Developing Interpreting Competence via VR-based Multimodal Teaching: Design and Implementation

Despite its increasing popularity and widely recognized effectiveness, the multimodal approach to interpreting teaching is not without challenges. Implementing multimodal interpreting teaching in the classroom could cause a considerable burden on the teacher and students, and the interpreting practice within the classroom would take much time from the already limited teaching hours. There is a need to create opportunities for students to practice interpreting outside the classroom. Despite the potential of virtual reality (VR), few studies have considered how VR can be applied to interpreting teaching. This paper explores how VR can be applied to foster students’ interpreting competence. The paper proposes two types of VR-based interpreting teaching (offline in the laboratory and online outside the classroom) to address the challenges of multimodal interpreting teaching. The teaching model in a foremost university is used as a point in case for illustrative purposes. The paper indicates that offline VR-based teaching in the virtual simulation laboratory can systematically train students with each of their interpreting sub-skills, while online VR platform can develop their interpreting skills through autonomous practice. The paper also discusses the constraints on VR-based interpreting teaching. Practical implications for the application of VR to interpreting teaching are included.