2012 Mock Conferences

The 2012 season of NNI mock conferences at Leeds University is now over. Here are just a few comments from some of our attendees…!

“Thankyou for showing me the facilities available for interpreting at the university. Before viewing this conference I felt that interpreting was not something that I would wish to pursue in the future due to the need to immediately translate what is being said. However, I thoroughly enjoyed what I was able to listen to and now feel that it is something that I would wish to explore in the future. I have to say I did feel it would seem to last for a long time but the hour and a half that I did watch went really fast!”

“Thankyou for answering my questions and showing me all the facilities on offer. It has really helped me to decide what I may do in the future.”

“After the mock conference I attended last month, I would like to apply for the Masters course in interpreting and translation.”

NNI / University of Leeds mock conferences will start again at the beginning of 2013. Please get in touch with us if you’d like to come and experience simultaneous conference interpreting!

The National Network for Interpreting and the Centre for Translation Studies, Leeds 3rd International Organisations week, 16-20 April 2012

We were privileged yet again to host a delegation of conference interpreters from WTO, ICTY (UN), ILEA (Bangkok) as well as freelance interpreters working for EU institutions and other organisations. The purpose of the NNI/CTS activities was twofold. Firstly, CTS staff offered delegates English language enhancement workshops in order to improve their professional skills. In return, our visitors shared their knowledge and experience with CTS students focusing on the skills needed for work in international organisations and as freelance conference interpreters. The 2012 event was the follow up of a similar event in 2010 and 2011 and received a very positive appraisal.

One of the highlights of the week was the Outreach event on 19 April where the delegates participated in an open forum organised for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the School of Modern Languages and students from regional universities. The purpose of the event was to inform students about the diversity of the interpreting career, both in-house and freelance. About 50 students attended the forum. At the end of the event some undergraduate students commented that before the forum they had limited knowledge of a career in Conference Interpreting and how the forum helped them to get a better understanding of it.

Careers in Interpreting and Translation

Our ‘Careers in Interpreting and Translation’ event took place on 15 February at the University of Leeds. About 150 students, including undergraduates from regional universities, filled a lecture theatre to listen to employers and postgraduate alumni speak inspiringly about translation and interpreting from their own personal experience. Panellists ranged from staff of EU institutions, the UN and the British Refugee Council, to former students freelancing in interpreting, translation and subtitling. Attendees were able to ask questions of the speakers personally following the talks.

Straight after the event we began receiving very positive feedback from the participants, who felt the event had been a real eye-opener in terms of interesting career opportunities. They were particularly reassured to learn about the career paths of the alumni, and some have already been knocking on our doors seeking advice on professional language training. All in all, the event proved highly successful and most enjoyable for all involved.

The next NNI/NNT event will take place on 14 March at the University of Salford. See the events page or contact us for details!

NNI at ALT-C 2010

ALT-C is the largest annual e-learning event in the UK attended by the crème de la crème of instructional designers and learning technologists (more than 500 of them usually), so it really is a big deal.

You can imagine how proud the NNI project was to be present at ALT-C 2010 with three (yes, you have heard us right: THREE) different NNI instalments:

Interpreting Skills Map @ ALT-C 2010

  • one demo of the Note -Taking multimedia interactive resource which was shortlisted for the Epigeum video award (yes, the diploma should say NNI instead of Dragos’ name and we were tempted to Photoshop it … 😉 )

  • a 30-minute demo of our resources and how we managed to make them so appealing, interactive, and media-rich (the demo started with the following short and funky presentation and then we looked at 7 of our most popular resources in more detail)

All in all, it was great fun and the NNI must have set some kind of a record: first time in with the big players and already doing lots of presenting and networking. Have a look at the resources on our website and see why we were so successful at ALT-C 2010.

NNI/NNT Careers Event in Bristol, 16 March 2010

On March 16th over 200 students attended the joint NNI and NNT South England and Wales careers conference held in the historic Wills Memorial Hall. The event was jointly organized by the Universities of Bath, Portsmouth and Westminster in collaboration with the University of Bristol who hosted the event. Presentations were given from the UN, European Commission, European Parliament, GCHQ, ITI, and several freelance translators and interpreters on different career paths for linguists.

The conference was accompanied by a careers exhibition made up of employers and course providers from around the UK and Europe. Attendees had the opportunity to meet with the speakers and discuss their career options during the coffee break as well as participate in a formal Q&A at the end of the afternoon.

Many students commented on how this event changed their thoughts on future careers and the possibility of undergraduate or postgraduate language studies with overwhelmingly positive feedback directed towards the different guests and their presentations.

All talks are available for free download in mp3 format.

The Wills Memorial Hall, University of Bristol