Whether you’re a foreign language student or a language teacher looking for exciting ideas to inspire your students, or an interpreter trainer in search of materials to use with undergraduate or postgraduate students, this area is for you. Below we have information on how (and why!) to use interpreting activities in the classroom, plus an overview of how to get what you need out of this site.
Interpreting in the classroom?
Our experience has shown that young learners find interpreting a particularly exciting and engaging way to use languages. From a careers perspective, few have a real understanding of what it is, and they enjoy sessions explaining the need for interpreters, learning about the many interesting places it can take them (from government meetings to hospital delivery rooms!), and finding out that languages many of them already speak can be useful in a future career.
How can the NNI Skills Map help?
Interpreting activity is a great way to engage the learners with languages and show their usefulness, besides being a possible avenue through which to deliver other areas of the syllabus. For more ideas, see the Interpreting Skills Map; many of the materials in the Skills Map can be used or adapted for the classroom or to be used with trainee interpreters.