To study and when the time has come apply
everything you learned in practice – isn’t it great!
Confucius
Foreign languages play an extremely important role in our society
due to widespread globalization and growing relationships between different
countries in fields of trade, politics, cultural exchange, tourism, and others.
In order to run successful business and communicate with people from different
countries for other reasons, a person is required to speak foreign languages.
However, not everyone today has enough knowledge to communicate with people of
interest, moreover achieve the goal of such communication.
In this regard, a demand for professional and experienced
interpreters had shown itself in a number of societies around the world in the
past several decades. We now have a need for people trained to help us
communicate with our partners, friends, colleagues who speak different language
rather than we do. The key attribute to such people is professional. Quite
frequently the way interaction between people of different languages go depends
on the way the interpreters do their job. Having poor knowledge of professional
terms for the specific field of business may cause misunderstanding, mutual
limitations, and even termination of cooperation. Without any exaggeration, if
one does not pay attention to the way the interpreter is working and where the
conversation is going, there can be unfavorable consequences.
The good news is that it is our job to train great interpreters who
can perform well in front of the audience, in small meetings, and in one-to-one
conversations. Technologies are constantly developing and today we have a lot
of opportunities for professional growth: Web information resources, tools for
long-distance communication, media, computers, and others. There is great
potential in this world’s achievements we must apply to educate students and
help them become successful in their occupation.
Higher education is the first step one needs to go through to become
a professional, right before constant practice and experience. It is the
highest level of the system of education and includes systematical knowledge
and skills that allow solving theoretical and practical tasks within the specific
field of study [1]. As a system, education is based on certain principles,
rules, and standards; these components are the foundation of it.
Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan is regulated by the
Government regardless of the form of educational institution, age of students,
and field of study. Main principles and most important aspects of education are
covered in the Law of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, adopted in 1999
and amended in 2007. Changes to the Law provided basis for toughening rules and
requirements in higher education and postgraduate studies. It largely concerned
faculty members who are allowed to teach in higher education institution [2].
In March, 2010, Kazakhstan officially joined Bologna Process and
became a full member of European higher education zone. Thus, the country
transferred to three-level model of professional training: Bachelor – Masters –
Doctor Ph.D. Signing “Magna Charta Universitatum”, or Bologna Declaration,
which was previously signed by more than 650 countries around the world, will
help to come closer to European standards in education or fully adopt them in
the future. The transfer resulted in implementation of modern technologies and
systems in education: 135 higher education institutions are now using credit
system, 38 apply two-diploma system, and 42 provide distance learning [1]. All
that naturally helped our professional training system grow stronger, which
means out graduates have a great opportunity today to become more competitive
in the market.
To estimate the level of professional training that is available to
our students majoring in Interpretation Science, we reviewed curricula and
description of the course provided by several major universities in the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Internet. One of them was based on National Educational
Standard (ГОСО РК 3.08.277-2006) and general
educational program of 2007 [3]. All universities have to develop their
curricula based on those documents, as well as taking into consideration
overall policy of the Republic in terms of education. Our job here was not to
estimate the quality of suggested curricula, but to analyze and distinguish
positive and negative aspects of education process as it is.
If we speak about advantages of the curricula, one of them is
accuracy and detailed representation: It contains description of the subject,
which helps students understand what they are about to study; main definitions
used throughout the course. It also enumerates the subjects students have to
finish before taking Interpretation class, which helps identify whether the
student is ready to take the course or not. However, this very aspect is
driving us to one of fundamental disadvantages of our educational system, which
ultimately affects results of studying specific subjects: Even though students
know what classes they have to take before diving into Interpretation course,
they do not have a freedom of choosing the subjects as they study in a
university. The Ministry of Education and Faculty still make the decision for
students by creating a plan for each year, which is not subject to changes. The
problem is that there are real people working with such plans, who may be
overloaded with work or overwhelmed by other factors. This results in switching
the subjects sometimes. Therefore, students may end up studying quite important
subject after the one that should have come later. For example, if
prerequisites for Interpretation course are Artistic Translation, Theoretical
Basis of Translation, and others, but students for some reason were switched to
study Artistic Translation next semester, they will not be able to employ
important aspects of artistic translation in their practicing [3]. We consider
this a crucial weak point, because certain skills and knowledge should be
acquired before taking the Interpretation course.
According to evaluated curricula, students are expected to have a
number of skills and knowledge after completing the Interpretation course, such
as be aware of qualities and professional level, which is required to be
manifested by professional interpreter, understand communication psychology,
know theoretical material of native and foreign languages, apply methods and
features of interpretation process (various methods used to interpret well,
ways to interpret terms, and others), overcome psychological and emotional
stress when working with the audience, and many others [3]. All that
demonstrate how important and well-thought the course is. However, all the
targets concern professional qualities and performance of interpreters, while
neglecting another important aspect of interpretation process: Public speaking.
Interpreters always work with the audience, be it a one-to-one meeting or a
speech given at a conference. In revised curricula this aspect was only touched
briefly, while the ability to work in front of the audience determines how well
the interpreter does the job, and how well the message is perceived by the audience.
If more attention was given to training students to overcome stage freight, to
speak confidently, provide such delivery that draws attention of the listener
to the message and helps pursue people, than our graduates would be more
competitive in the market and easily adapted to their professional environment.
The list of topics that are covered during the course is
multifarious and includes all important aspects that a graduate needs to be
aware of to perform the task of interpreting well. For instance, Consecutive
and Simultaneous translation, International relations, Two-way translation,
Summary translation, International organization, and others [3]. These topics
provide wide knowledge on a variety of topics, which are all extremely useful
to someone who wants to be adept in his or her field. Nevertheless, the theme
of struggle in front of the audience is again omitted. Basic rules for
overcoming psychological stress are provided, but this is not enough taking
into account how important and challenging the process of public speaking is.
