The Educational Interpreting and Multilingualism research project aims at providing an EN>IT and IT>EN simultaneous interpreting service of university curricular lessons. Launched in the 2nd semester of 2019/20, the project has been involving a total of 9 courses from 4 Departments (Dep. of Business Science Forlì, Dep. of Political Science Forlì, Dep. of Cultural Heritage Ravenna, Dep. of Civil Engineering Bologna) and 3 Campuses (Forlì, Ravenna e Bologna).
In total, over 400 students attend the courses involved in the project and, on average, the proportion of students using the simultaneous interpreting service is around 30% for each course. The interpreters’ team is made of 5 professional conference interpreters working in pairs to guarantee the maximum level of quality for each course.
To date, more than 350 hours of lesson have been interpreted into English and Italian. For a complete list of courses involved, visit this link.
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The project falls within the Multilinguism, Internationalisation and Innovative Teaching areas of the Alma 2021 strategic development plan launched by the Rector of the University of Bologna prof. Francesco Ubertini. The presence of the interpreters in the classroom is aimed at preserving class multilingualism and the teacher-students integration and cohesion. The service aims at guaranteeing the comprehension and the participation both for foreign exchange or enrolled students attending courses in Italian and for local students who may have some issues attending a course delivered in English. Conversely, the service helps lecturers overcome the language barriers, allowing them to deliver teaching in their language of choice.
In addition, the research project aims at studying, analyzing and developing tools to train professional spoken languages educational interpreters in academic settings.
From onsite to remote interpreting
In its initial setting, the project envisaged the concurrent physical presence of lecturer, students and interpreters. The position of the interpreters would have had a fundamental role, since they would have been a visual reference both for the lecturer and the students, thus becoming facilitators of the lecture. Over the first year, the interpreting team was made of a Research Fellow, Francesco Cecchi, and 4 interpreters-tutors (see this link for the full list).
The above-mentioned set-up would have retraced the Stellenbosch University (SU) experience in South Africa with the provision of the Educational Interpreting service by the University Language Center, an experience described by Dr. Carmen Brewis in her PhD dissertation and analyzed according to the Actor Network Theory criteria set by Bruno Latour and John Law.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the University Contingency Plan turned on-site classes into virtual classes, allowing for the continuity of educational activities through online platforms such as Microsoft Teams. These measures caused some changes in the teaching calendar of all the departments, including the postponement of some lectures.
During the initial emergency period, talks were held with the lecturers and the Departments involved in the project order to find a solution to guarantee the continuity of teaching activities and the academic interpreting service. Since Microsoft Teams, the online platform adopted by the University to deliver online courses, did not envisage the possibility to provide the interpreting service, we decided to extend the use of the RSI Voiceboxer platform to the courses involved, using it in Webinar and Remote Simultaneous Interpreting mode for all students.
In 2020/21, the University of Bologna consolidated its experience in delivering lessons in a blended mode through online platforms such as Zoom, allowing for a “Language Interpretation” function, with the possibility for students to listen to different audio channels for each language (the lecturer’s and the interpreted version). The University of Bologna had already purchased a Zoom license, that’s why the Department decided to continue the project through this web platform.
The results of the questionnaires submitted to the lecturers and students involved were very positive in terms of better accessibility to lessons and easier management of a multilingual class.
Given the growing demand for this service, in 2020/21 the interpreters’ teams was further expanded. For more info, see this link.