The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2017 - 15


FEATURE

Feedback: Going Beyond
"That Was Great"
Giving and receiving feedback during interpreting practice is great when you
know how! It's all about building relationships with the interpreters we're going
to give feedback to, and who will give feedback to us.

I

nterpreting practice and feedback are
important. One of my graduate school
professors wrote a blog post about peer
assessment that inspired me to write the
following about my own experiences with
giving and receiving feedback.1
Interpreting practice with a partner
or in groups involves giving feedback to
others, and in turn learning to accept their
feedback. It requires a lot of work from
everyone involved. It's not just a matter of
half-listening and then telling your practice
partner, "Yeah, that was great."
A few years ago, I practiced alone and
with a partner to prep for my state court
exams. Last year, I prepped the staff
interpreters at my hospital's language services
www.atanet.org

department for their national certification
exams. I also spent six months prepping
with my graduate school cohort for our
conference interpreting exit exams.
I passed my state court exams, and
the staff interpreters passed their national
certification exams. I also passed my
graduate school exit exams. From these
experiences, here's what I've learned about
feedback in interpreting practice and how
to make the best use of your time.

SET GOALS
Set your own goals for how you want to get
better. How do you know what your goals
are? By practicing and listening to yourself
and getting feedback from those who listen to

BY ELIZABETH ESSARY

you! I set my goals based on self-assessment
(listening to recordings of myself interpreting)
and the feedback I get from classmates
and instructors. It takes a large volume of
interpreting practice to see patterns and to
learn what your real issues are.
For example, from listening to
recordings I've noticed that I have trouble
expressing myself in a natural way. (I
sound like I'm speaking English with
Spanish syntax!) Or maybe I have trouble
keeping up with the speaker, and that's
reflected in really long pauses or pausing in
the middle of sentences. Or maybe I have
trouble because I say the exact opposite
of what the speaker means. Maybe I just
didn't understand half the speech.
We all have challenges interpreting at
times, and there's not enough room here
to list all the challenges I've had, and
currently have, with interpreting. Whatever
the issues, the most important question to
ask when you notice something about your
rendition that's not quite right is "Why?"
When you practice with a partner, give
him or her your goals at the outset so you
can get specific feedback. Expect your
goals to change over time. If you're just
starting out with something really tough,
it's okay if your goal is to just keep going
and not give up.

START WITH SELF-ASSESSMENT
When you practice with a partner,
let the person doing the interpreting take
the lead on the assessment. Since your
partner has most likely already set his or
her practice goals, ask "How do you think
you met your objectives?" Then you can
go from there and give your feedback.
How do you give feedback? I like to
make two columns in my notebook: a
smiley column and a not-smiley column
(see photo above). This allows me to
organize comments while my partner is
interpreting. For example, if my partner
says her goal is to reduce the number of
false cognates, I'll write down the false
cognates in the not-smiley column and
the really well-phrased, natural sounding
language in the smiley column. That way
I can balance the critique with what my
partner did really well.
American Translators Association

15


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