Mock Conference, or How to Turn Students into Good Interpreters

Yesterday, the first mock conference class of this academic year was held at the ASU Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation. This is a special type of training for future interpreters, a simulation of a real conference, in which a chairperson, moderator, speakers, media and, of course, interpreters take part. The main feature of a mock conference is that there are no students in the classroom hall – they turn into real participants of an international event taking on different roles, for example, the role of the manager of the International Monetary Fund or the head of the department at Google.

The topic of the conference was “Interpreter’s role in the era of globalization: preserving multilingualism”. First-year MA students prepared speeches in advance and covered the issues from various viewpoints.

“For me public speaking was an unusual and exciting experience. I was mixing up words, my hands were shaking, my throat was dry, fortunately, at the crucial moment I managed to gather my thoughts and properly present the speeches,” the first-year students comment on yesterday.

It was a real challenge for the second-year MA students, who tirelessly performed simultaneous interpretation of speeches of all the speakers of the evening, as well as provided linguistic support at the negotiating table, by performing consecutive interpretation of the questions from the media. Anything can happen during a training conference, since the conditions are as close to the real ones as possible. The agenda may suddenly change, the list of speakers may change, or the break may be delayed. Despite all the intricacies, the interpreters in the booths must be ready for any changes and maintain the quality of interpretation.

Mock conference is an extremely useful training for young interpreters. The seriousness of the event allows one to become completely immersed into the atmosphere of a real conference and feel the same as real interpreters do at official meetings. To face fears, stress and excitement, overcome all these and successfully complete the interpretation – this is our MA students’ task.

Photo: ASU Media