Dear Educators,
We’re so excited for yet another ATA Conference! Let’s make it the best ever in Washington DC.
Educators Division: ATA dinner
Thursday, October 26 • 6:00pm • Registration and payment required.
Come and network with educators over delicious food at Las Canteras Restaurant (http://www.lascanterasdc.com/)
Cost: $48.00 per person (includes tax and gratuity).
Reservations accepted on a first come, first served basis.
To reserve your place at the dinner, go to the link [https://www.picatic.com/event15016086879301]
Educators Division Annual Meeting
Friday, October 27 • 12:30pm – 1:00pm
Come see what we’ve been up to, our brand new website and mingle. We look forward to seeing you. We will welcome the new members.
Division Open House/ Welcome celebration
Wednesday, October 25 • 5:30pm – 7:00pm • Open to registered attendees
ATA welcomes you to Washington! Get to know the ATA Divisions!
Meet and mingle with your fellow Division members. This event allows all Divisions to socialize and introduce themselves to newcomers. Attendees who are not members of a Division can also take this opportunity to get to know the different Divisions and learn more about them.
Also, please consider becoming a buddy. This mutually rewarding networking opportunity lets “Newbies” (first-time attendees) get paired up with “Buddies” (seasoned attendees) to get the most from their conference experience. SIGN UP NOW to take part in this event. It’s easy. Buddies welcome Newbies:
Introduction
Wednesday, October 25 • 4:45pm -5:30pm • Open to registered attendees
guest speaker talks
ET-2 Collaborative and Situated Translator Training: Moving Toward Transcollaboration, Part I
Maria González-Davies
(Friday, 10:00am-11:00am; All Levels; Presented in: English)
Implementing both collaborative scaffolding projects and real-life professional projects that involve teaming up lecturers and students with professional translators increases mutual understanding, efficiency, and quality. Transcollaboration benefits all agents because synergies are established between experience and innovation. Situated and collaborative learning offer an informed pedagogical framework to: a) implement professionally-oriented instruction; b) adapt the instruction to different contexts; and c) enable professionals and academics to work together in a potentially win-win situation. Attendees are invited to bring along their own successful learning materials to share and discuss.
Collaborative and Situated Translator Training: Moving Toward Transcollaboration, Part II
Maria González-Davies
(Friday, 11:15am-12:15pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)
See abstract for ET-2: Collaborative and Situated Translator Training: Moving Toward Transcollaboration, Part I
Education and Training Sessions
| ET-1 | The Evolving Curriculum in Interpreter and Translator Education: A Preview Frank Austermühl | Vanessa Enriquez Raido | David Sawyer (Thursday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English)This session will offer a preview of the paper “The Evolving Curriculum in Interpreter and Translator Education,” set to appear in the ATA Scholarly Monograph Series. Since the emergence of university curricula in the mid-twentieth century, the evolution of the professions and changes in teaching practices have led to fundamental shifts in how knowledge and skills are acquired. Written by noted stakeholders in interpreter and translator education, including leaders of academic programs, employer organizations, and professional associations, this paper describes the impact of evolutionary forces on the conceptual foundations and frameworks of translator and interpreter education. |
| ET-4 | SIMinar: Interpreting Theory Meets Real Life Franz Pöchhacker (Friday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)Conference interpreter training faces a two-fold tension between classroom and market needs, and between theory and practice. In line with the vocational orientation, trainers have brought classroom exercises closer to professional realities by using real-life speeches and staging mock conferences. At the same time, programs positioned at the postgraduate university level also include a theoretical component, often in the form of lectures or seminars. This session will show how potential gaps between training and market needs and between theory and practice in the curriculum can be filled with a SIMinar, a multifunctional course developed and tested at the University of Vienna. |
| ET-6 | The Nuts and Bolts of Remote Interpreting and Training: The Tech You Need and Why You Need It Katharine Allen | Barry Olsen (Saturday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)The way humans communicate has changed. Rapid technological advancements brought on by wireless connectivity and new smart devices have moved multilingual communication into the cloud. Interpreting teaching and practice is running to keep up. As interpreting and interpreter training move increasingly online, how do you adapt? What technologies must you understand and have access to if you want to interpret, teach, or learn online? Join us for this hands-on session that will demystify the technologies used to interpret and train interpreters online. You will leave this session with the knowledge to participate in this growing area of professional practice and training. |
