Teaching English-Spanish Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpretation During COVID-19

Abstract

In this article, I would like to leave written testimony about how we coped with the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spanish Interpretation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), where I teach English into Spanish simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. I will describe our experience immediately after COVID-19 hit the US, how professors and students transitioned from an in-person program to a remote one, how we stayed in a fully remote program for two and a half semesters, and how we went back to the physical classroom to a hybrid model once restrictions were lifted in the US. I will explain how I structured my simultaneous and consecutive interpretation classes in each semester that we stayed remote and the changes that I introduced once we went back to campus to a hybrid model. In addition, I will address some of the pros and cons that I found with each model based on my own experience. I will also cover the different initiatives that MIIS has put in place to support the professional development of professors to adapt our classes to the remote and hybrid model. To conclude, I would like to share with the readers the results of a survey conducted among students taking the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation (MATI), Master of Arts in Conference Interpretation (MACI), Master of Arts in Translation (MAT), and Master of Arts in Translation and Localization Management (MATLM) in the Spanish Interpretation Program at MIIS. The students who completed the survey were exposed to the remote, hybrid, and in-person models. The purpose of the survey was to informally gather the students’ opinions on the different models for learning interpretation that they experienced: in-person, online, and hybrid. I will finish the article with a reflection on the future of teaching interpretation in the Spanish Interpretation Program at MIIS.