The COVID-19 pandemic crisis was and is still very challenging at various social, educational, and individual levels. Our School of Translators and Interpreters at USJ (ETIB), like many educational institutions worldwide, had to act quickly in order to continue its mission under the new unusual and unprecedented circumstances. Accordingly, it moved smoothly and deliberately from face-to-face instruction towards online instruction. As instructor of ‘Economic Consecutive Interpretation’ (Master, 1^st year) and ‘Economic Simultaneous Interpretation’ (Master, 2^nd year), I had to rapidly adapt to this change and deliver my courses synchronously online through different virtual platforms. My experience was quite enriching, thought-provoking, and exciting.

The challenges that my students and I have faced since March were two-fold, educational and technical. As known, teaching interpretation is about enabling the students to acquire the necessary skillset for conveying a message from the original language into the target language. Consequently, this major task was not easy to accomplish due to various causes pertaining mainly to the disadvantages of online teaching in general, and to the difficulties in virtually observing, checking and moderating the quality of the students’ performance via slow and/or bad internet connections in particular. It is important to note that the various platforms that we relied on are not designed for teaching interpretation online. As a result, teaching consecutive interpretation was less complicated than teaching simultaneous; it turned out to be a big challenge outside the professional booth.

Personally, I had to create at home my own booth setting, use 2 devices, rely on 2 headsets, mute all participants then switch among students, synchronize the recording for all although each one of the students is hearing from his/her own device which renders the matter not an easy task, send links for downloading and reading, print-out documents and take notes. Despite all the respective difficulties, my classes and the students’ training were maintained in a convenient and uninterrupted manner; the students felt somehow grateful, since they have managed to stay “dans le bain”, and receive instant feedback. However, I have to confess that I missed my daily rituals while teaching on campus, such as, the valuable face-to-face interaction and conversation with my students over a cup of coffee!

Online education has its own relative netiquette, i.e., network etiquette; neither instructors nor students of interpretation may necessarily be aware of it. For instance, it may not be an issue for some if they log on to their class from their kitchen or living-rooms, sitting on their desk or lying on the sofa, making themselves a cup of coffee or wearing comfortable clothes, aiming to teach or learn interpretation. However, they need to focus on learning, act with integrity and honesty, respect others’ privacy, and handle their emotions properly. It is important to highlight that during this pandemic period, students were looking forward to the virtual class, some more concentrated than ever. I remember one student, when asked about the reason why the performance online is much better than in class, the reply came as follows: “you are the only person we get to see outside the family, it is an opportunity to socialize”.

Finally, online education is no more an option. COVID-19 pandemic crisis and its aftermath will challenge all of us to think and act “outside the box”, learn from our mistakes, assess our shortcomings and gaps, benefit from each other’s experiences, make adjustments, and plan for a better future for our ETIB, colleagues, students, and careers.

Eliane MASRY-TRABOULSI

Conference Interpreter

AiiC member