SCIT

Meeting at UN

30 April 2019|

On 29 May the UN Department for General Assembly and Conference Management hosted the Herzen University delegation. Catherine Pollard, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management, and Movses Abelian, Assistant to Under-Secretary General, were happy to welcome in the UN Headquarters Yulia Komarova, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation, Irina Alexeeva, SCIT Director, and Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director. The participants of the meeting discussed the cooperation under the Memorandum of Understanding between our institutions, stressing the imporatnce of virtual classes, master-classes of practicing interpreters and internships. The Herzen University and SCIT leaders thanked the UN DGACM for their efforts to promote cooperation, and Ms. Pollard and Mr. Abelian congratulated SCIT on the new achievements of SCIt graduates in the UN Language Competitive Examinations.

UN LCE: congratulations to successful SCIT graduates!

26 April 2019|

We are happy to inform that 6 SCIT graduates are among those lucky ones who passed the UN competitive language examinations and are now on the UN roster. Our congratulations go to Anastasia Gavrilina, Vadim Iermolenko, Sergey Zhiliuk, Artem Petrov, MArina Tkacheva, and Eugenia Yakovchik. Our heartiest congratulations!

22-26 April 2019: Master-classes of Ian Newton

26 April 2019|

On 22-26 April SCIT hosted Ian Newton, former ILO Chief-Interpreter and trainer from FTI, Geneva University. With the Dual Degree Agreement still in operation between our schools, Mr. Newton was invited to give a series of master-classes in retour for the SCIT students. The guest lecturer was able to give the students necessary guidance and shared professional tips in interpreting into English, which are invaluable in the final lap of the academic year. The students appreciated the expertise, but also the engaging personality of Mr. Newton. Looking forward to new meetings with Ian!

ToT Seminar from EMCI Vice-President at SCIT

20 April 2019|

On 10-12 April 2019 SCIT hosted a Training of Trainers Seminar which was run by Alessandra Riccardi, EMCI Vice-President. The seminar was devoted to giving feedback in interpreter training, and SCIT trainers and Herzen IFL teachers were invited to participate.

ToT Seminar from EMCI Vice-President at SCIT

16 April 2019|

The seminar addresses various theoretical and practical aspects of feedback: its aims and objectives, different forms of feedback, different approaches to feedback, interpreting quality criteria and feedback, progression and differences in feedback.

SCIT students were also enthusiastic participants of the ToT seminar. Their interpretation in consecutive and simultaneous modes served as exercise for trainers in giving feedback. Feedback plays a key role in conference interpreting training. It enables students to learn to analyze and evaluate their errors, to minimize or avoid repetition of the same types of mistakes, to build up a mental model of what their interpretation should be like, and gives them orientation with concrete examples and signals what they are aiming at.

DG SCIC Conference in Brussels

5 April 2019|

On 4 and 5 of April 2019 the traditional conference on the recent trends in interpreting and interpreter training was organized by the Directorate General for Interpreting, European Commission, in Brussels. Among the speakers were Florika Fink-Hoojer, Director General DG Interpretation, Javier Hernándes Saseta, Head of Multilingualism and Knowledge Development Unit, Filip Majcen, Director of Interpretation Services Management and Professional Support, and others. DG SCIC’s team also presented its Knowledge Centre on Interpretation, 2.0 and attracted a lot of attention. Universities’ representatives spoke about the issues of Artificial Intelligence, machine translation and technologies, and how they transform the learning and working environment for interpreters. SCIT was represented by Deputy Director Angelique Antonova.

SCIT at Annual IAMLADP Meeting

5 April 2019|

On 3-4 April 2019 the Annual IAMLADP meeting took place in Brussels. IAMLADP is an international forum and network of managers of international organizations employing conference and language service providers. The Universities’ Contact Group (UCG) acts as a liaison point for the further development of relations and co-operation between international organizations and training providers. Organizations can thus inform universities of their requirements, shortages, etc. and universities can contribute to the professions. It is an honour to be a member of the Universities’ Contact Group, and SCIT is proud to take active part in the annual meetings. Deputy Director Angelique Antonova represents SCIT in this meeting in 2019. The participants discussed the training initiatives of the universities from Leeds, Salamanka and Shanghai, and a survey of IOs outreach and training program was presented. SCIC EC announced its project Knowledge Centre: https://ec.europa.eu/…/k…/knowledge-centre-interpretation_en

SCIT takes part in EMCI General Assembly Meeting in Brussels

4 April 2019|

On 4 April the EMCI General Assembly meeting took place in Brussels. SCIT was represented by Deputy Director Angelique Antonova. The participants discussed the preparations for the student meeting in Prague which is to take place on 24-28 April. The meeting will be attended by four SCIT students. Also much attention was given to the implementation of the European Commission grant projects in quality assurance control and developing resources and speech repositories for graduates about to take language examinations for IOs. SCIT is an active participant of these projects.

SCIT – Université catholique de Louvain Cooperation

13 March 2019|

On 24 February – 2 March SCIT trainer Oxana Yakimenko gave master-classes for the students of the T&I Department, the Catholic Univesity of Louvain (UCL), Belgium. She also gave a lecture about Russian cinema as part of the Erasmus + academic mobility scheme. Herzen University and UCL have been partners in the European Erasmus + Program for several years now, and the exchange of faculty and students has become regular practice. SCIT students with French in their language combination find it especially beneficial.

SCIT opens doors to potential students

22 February 2019|

On 21 February SCIT opened its door to potential applicants. Director Irina Alexeeva welcomed the guests and explained the selection procedure at SCIT aptitude tests. She underlined that the selection process is rigorous, and successful applicants should prepare themselves for a year of hard work. “When we launched SCIT in 2008, said Irina Alexeeva, we were primarily concerned about raising the status of a translator or an interpreter in our country. Our second goal was to turn out top-notch specialists for international organizations able to maintain the high quality of work across the world”.

Deputy Director Angelique Antonova descibed the job prospects after graduation. She backed up her speech with illustrative statistics: out of 129 SCIT graduates 21 are UN staff interpreters and translators, 18 have worked for the MFA of Russia, around 30 are employed by the UN or its agencies on temporary contracts. A lot of graduates work successfully in business or free lance.

One of SCIT’s present day students shared his impressions: «Just a year ago I was sitting in your place and thought that getting into SCIT was impossible. But everything is in your hands. Just like us, you can succeed in the exams, if you are intent on learning and mastering the profession. I certainly advise you to try it. I won’t be easy, but you can do it, like we did. ».

SCIT trainers Tatiana Maruschenko, Yuri Shashkov and Sergey Afonin took the questions from the auadience.

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