in Africa, please share your story with us. E-mail us at taalsentrum@sun.ac.za.

Source:
Wallmach, K. 2015. Africa. In Pöchhacker, F. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge.

Blog by Dr Kim Wallmach, Director of the Language Centre

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Welcome to our interpreting world

An experiential interpreting workshop – that’s what the research team of the Language Centre’s Interpreting Service came up with this year for the University’s annual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Conference on 29 and 30 October. Ever wondered about the life and times of an educational interpreter? University staff who attended this workshop signed up to be thrown in at the deep end to interpret in various simulated classroom scenarios. The deep-end scenario had a specific purpose – to give participants an authentic personal experience (with a limited introductory overview) of the demands, emotions and cognitive processes during simultaneous educational interpreting.

Even though participants were supported by experienced SU interpreting buddies, the tension was palpable when Eduard de Kock, the first presenter, fired away in English (at a very reasonable delivery pace) with a history ‘lecture’ to be interpreted to Afrikaans. They gave it their all – the words rolled off their tongues, together with rolling eyes, deep breaths and sighs, the odd nervous giggle and some “whatever” thrown in under the breath when they could not find those elusive equivalents at the speed of light. The lively feedback following the first lecture session included words and phrases like “missing one word made me lose the entire thread”, “the terminology derailed me”, “never realised how difficult it is” and “where do you get the vocabulary from?!”.

Although fun bubbled below the surface throughout the workshop, it was a serious affair. Participants gained a better understanding of the challenges and joys of educational interpreting, the professionalism of the Language Centre’s interpreting team and the importance of interpreting at SU.  Interpreting serves as a form of language support, embedded in the SU Language Policy, to assist students who battle to adequately understand the language of delivery in class. By using interpreting they could gain full access to the field of study’s content, capitalise on comprehensive knowledge transfer and benefit from layered meaning creation.

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A contemplation of living translation and interpreting on our doorstep

In September, one of the biggest triennial events on the global translation studies calendar took place in Stellenbosch: the ninth Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST). The Language Centre was a platinum sponsor of the event, and the University’s Department of Afrikaans and Dutch did a sterling job of hosting this coming together of translation scholars from all over the world. Two Language Centre staff members presented papers at the Congress, the theme of which was ‘Living Translation: People, Processes, Products’.

Susan van Zyl-Bekker, an educational interpreter at the Language Centre, delivered a paper entitled ‘Reflective practice in educational interpreting:  Clarifying role and improving ethical decision-making skills of the educational interpreter’. In her presentation she explained that ethical decision-making during the process of educational interpreting aims to facilitate communication to establish teaching and learning in the classroom. If an interpreter cannot hear the lecturer or a student, or does not understand the relevant terminology, she must act decisively in order to establish communication. In her study investigating the demand control-schema (DC-S) of Dean and Pollard (2011) and its theoretical application on educational interpreting at SU, Susan has found that interpreters’ ethical decision-making could be impeded by role conflict. If interpreters are able to influence decision-making more in the classroom, this will mitigate the stress and cognitive load of their work. Among other things, Susan suggests that reflective practice between all relevant stakeholders involved in the interpreting programme be implemented.

Dr Kim Wallmach, Director of the Language Centre, and her co-presenter, sign language interpreter Petri du Toit, used a variety of images as a way of offering special insights into the place of South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreters in the history of the Deaf community since South Africa’s democratic transition in 1994. Their pictorial review focused on interpreters who were in the public eye, and therefore shaped public opinion about sign language interpreters working in professional contexts such as parliament, the media and conferences. In their paper, entitled ‘Framing South African Sign Language interpreting: Pictorial representations of SASL interpreters from 1994 to 2019’, they explored a number of events involving sign language interpreters to gain an understanding of how the visual turn is now playing out in social media in South Africa. They asked whether sign language interpreters understand what it means to be literally in the public eye, and reflected on how this increased visibility might affect the public’s expectations of the role of the interpreter.

Delegates seem to have enjoyed the first EST Congress on African soil. For the next one, translation scholars will be heading north once again: It was announced that the 2022 congress will be hosted by the Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway.

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