I HAVE FOUND A MENTOR!!! :D

        At long last and almost at the last possible second, I have found a mentor, thank God. Her name is Anne Guzman and she owns her own company, Guzman Translation and Interpreting. I met her for the first time last Wednesday at a community budget meeting she was interpreting for in Long Beach. These types of community meetings are the events she interprets at most often. I'm happy that it will work out for me to shadow her when she has events come up.
        This past Saturday was my first official day of mentorship (yay!). I went to a Building Healthy Communities event at Stevenson Elementary School in Long Beach. My mentor, Anne, interpreted for an info session that was part of the event. I listened to both the English presenter and the Spanish interpretation by my mentor. It turned out that she had to do both simultaneous AND consecutive, which was really cool to see.

Stevenson Elementary School

This is the equipment that is used for simultaneous interpreting, which I helped set up. We put it on a table near the door so anyone who needed Spanish interpretation could pick one up. Each pair of headphones is plugged into a receiver (the little boxes), which gets a signal from the transmitter plugged into the interpreter's microphone. Both the transmitter and receiver have to be turned to the same channel, so it's a little like a one-way walkie talkie.

This was the presentation stage in the school auditorium. There were a couple of videos throughout, which had to be interpreted as well. 

Here is my mentor interpreting for the person speaking on the stage. You can see her microphone in the picture. The people wearing headphones, like me, hear everything she says. I lowered the volume on my receiver because I wanted to hear both English and Spanish.

It was really cool that I got to see two different types of interpretation! The lady on the right wanted to give her portion of the presentation in Spanish, and since the English speakers in the audience didn't have headphones, Anne had to interpret using the consecutive method. First the presenter spoke for a little bit while Anne took notes (left picture), and then Anne interpreted what had been said by the speaker into English using the notes she had taken to help her (right picture).

I loved shadowing Anne on Saturday and I'm super excited to continue my mentorship with her and learn more about interpreting! All my waiting and hoping for a mentorship has paid off and I'm ready to take on the rest of my senior project. :D

Blog 6: Second Interview Preparation (Finally!)

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work?
        My mentor is Anne Guzman. She is a English/Spanish interpreter and owns Guzman Translation and Interpreting.

2. What five questions will you ask them about their background?

• What first inspired you to become an interpreter?
• How long have you been interpreting professionally?
• What type of interpretation do you focus on?
• How many languages do you interpret in? How did you learn them?
• In what different settings/fields have you worked and what have you learned from each?
• What interpreter training, if any, have you received? Where did you receive it?
• What is the history of your company? 

Blog 8: Research and Working Essential Question

1. What is your working EQ?
        What is the best way for an interpreter to facilitate understanding between two people who do not speak the same language?
        
2. What is a possible answer to your working EQ? (In thesis format)
        An interpreter must have a clear understanding of how both languages being spoken relate to their respective cultures in order to best facilitate understanding.

3. What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ?
        The source that has most helped me come up with this answer to my essential question is titled "Plain Language for Interpreting in Consulting Rooms". This article was written by a language professor at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. A large portion of it focuses on the relationship between language and culture because South Africa has an extremely culturally diverse population and 11 official languages. Although this article only uses the example of interpretation in a healthcare setting, I believe that the points it bring up about the importance of understanding how language is part of a culture and not a separate entity are relevant to all areas in which interpretation is used.

4. Who is your mentor or where are you doing your mentorship, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?
        I do not yet have a mentor.

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for 30 hours.
        My 30 hours will come from a combination of both my Spanish and Chinese classes. I attend Chinese for five hours per week and Spanish for four hours per week. This is a total of nine hours per week, and, assuming my component gets approved and I continue logging hours until both classes end in December, I will have a total of approximately 180 hours. This time will be spent participating in class, completing assignments such as presentations, classwork, projects, and tests, and interacting with my professors and other students in the classes.
        In my Chinese class, which is at Citrus College, we practice speaking in Chinese through little dialogues from the textbook or short presentations using the vocabulary in the lesson. We also practice character reading, writing, recognition, and translation. Sometimes we play a game or do an activity to get more familiar with the characters and grammar concepts we are learning that week. There is usually a quiz once every two weeks or so. I can't believe how much Chinese I have learned in these past six weeks of being in the class.
        I am taking Spanish at Cal Poly Pomona. Since I have only attended one class so far, I'm not sure yet what specifically I will be doing in there. However, the entire class is taught in Spanish (technically it's a class for native Spanish speakers), so I have no doubt that my Spanish will be greatly improved by my attending the class.

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.
        To show at least 30 hours of evidence, I will save all assignments, homework, projects, etc. that I complete for each class and select pictures of some of them to put on my blog. I will also post a video of any oral presentations I do for either class and pictures of the classes themselves. I will have a total of 10 weeks worth of work to show for both classes, so I should have enough tangible evidence, of which I can post digital copies, to add up to 30 hours. Also, I will have made progress in my ability to speak, read, and write in Spanish and Chinese outside of the classroom. This is something I won't really be able to post on my blog, but I can show it in person.

3. Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic more in depth.
        My independent component really is laying a foundation for my entire project and topic in general. It is impossible to become an interpreter without fluency in at least two languages. So, since my success as an interpreter hinges on me achieving fluency in the languages I have chosen to focus on, taking these classes is very important to my topic and the further development of my project. Even though my independent component will not deal with interpretation expressly, it will ultimately allow me to go deeper into the topic as I (hopefully soon!) start a mentorship in interpretation and continue to pursue it as my career.

4. Update your senior project hours log.
        Done. :D