Monolingual short courses for language-specific accreditation: can they work? A Sydney experience

Abstract

The continuing flows of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers throughout the\nworld place significant pressures on translating and interpreting services, particularly\nin finding competent practitioners in many small minority languages. Training is seen\nas a necessity for many such practitioners who are without qualifications and often\nwithout a professional understanding of the field. However, the small size of many of\nthese language communities entails that established interpreting courses can often not\nfind the number of students, or the teachers, to cater for these languages. Many\nattempts have been made internationally to provide short courses – often generic,\nsometimes language-specific – for these languages. After surveying such training\ninternationally, this paper describes one such short course in minority languages run\nfor women in Sydney, Australia in 2011, with an emphasis on domestic violence,\nhealth and law. The course prepared participants for work in these fields and to sit for\nAustralia’s accreditation exams. The outcomes of the course, while positive in many\nways, show the difficulties of short courses in helping a very diverse participant\npopulation achieve acceptable standards of interpreting.