Aim
To assess your interpretation in order to provide more focused goals for your professional development plan.
Time Required for Activity: 15-30 mins
Objective(s):
Interpreters will:
- Review an interpretation.
- Identify what key skills are present and/or lacking
- Identify possible errors
- Provide data for developing focused goals
Reference
Taylor, M. (2017). Interpretation Skills: English to American Sign Language. Edmonton: Interpreting Consolidated.
Taylor, M. (2002). Interpretation Skills: American Sign Language to English. Edmonton: Interpreting Consolidated.
Pre-Requisites: Create an Interpretation and do Stimulated Recall
Before you can do an assessment, you need to select a source, do the interpretation, and we recommend also doing a stimulated recall. We have other posts in the GTC Resource library to guide you through that process.
This also means you will already either have a documentation of your thoughts in GoReact or in a copy of a Google Sheet. If you are using the Google Sheet, this post will help you focus on columns D-K.
Step One: Choose 4 Major Features to focus on
Hopefully, you will have already done a Stimulated Recall on your interpretation which helps you look at what you were thinking during the interpretation.
As you prepare to view your interpretation, first select two knowledge-rich and two knowledge-lean major features to assess. This will make it more manageable as you do your observation.
Here are the lists from Taylor (2017,2002).
English to ASL |
ASL to English |
Knowledge Lean
|
Knowledge Lean
|
Knowledge Rich
|
Knowledge Rich
|
Step One: Document Observations of Your Interpretation
Hopefully, you will have already done a Stimulated Recall on your interpretation which helps you look at what you were thinking during the interpretation. If you are using the Google Sheet, this is focused on “Column D: Observation of Interpretation”.
- Watch your interpretation.
- Document observations related to the 4 major features you chose in Step 1.
- What did you see that was either present or missing that impacted the interpretation?
If you are using GoReact, you can begin your comment with “OBS:” to show that it is an observation – and separate it from the Stimulated Recall – if you also used written comments for your Stimulated Recall.
Step Three: Identify the Major Features, Key Skills & Possible Errors
With what you observed, categorize what you saw/heard based into Taylor’s major features.
- If you are using GoReact, the Assessment markers will allow you to simple select one of the major features. Then, you can identify which key skill and possible errors are associated with your observation by writing them in the comments.
- If you are using the Google Sheet, use Column E which has the features as a dropdown. This will help you identify which of the major features seem to be most significant in this piece of work. Column F is a place for you to identify the key skills and Column G is the place to identify possible errors.
Step Four: Rate the 4 Major Features
Look at the two knowledge-rich and two knowledge-lean features you were focusing on. Use Taylor’s scale of 1-4 to rate your level of errors you found in your work.
For each major feature, look at the pattern of errors and ask yourself these two questions:
- Are the errors frequent?
- Do the errors have a severe impact on the accuracy of the interpretation?
Use the rating system for Severity & Frequency from Taylor (2017) at right.
- No to both questions = 1;
- Frequent, but not severe = 2.
- Severe, but not frequent = 3.
- Yes to both questions = 4.
You can include this in the Google Sheet or on the IDP Initial Assessment Form.
