Mock Conference: the legacy of the Olympic Games

On February, 14 the MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpretation and Translation held the first mock conference in 2014 devoted to the most urgent and discussed topic at the moment – the Olympic Games in Sochi – and particularly to the legacy of the Olympics, the destiny of sports ventures and other Olympic infrastructure which will remain in the capital of the Olympics when the Games are over. The Chairmen of the Organizing Committees of the Olympics in Turin (2006), Vancouver (2010), London (2012) and Sochi (2014) took part in the conference as well as the journalists representing such print media as The Daily Telegraph, Kommersant, Argumenty i Facty, and the journalist from Turkey, honored to carry the Olympic Torch in Sochi. As one can judge by the number of the participants, many languages were involved including Russian, English, French, Italian and Turkish. The second-year MA students performed the interpretation, while the first-year MA students tried on the role of speakers and journalists as for them it is the first mock conference, and next time they will probably take the role of conference interpreters.

Our foreign guest, an interpreter from the UN office at Geneva Adele Tobin also took part in the class. She had no need to play a role- like in a real-life situation she was interpreting from Russian into French.

Adele had an opportunity to interpret simultaneously from Russian during the whole lesson, and our teachers and students appreciated the high quality of the UN interpreter’s work.