Formación de Formadores: the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation at the Training for Interpreter Trainers, organized by the European Commission!

We often repeat the phrase “Practice makes perfect” to our MA students, of course, being well aware that practice and improvement are needed not only to them. The world does not stand still, education is changing rapidly, and so are students.
Thus, the training approach should also correspond to their new needs as well as to the market needs. In our case, it is the translation and interpreting market.
In January 2017, the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Commission held another Training for Interpreter Trainers that became a platform for an intensive exchange of ideas, lively discussions and enrichment of the teaching experience for experts from several countries and several high schools and universities of interpreting and translation. Despite this seminar has already become “traditional” for SCIC, this year it’s been really looked forward to: for the first time the seminar was held in Spanish that, by the way, is the second language in the world by number of native speakers!Besides Spaniards, the Cuban delegation was involved alongside with trainers from Poland, Latvia and France, as well as representatives of our country, including a trainer of the Caspian School of Interpreting and Translation Ekaterina Krylova.
Words simply cannot convey this training atmosphere! Leaving out absence of language barriers for the interpreting and translation trainers and their common passion for discussing educational programs, standards and methodology that can keep them busy for hours (the truth is that even a week was not enough!), the Spanish language itself also added particular dynamism, made the discussion lively and worked miracles drawing participants together, creating friendship between people who had just been utter strangers just in a period of few days. But perhaps the most significant contribution to the success of the event was made by the seminar trainers – charming Kate Davies, who has under her belt not only years of interpreting work for the European institutions but also dozens of interesting trainings where she gladly shares her experience and gives professional advice, and energetic Carlos Hoyos, the European Commission Spanish booth interpreter who was so brilliantly maintaining communication and discussion between participants.
Undoubtedly, the training and its results are serious food for thought and a real bundle of hands-on experience. It was great to reaffirm the adherence of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation (thanks to the regular participation of our trainers in this seminar) precisely to those techniques and tactics, which are fundamental for the European Commission in the training of future interpreters and has been successfully applied for many years in the School. No less interesting and useful was it to learn about other universities’ pedagogical approaches, some of which can also be successfully applied. In fact, despite the different educational systems, training methods and culture, we all do the same thing – we train specialists that are a core element for making communication between people from different countries possible, no matter how widely the English language is used now. And what these professionals are going to be depends largely on us, the trainers, who certainly know that practice really makes perfect (or at least better 😉)