A new partnership between the University of Westminster and ONCALL will allow students and alumni of the Translation and Interpreting MA course to develop their conference interpreting skills and gain valuable practice hours during real conferences.
ONCALL is a language service provider with 40 years of experience in providing high-quality translation and interpreting services worldwide, with a mission to empower its clients to support and communicate with the diverse communities they serve. ONCALL currently provides high-level conference interpreting services both remotely and on-site for over 150 conferences per year, whilst also providing translation and community interpreting services, with thousands of engagements each week.
As part of Westminster’s partnership with ONCALL, students and graduates will have the opportunity to complete 15 hours of so-called ‘dummy booth’ practice online during online conferences. In dummy booth practice set-ups, the interpreting booth is not connected so that the delegates of a conference cannot hear the students interpreting. However students still work in pairs interpreting exactly as they would do in a real interpreting scenario. After completing 15 hours in the dummy booths, trainee interpreters will be assessed by Westminster lecturers and, if they attain a good level, can start working as professional interpreters with ONCALL.
The partnership has been facilitated with the help of Ana Jiménez Roca, a former Visiting Lecturer in Conference Interpreting at the University of Westminster who is the Head of the Conference Interpreting Unit at ONCALL as well as a conference interpreter. As a successful professional in the translation and interpreting field, students often ask for her advice on how to "bridge the gap" between finishing the course and starting work as conference interpreters. The partnership with ONCALL was devised as a valuable way for students to gain some practical work experience in real conference settings to prepare them for their careers in the field.
Speaking about the value of the partnership, Fei Gao, Lecturer in Interpreting at the University of Westminster, said: “This partnership offers students a route to employability. They get inducted to the world of work and make the transition from being a student to being a professional interpreter.
“This partnership also brings valuable opportunities for students to get exposure to remote simultaneous interpretation in the safe environment of the dummy booth. They still receive feedback and can seek guidance from the course team during the process, allowing those who participate in this initiative to stay in touch with the course team even after they have graduated from the University.”
Find out more about Languages courses at the University of Westminster.
Find out more about ONCALL.