When a graduate, or even more experienced interpreters, has to perform in front
of a big audience, and he or she did not receive enough knowledge or proper
training on Public Speaking, everything that has been taught during the
Interpretation course fades away the instant the interpreter is in front of people.
The list of suggested reading is determined by each university, but
several fundamental works have been used for many years now. Each teacher
should choose the best set of resources for students, keeping in mind great
works by old-school professors, such as Komissarov, Retsker, Minyar-Beloruchev,
and others, but also giving enough attention to modern works, because they
represent current events, phenomena, trends, and people, which are highly
important to interpreters. Apart from suggested reading, the list of materials
that will be used during the course has to be chosen carefully. It is difficult
to statistically track what type of materials and what topics are used in
classrooms, because every teacher makes the choice based on students’ needs and
skills, as well as peculiarities of the specific location. We can only hope
that teachers apply different types of techniques, while helping students
practice interpretation; use various kinds of materials (written texts,
dialogues, role-plays, video recordings of speeches, etc.); and tries to
diversify classroom activities as much as possible to keep students engaged,
motivated, and hard-working.
We believe that having a variety of resources to work with helps
students develop many-sided personality with large knowledge of different
fields. According to Komissarov (2002), translation competency formation allows
all-round development of interpreter’s personality: It builds in sense of
responsibility and attentions; teaches them to use reference documents and
additional information resources; shows how to make correct decisions, identify
and match numerous extralinguistic data [4].
Among explicit and well developed curriculum, one of the largest
universities of the Republic of Kazakhstan also offers faculty members a chance
to grow professionally. They can attend a number of workshops aimed at
optimizing process of teaching students: “Cognitive - communicative approach to
teaching English”, “Innovative methods in ELT”, “CNN, Caspionet: Translation
and level of ease of the translator in relation to the original source”, and
others [5]. This factor also plays an important role, because, after all,
professional qualities of a teacher is one of the factors that determines
success of educational process, along with student’s motivation and adequate resources.
There are many other opportunities that are presented to faculty members, such
as international educational programs and internships. Unfortunately, not every
higher education institution practices this. Some of them lack funding, others
do not understand the importance of constant professional development of
faculty members, or teachers themselves are not motivated enough to spend their
valuable time on studying instead of teaching.
On the other hand, if a teacher was well trained and had a lot of
experience with speaking a foreign language and interpret different kinds of
speeches, the process of training professional interpreters would be easier and
much more reliable. That leads us to one more disadvantage of current
educational program for Interpretation course – lack of practice. Everyone who
has ever dealt with foreign languages knows that practice is the most important
in languages. The same is valid for interpretation. If a person is merely
studying theoretical foundations of translation and interpretation without
enough opportunities to practice the skills, the course can be considered
useless in terms of future application. Unfortunately, our reality proves that
students have very few opportunities to speak a foreign language and interpret.
Luckily, due to globalization and many international exchange programs,
students today can practice their language skills more often. Even so,
providing even more occasions for students has to be a priority for a higher
education institution that is aimed at sending professional workers into the
market.
Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, based on
evaluation of educational process and curricula developed for Interpretation
class, we suggest the following:
- Control distribution of courses throughout the entire educational
period and make sure that they come in order, without some of them happening
later than they are supposed to;
- Pay more attention to public speaking aspects in interpretation.
It is useful to keep that in mind at the point of designing curriculum, when it
is decided what topics to cover, what resources to use, and what the course
targets are;
- Try to diversify activities students are involved into in a
classroom and when doing their home tasks, i.e. suggest different exercises
that engage everyone, use modern technologies that are very interesting to many
students today, and think about other ways to keep students involved in the
topic;
- Use up-to-date materials to practice translation on: Current news,
texts about recent events, short videos about famous people that could be
interesting to the class, and others;
- Encourage faculty members to grow professionally, and most
importantly provide opportunities for them through international education and
internship programs, as well as various workshops and conferences that may be
helpful in a classroom;
- Seek for more opportunities for students to practice their
language skills with native speakers: Involve them in different programs,
facilitate foreigners coming to the university and talk to students, and
others.
To sum up, the situation with teaching future interpreters is not as
bad as it may seem. The fact that Kazakhstan is actively moving towards
European standards of education proves that we are on our way to a greater form
of enlightenment. Students majoring in Interpretation science get to work with
great professors today, both local and from different countries; they have
access to modern technologies, that allow them to talk to people thousands of
kilometers away; abundant information is available on any given topic; and employment
in this field is prospering, because more and more people have this need of
talking to foreigners emerged. It is now up to several changes and improvement
in the system of education, and naturally, in students’ motivation to become
professionals.
REFERENCES
1. Молодежный образовательный
портал (2012). Система высшего образования в Республике
Казахстан. Ya-student. kz. Retrieved December 25, 2013 from http:// ya-student. kz/
2. European Commission
Tempus (2010). Высшее образование в Казахстане. Tempuskaz.kz.
Retrieved December 23, 2013 from http:// www. tempuskaz. kz/
3. УМК (2013). Практика устного перевода. E-kitaptar.kz. Retrieved on December 23, 2013 from http: // e-kitaptar.
com/. Москва: ЭТС.
4. Казахстанский университет международных отношений
и мировых языков имени Абылай Хана. Кафедра синхронного перевода. Ablaikhan. kz. Retrieved January 7, 2013 from http:// www. ablaikhan. kz/