| ET-7 | Benefits of Engaging Translation Students with Refugee Communities Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo (Saturday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)How do you design a course with the goal of engaging translation students with the needs of the refugee communities around them? What are the pedagogical benefits of such a course? How does it make students better translators? What are the benefits for the refugee population? This session will draw on the speaker’s experience designing and teaching a community-engaged French translation course with the International Rescue Committee as a partner. During the course, students translated 60 pages of cultural orientation materials into French for Congolese refugees. The speaker will discuss the long-term benefits of such partnerships for translator education. |
| ET-8 | Translation Project Management in the Virtual Classroom: Enhancement of Student Engagement through Task-Based Learning Monica Rodriguez-Castro (Friday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; Advanced; Presented in: English)This session will outline the design of an online graduate course in translation project management. A course on translation project management is generally considered to be a crucial component of the translation curriculum. The speaker will discuss: 1) detailed course content that prepares students for the professional workplace, 2) implementation of a task-based and project-based methodology that emphasizes hands-on practice, and 3) a process-based approach for portfolio assessment to accelerate skills acquisition. This session will showcase multiple methods of preparing students for the complex projects they might encounter in the language industry. This session will also demonstrate the application of the Quality Matters rubric to the online course. |
The following sessions, which are not strictly labeled as Educator Division events, may be of interest to you:
| N-1 | The Swedish School: Extracurricular Language Schools in the U.S. Petra Glimåker-Socolovsky (Thursday, 11:15am-12:15pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)Every Saturday morning, a high school just outside the nation’s capital turns into little Sweden. The classrooms fill up with 85 kids between the ages of 3 and 17 who learn Swedish language, history, and culture. The Swedish School for Children in Washington, DC, is one of the biggest Swedish part-time schools in the U.S. During this session, we’ll discuss the background, focus, and challenges of the school, and why extracurricular language schools like this one are important to the field of translation. |
| N-2 | Cursing and Anachronisms: Swedish Culture Clash Petra Glimåker-Socolovsky (Thursday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)Learning Swedish in Sweden is one thing. Learning it in the U.S. is quite different. Students at the Swedish School for Children in Washington, DC, have mainly been exposed to the Swedish spoken by one or both parents. As a result, they risk ending up with an outdated vocabulary and entirely unprepared to deal with contemporary Swedish. The Swedish School struggles to prepare its students to navigate modern Swedish usage, but has come up with a few strategies that work in both cultures. The speaker will discuss these strategies. |
| ATA-1 | The ATA Code of Ethics and Professional Practice: What Does It Mean to Me? Ted Wozniak, CT | Mike Collins | Jutta Diel-Dominique | Odile Legeay | Jill Sommer (Friday, 11:15am-12:15pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)ATA members are required to comply with the Association’s code of ethics. Historically, failure to comply had no consequence, as complaints were routinely dismissed. Following revision of the ethics procedures in 2014, this is no longer true. Ethical violations now have consequences. So how do you ensure compliance? What should you do if an ethics violation occurs? How will complaints be handled? Members of ATA’s Ethics Committee will discuss the code, the related commentary, and the ethics policy, highlighting recent changes. The speakers will then take questions from attendees, providing their opinions or interpretation in a particular scenario. |
| ATA-3 | ATA’s Certification Exam: Questions and Answers David Stephenson, CT | Caron Mason (Friday, 3:30pm-4:30pm; All Levels; Presented in: English)This session will be of interest to attendees seeking a better understanding of ATA’s certification exam and program. The speakers will discuss the nature of the exam, assessment criteria, and upcoming changes in the program. They will answer questions about certification policies and procedures and give tips on how to prepare for the exam. |
| C-1 | Lessons Learned from Grading ATA Practice Tests Ran Zhao, CT | Jessie Lu (Friday, 2:00pm-3:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English and Chinese)The speaker will provide a thorough error analysis based on his experience grading English>Chinese practice tests over the past few years. This session is designed to provide exam candidates with a better understanding of typical translation mistakes and how different categories of mistakes are graded. A list of best practices for taking the exam will also be proposed. |