Dialogic education in the interpreting classroom: action research for developing simultaneous interpreting quality assessment tools

Abstract

ABSTRACT As learning and teaching theory experts, university educators are constantly asked to review and reflect on their methodologies and to co-generate them with all members of the educational community. Teachers understand that students constantly shape the object of study, and thus embrace differences among individuals. In this context, a dialogic approach to interpreter education invites educators to promote myriad voices within classrooms. Even though professional interpreter training has been one of the main topics in interpreting studies, there is an imbalance in the way interpreting quality has been addressed. Indeed, it has, for the most part, neglected student perspectives on their own training. Thus, this action research follows a four-stage dialogic methodology based on collective reflection to generate interpreting quality assessment tools. The participants consisted of 17 fourth-year interpreting students enrolled in the English-Spanish Interpreting Programme at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Participants provided input to develop three different collectively-generated rating scales, with criteria and weighting factors depending on the type of discourse to be interpreted or the learning result to be achieved.