Workshop

Workshop Description & Educational Objectives:

The Role of Affect in Message Equivalence
Friday, May 1st

Workshop Description: Historically, interpreters have placed a lower priority on the feelings expressed by the speaker than on the content of the message. Interpreters who are challenged by the message content treat affect as “icing on the cake” and deal with it only when time and comfort in the assignment permits. Sometimes, interpreters analyze a speaker’s affect through their own filter(s) and may inadvertently misrepresent the speaker’s intent. This workshop will examine the role of speaker and interpreter affect (emotion) in various ways. Tools will be offered to analyze affect and hands-on practice will occupy most of the session.

Educational Objectives (List specific observable actions by participants that will demonstrate comprehension and integration of information presented): Participants will be able to:

a) identify and label various types of affect,
b) understand why conveying affect accurately is necessary for message equivalence,
c) express several types of affect to express a single concept, and
d) identify filters that may impede her/his interpretation

Where Are We Going With Team Interpreting? Saturday
May 2nd

Workshop Description: This unique training will combine several issues in team interpreting. We will look at the various practices and philosophies of team interpreting (when to use a team, what IS teaming, how do we negotiate preferences and styles with team members, etc.) and examine how hearing and deaf interpreters can create effective and harmonious teams. This training will include many small group activities that will raise issues needing further discussion by the group at large.

Educational Objectives (List specific observable actions by participants that will demonstrate comprehension and integration of information presented): Participants will be able to:

a) Demonstrate and discuss various teaming practices in current use
b) Identify successful strategies for dealing with diverse practices
c) Explain options that may reduce the likelihood of these problems occurring.

Process Mediation: Demonstrating A New Approach
Sunday, May 3rd

Workshop Description: In this three-hour session Betty Colonomos will demonstrate and discuss a practice now being used in mentoring, by peers, as a way to debrief, and to help form goals. Ms. Colonomos has spent more than 20 years developing and teaching this approach. There is no evaluative language used in this activity. Interpreters at any level will share a recording of an interpreting assignment and then engage in process mediation. The discussion is focused on working in the interpreter’s “zone” and scaffolding in ways that will allow them to move to a different zone. Theory-based guidelines and principles will be provided.

Educational Objectives (List specific observable actions by participants that will demonstrate comprehension and integration of information presented): Participants will be able to:

a) Explain the principals of Process Mediation
b) Describe Vygotsky’s Stages of Regulation
c) Analyze the effects of process mediation in demonstrations