News

SCIT starts a new academic year

The first Monday in September SCIT opens a new academic year. The ceremony was attended by Rector of Herzen Univesity Sergey Tarasov, Vice -Rector for International Affairs Dmitry Mereshkin, honorary guests, SCIT trainers and graduates.  Rector Tarasov addressed the new students with a word of welcome. He said, “The school forms a brotherhood of profesionals, which grows from year to year. It is wonderful, as the primary task of an interpreter is to build communication, help people to understand other people, cultures and world views. The school builds up this kind of communication very successfully, and this is the secret of its success”.  Rector Tarasov congratulated Irina Alexeeva on awarding her  the honorary title of the President of SCIT.

Director Angelique Antonova warmly welcomed the newcomers and stressed the importance of making a closely-knit community withing the group and necessity to support each other on the way. Irina Alexeeva picked up the cue saying that the School’s collective consists of unique people who can work closely with each other and thanks to this achieve remarkable results.  She hopes the new students will adopt this mode and will benefit from it.

Igor Demyanenko, Deputy Reprresentative of Russian MFA in St. Petersburg and SCIT lecturer on International Law,  spoke about his course: “I will try to persuade you that the notions and categories we use in international law are applicable in everyday life, too. We will touch upon it in our classes, and I always welcome thought-provoking questions from students”.

Kirill Kasyanov, Head of the Russian Interpretation section at UNON, joined the ceremony via Zoom.  He  congratulated the new students and described the internship opportunities at UN offices for SCIT leavers. This coming autumn, for example, UNON expects four SCIT graduates for a week-long internship. He assured everybody that Russian linguistic services are always share their professional expertise with young SCIT interpreters.

Anastasia Gavrilina, 2015 SCIT alumna and presently Reviser in the Russian Translation section at UNOG spoke about her experience of studying at SCIT and wished the new students to absorb everything that SCIt has to offer.

The meeting continued with a traditional tea-party. The new students got to know their teachers and SCIT graduates, asked questions about the treaching process and School’s traditions.

Final accords of 2023/24 academic year

On 27 and 28 June SCIT celebrated the finale of the 2023/24 academic year. On 27 July the students took part in the traditional end-of the-year conference for MFA officials. We attach much importance to this conference as this is the chance for the graduates to show themsleves at their best and possibly favourably impress the potential employer. This year  the students’ competence was evaluated by Sergey Gritsay, Director of the Linguistic Support Department, MFA of Russia. The students interpreted in the consecutive and smultaneous modes form English, German and French. The speeches dealt with the topic of AgI.

The conference was followed by the traditional boat trip along the Neva river and the canals. At the end of the day all participants of the festivitis gathered in the SCIT conference hall for the students’ amateur performance. The party was jolly, with songs and quizzes, and we all had a lot of fun!

28 July followed with the official diploma-awarding ceremony. The grand Mariinski Hall of Herzen Univrsity was full of guests. Rector Sergey Tarasov, LSD director Sergey Gritsay, SCIT director Irina Alexeeva gave welcoming speeches to the graduates. The Head of the Board of Guardians Vladimir Chizhov awarded the diploma to each graduate and presented them with a book.  The guests of the ceremony and SCIT trainers wished the new crop of graduates every success in life.

Round Table on the Russian Language at UNESCO

The round table on the Russian Language as a Basis for Integrational Dialogue was organized by the Russian Representation to UNESCO in Paris  as part of the celebrations devoted to the Russian Language Day. Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director, was invited to make a presentation at this event.  In her speech she addressed the role of the Russian language as a cultural mediator not only in international communication, but also within the multinational Russian environment. According to Ms Antonova, foregrounding the cultural component of international coomunication can serve as a locomotive for studying the Russian language abroad. She spoke about the national school of interlinguoculturology and the practice of organizing a competition Young Aitmatovs for young authors in Russia’s ethnic languages who use Russian for promoting their literary works in other languages of Russia.  All the participants of the round table agreed that such good practices will increase the role of Russian on the international arena and strengthen cultural ties among peoples within the country.

More about the event:

https://t.me/s/RFDEL_UNESCO/4363

https://russianunesco.mid.ru/ru/press_service/news/o_prazdnovanii_dnya_russkogo_yazyka_v_shtab_kvartire_yunesko/

https://tass.ru/obschestvo/21025973/amp

Master-class with Anastasia Gavrilina, UN translator

On 3 June SCIT students had a master-class with Anastasia Gavrilina, staff translator at UNOG and SCIT graduate. At the master-class Anastasia spoke about her work as a translator in Geneva, dwelt on the specific features of institutional texts and shared some translator’s techniques. Special attention was given to discussing the texts from the 2023 Language competitive examinations (LCE) for the UN translation services. The detailed analysis of the mistakes and developing strategies for the successful exam outcome will ensure that SCIT would-be graduates  will actively take part in the next session of LCE when it is announced and will be equipped with necesssary knowledge and skills to pass these exams successfully. We thank you Anastasia Gavrilina for the master-class and wish her every success!

(Русский) Семинар для преподавателей перевода от EMCI

On March 14 and 15, a ToT (training of trainers) seminar was organized by EMCI, an international consortium of European master’s programs in conference interpretation. All SCIT trainers were invited to participate in this seminar. The first day was devoted to the use of modern technologies in interpeters’ work and, accordingly, the impact it has on the educational process. University representatives spoke about the experience of using AI in the making of training speeches, in modeling real working scenarios, using technology in the process of work and in preparation for interpreting, as well as about the development of specialized training courses on the use of technology in interpretation. The second day of the seminar touched upon the important topic of preserving the interpreter’s mental health. It is no secret that an interpreter experiences great psychological stress, and the participants discussed effective techniques for stress management.

SCIT was represented by Deputy Director Angelique Antonova.