Linking classroom exercises to real-life practice: A case study of interpretation training at a tertiary institution in Hong Kong

The global economic downturn poses increased challenges for higher education, which places the enhancement of graduates’ employability one of its top priorities (York, 2006). In training graduates to become interpreters or to undertake interpretation related jobs, tertiary interpretation programmes should address the practical needs of the society. A learner-centered and work experience related pedagogical design can therefore help students enter and get quickly adapted to the community of practice. In light of this, the present study reports the teaching experience of a simultaneous interpretation (SI) course at a tertiary interpretation training programme in Hong Kong. The course combines the training of basic SI skills with the practical exercise of real conference SI preparation and delivery. Students were guided through a scaffolded process to attempt conference SI based on the foundation of SI skills, language enhancement and knowledge preparation built in the first half of the course. With carefully designed guidelines and step-by-step feedback to students before, during and after the conference SI exercise, students successfully presented a series of conferences with SI on a variety of topics and demonstrated the potential of performing real-life SI. Theoretical modeling of the teaching method, as well as the alignment between the classroom exercises and real-life practice will be discussed. The study will shed important light on the philosophies and practice of interpreter training at different levels.