Virtual class with the European Commission
On February, 2 MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation took part in a virtual class given by the European Commission interpreters. First a French speaker from the European Commission delivered his speech on the problems of elderly drivers. First-year students Svetlana Zaytseva and Tatiana Buzina made their debut interpreting from French into Russian. The girls succeeded at their task though the speaker made some critical remarks. No doubt that the feedback contributed to the development and enhancement of the interpreting skills. The same speaker delivered another speech for second-year students Olga Kulakova and Olga Afanasyeva to interpret. The speech was devoted to financial investments and their types. The girls were given useful feedback by the speaker and our teachers. Another student Anna Shcherbakova faced quite a challenging task: she was to interpret from Russian into French. The speaker was Julia Ibragimova who touched upon the issue of emotional intelligence. The main comments of assessors concerned note-taking technique, inaccurate choice of words and other problems the student faced during her performance. Nataliya Tutarinova, another school trainer, was the last speaker. She spoke about the anti-smoking law and actions of different countries to reduce smocking. The interpretation into Italian was performed by the second-year student Diana Kadirmatova. The main feedback concerned timid delivery and length of the interpretation. However, the Italian colleagues from the European Commission appreciated fluent Italian and completeness of the interpreted text. Other MA students were also involved in the class. During the virtual class they rotated in booths. They interpreted speeches, students’ performances, as well as discussions in the course of the conference. On completing of the class our teachers commented on the students’ performances, pointing out their mistakes and suggesting better variants of the interpretation.
