Tag Archives: MIC

Creating a better classroom experience: Workshop for interpreter trainers in Tenerife

The summer professional development season is swiftly approaching, and it’s my pleasure to announce that my colleagues at the University of La Laguna have decided to offer something new this year. This June, Dick Fleming and I will be running a Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop here on Tenerife as part of the University’s INTTRA training initiative.

The ToT workshop will focus on practical tips and tricks for teaching in both on-site and virtual interpreting classrooms. It will run over the course of three days at the end of June and be held in the sunny southern end of the island (yes, there are plenty of beaches nearby 😉 ).

I’m very excited about this new ToT initiative. The aim is to create a bridge between the more “traditional” forms of classroom-based learning and new approaches in the virtual sphere. We’ll be combining Dick’s years of experience training on-site at the European Commission in Brussels with the lessons I have learned while cutting my teeth over the past few years in the virtual classroom. Together, we’ll examine best practice in both settings and explore how on-site lessons can be adapted for virtual delivery, among other things. Participants will be encouraged to bring along their own questions and case studies for discussion in the group, and will run practical exercises to put ideas into practice. I know from past ToT experiences that great things happen when interpreter trainers come together – and this time as well, I am counting on watching the ideas fly!

To find out more about the workshop and consult the detailed schedule, please check out our infomation page. To reserve your spot, you can either drop us a line at masteric@ull.es or pre-register on the INTTRA workshop page.

Hope to see you in June!

25th Anniversary Celebrations at the Master’s of Conference Interpreting, La Laguna

This is a special week for us here in La Laguna. Interpreting students, trainers, alumni and a number of top names in the interpreting community will be coming to our University to join us in marking the 25th edition of our Master’s of Conference Interpreting program. It’s not every day that a conference interpreter training program turns 25 – indeed, only a handful of courses in the world have such a long trajectory behind them – and so it is only fitting that this event be celebrated in style.

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / Stuart Miles

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / Stuart Miles

The anniversary celebrations will be held over two days, February 13 and 14, and will offer something for everyone. Thursday’s program includes keynote presentations and panel discussions with invited guests on a broad range of topics, from the history of training to the future of our profession, and will be crowned with a gala dinner. Friday starts with a round of paintball for visiting alumni and concludes with a session of speed networking.

The MIC is honoured to see so many illustrious leaders of the interpreting community coming to join in the celebrations. These include Mario Benedetti (Director General of Interpretation at the European Commission), Linda Fitchett (President of AIIC), the heads of the Spanish booths at UN Geneva and the European Parliament, as well as trainers and alumni from the four corners of Europe.

All the details of the upcoming event can be found on the MIC’s blog, which includes a video showing life at the MIC. If you’d like to follow the proceedings from afar, they will be tweeted live using the #MIC25 hashtag. To give you an idea of what to expect, here is the schedule (in Spanish) of the talks and panel discussions planned for Thursday.

Nuevos tiempos, nuevos retos para la formación de intérpretes de conferencias

Jornada de conmemoración del XXV aniversario del Máster en Interpretación de Conferencias de la Universidad de La Laguna

9.30 – 10.00 h.

Conferencia: “La interpretación en las Instituciones europeas: el multilingüismo en acción”.

D. Marco Benedetti (Director General de Interpretación de la Comisión Europea).

10.15 – 11.00 h.

Conferencia: “Los inicios de la formación en interpretación de conferencias”.

D. Richard Fleming (ex intérprete funcionario de la Comisión Europea).

11.30 – 12.30 h.

Mesa redonda: “Nuevos espacios de formación en la interpretación de conferencias”.

Dª Natalia Sánchez-Calero (DG Interpretación Comisión Europea); Dra. Denitza Bogomilova (DG INT Parlamento Europeo); D. Cristóbal Osuna (ONU); Dª Linda Fitchett (AIIC),  Dª Lourdes de Rioja (ULL).

12.45 – 13.45 h.

Mesa redonda: “La formación de intérpretes en los servicios públicos”.

D. Fernando Gascón Nasarre (APTIJ), Dra. Marta Arumì Ribas (U Autónoma de Barcelona), Dª Marlene Fernández Pérez (ULL); Dra. Carmen Toledano Buendía (ULL).

15.00 – 15.30 h.

Presentación: “El régimen de integración de Canarias en la Unión Europea”.

D. Ildefonso Socorro Quevedo, Viceconsejero de Economía y Asuntos Económicos con la Unión Europea del Gobierno de Canarias.

15.45 – 17.00 h.

Mesa redonda: “¿Hay vida después del MIC?”.

D. Javier Hernández Saseta (DG Interpretación); Dra. Jéssica Pérez-Luzardo (U Las Palmas GC); Dª Zia Firoz Papar (intérprete autónoma); D. Ramón Ruiz López (intérprete autónomo).

Aspiring Interpreters: Where Will You Be Next Fall?

It may feel a bit strange to be thinking already about what you’re planning to do next autumn, seeing as how spring has only recently sprung and September seems eons away. However, if you are thinking you might like to study to become a conference interpreter, NOW is the time to be putting in applications to the postgraduate programs starting in the fall.

The University of La Laguna is no exception to this rule. The coordinators here at the Master’s in Conference Interpreting are doing most of their planning for the 2013-14 academic year as we speak. The deadline for submitting an application for next year’s program is May 15th, just under two weeks away, so if you are thinking you might like to come study under the swaying palms of La Laguna’s Guajara campus, you must get your paperwork in now.

La Laguna Guajara Campus

In case you’re wondering what it’s like to study interpreting in La Laguna, you can find a description the MIC program in a prior post here on the Diaries (Portrait of a Conference Interpreting Course). Fellow blogger Clara at Bootheando published an in-depth post on the La Laguna course not too long ago as well. You can also consult the MIC website, which offers plenty of guidance and more than a few videos explaining the ins and outs of the program (not to mention the details of the aptitude tests, among other things).

Remember, the MIC does not just train Spanish interpreters. Applications are accepted from native speakers of other major European languages such as German and English (that’s my group!). The full list of prerequisites can be found here, and details on how to apply are here.

So, aspiring interpreters: I hope to see you in La Laguna this fall!