penny pouliou south-east europe coordinator multilingualism & interpreter training support unit...

Penny PouliouSouth-East Europe Coordinator

Multilingualism &Interpreter Training Support

UnitDG SCIC

4 November, 2006

Directorate General for Interpretation

European Commission

Apr 18, 2023

EU institutions: The biggest employer of Conference Interpreters in the world

• EU Commission: DG Interpretation

• An inter-institutional service provider� Council of Ministers� Commission� European Economic and Social Committee� Committee of the Regions� European Investment Bank� Agencies and Foundations

500 staff 60-70 meetings a day700 interpreters a day

Apr 18, 2023

The EU institutions biggest employer of Conference Interpreters in the world

• European Parliament: Interpreting Directorate

• Plenary sessions of the EP, Political groups, committees

• Court of Auditors

• European Commission meetings in Luxembourg

240 members of staff

Apr 18, 2023

The EU institutions biggest employer of Conference Interpreters in the world

• Court of Justice: Interpretation Directorate

–Oral proceedings-hearings

–Other meetings and visits to the Court

48 members of staff

Apr 18, 2023

Multilingual policy challenges and constraints

Multilingualism in the EU since 1958

• First Council Regulation 1/58 states that official and working languages are those of the Member States

• Starting with 4 languages …… 12 language combinations• Since May 1rst, 2004 20 languages ….420 combinations• From January 1rst, 2007 also Romanian, Bulgarian and ….

Irish

Commission Communication 2005« A new framework strategy for Multilingualism »

But…To meet « besoins réels »

At managed cost!

Apr 18, 2023


• To allow effective communication, otherwise « garbage in, garbage out » or « all English »

• A 20/20 meeting requires ….60 interpreters

• Retour and Relay techniques

• New technologal solutions to promote multilingual communicationInternet chats, webstreaming, video-conferences,

remote?

Apr 18, 2023


Top quality interpreters required

and they are a rare commodity…..

So, who are these rare birds?

• Permanent officials following a general open competition

• Accredited free-lance interpreters: common inter-institutional list of 2500, after a professional accreditation test

All of them are

• University graduates, trained in conference interpreting, good communicators

All of them have

• Solid language knowledge, good general background, ability to analyse

Apr 18, 2023

Active cooperation with Universities and Authorities

• Awareness raising and information

Career days, Visits to the authorities, SCIC-Universities Conference

• Assistance to individual partner Universities

(Technical, financial, pedagogical, teaching material)

• The European Masters’ in Conference Interpreting

A consortium of 19 leading Universities

Apr 18, 2023

A pro-active approach

SCIC-C.1 - Multilingualism & Interpreter Training Support

Presentations,

information,

advice University subsidies

Studybursaries

Inter-Institutional

tests / competitions

Topping-upcourses

Training assistance

Externalexaminers

Dedicatedtraining

tools

Study visits

Workshopsseminars

conferences

Benchmarking

I. Raising Awareness

II. Financial support

III. Pedagogical Assistance

IV. Entering the Profession

Apr 18, 2023

Subsidies to Universities


For the academic year 2005-2006, DG INTERPRETATION (and the European Parliament) gave 21 grants for about 505.000 € to support interpretation courses (14 of the beneficiary universities being situated in the ‘new’ member states and candidate countries).

Apr 18, 2023

Subsidies granted in 2005 - 2006• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – Greece

• Comenius University, Bratislava – Slovak Republic

• DTS Vilnius University – Lithuania

• ELTE University, Budapest - Hungary

• Bogazici University – Istanbul - Turkey

• J. Gutenberg University – FASK, Mainz – Germany

• University of Helsinki, Vantaa – Finland

• Karl Franzen University, Graz – Austria

• University of La Laguna, Tenerife – Spain

• University of Latvia, Riga – Latvia

• Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon - Portugal

• OPT Ljubljana – Slovenia

• University of Tartu – Estonia

• Charles University – Prague – Czech Republic

• Tallinn Pedagogical University TPÜ – Estonia

• University of Trieste SSLMIT – Italy

• St Cyril and St Methodius university – Veliko Turnovo – Bulgaria

• University Babes Bolyai – Cluj Napoca – Romania

• University of Bucharest – Romania

• University of Cyprus

• University of Zagreb – Croatia

Apr 18, 2023

Bursaries to post-graduate students


For the academic year 2005-2006, bursaries of 1500 € (candidate countries) to 2200 € (EU-25) were granted to 147 students (for a grand total of about 320.000 €):

- 114 to student interpreters in the ‘new’ member states or candidate countries- 33 to students from the EU-15 member states.

(the total number of bursaries granted by SCIC since 1998: 912)

Apr 18, 2023

Study bursaries granted in 2005 - 2006


15

3

6

8

9

11

1

13

1 1

7

2

16

5

12 12

7

4

14

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

nu

mb

er

of

bu

rsa

rie

s

CS DE EL EN ES ET FR HU IT LT LV MT PL PT SK SL BG HR RO

language

Number of Bursaries granted by DG Interpretation in 2005 - 2006 per language (Total:147)

Apr 18, 2023

Pedagogical Assistance


For the academic year 2005-2006, DG SCIC provided 662 days of pedagogical assistance to more than 50 different universities :

- 275.5 days to universities with ‘enlargement-languages’

- 274.5 days to universities within EU-15

-112 days to universities in candidate countries

Apr 18, 2023

Promoting high-quality training

Also,

• Training for Trainers

• Students’ visits to the EU institutions

• Training material, DVDs, Videos

• Speech Repository…….. in the

pipeline

• Seminars and workshops

• Advice on curriculum development,

language profiles and needs

Apr 18, 2023

Closer co-operationIncreased inter-institutional co-operation

• Inter-institutional general competitions• Common accreditation tests, common list

of free-lances• Staff exchanges

International co-operation

• IAMLADP (International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications)

• Managers from all major international organisations meet to discuss inter alia

• the future of language professions• New professional qualifications• Better co-operation with Universities

Apr 18, 2023

A new environment for the language professions

• A growing gap between University training and professional qualifications and skills required

• New language needs

• More complex and difficult meetings/documents

• New technologies and tools

But also

• Globalisation

• Language industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the global economy

Apr 18, 2023

The cost of Multilingualism

The EU institutions are committed to Multilingualism in order to preserve

cultural and linguistic diversity

Since Enlargement, it is under 3 Euros per citizen

Less than a cup of coffee

Interpreting costs ¾ Euros

Apr 18, 2023

More information …..

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/scic/index.hmt

Thank you

penny pouliou south-east europe coordinator multilingualism & interpreter training support unit...

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