News

Master-class of Timofey Mineev, Russian MFA interpreter

On 12 March SCIT  students had a master-class from Timofey Mineev, a staff interpreter at the Russian MFA. SCIT’s collaboration with the MFA of Russia goes back to the year of the School’s inception, and up to date 20 SCIT graduates have worked as staff interpreters at the MFA’s Department of Linguistic Support. One of them is Timofey Mineev. At his master-class Timofey spoke about the necessity to develop certain linguistic and extralnguistic interpreter skills, about  preparations for the job, studying the background information and the necessary materials, tuning to the speaker’s and audience’s wave length, his own experience of working at the Russian MFA.  We heartily thank Timofey for the desire to generously share his experience and hope that today’s speakers will be inspired by his talk to strive for professional heights.

(Русский) День открытых дверей в ВШП

On 15 February SCIT held an All Welcome Day. Everyone  interested in joining the school had an opportunity to meet with teachers and graduates to learn about the educational process, the details of the admission procedure and the prospects for professional development. The event was held in a mixed format, some of the listeners joined it online.

Angelika Antonova, SCIT Deputy director, told about the history of the St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation : “SCIT was founded in 2008 following the initiative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which we are very proud of. The SCIT teaching staff was formed from T&I practitioners with a good reputation, so the ministry believed in us and supported us, and the UN signed a Memorandum of Understanding with us. Over the 15 years of the school’s existence, we turned out 171 graduates. It may not sound as much, but we prioritize quality. We are proud of our graduates and have confidence in their skill.”

UN professional experts joined the event:  Inga Khramkova, interpreter at RIS, UNHQ in New York,  and Kirill Kasyanov, Head of the Russian Interpretation Section at UNON. Inga Khramkova, UN coordinator for MoU, is herself a SCIT graduate and she was the first graduate to work as a simultaneous interpreter at the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. She had a lot to tell  about the work of a UN interpreter and give practical advice on preparation for the SCIT aptitude tests. Kirill Kasyanov, who has been giving master classes in interpretation to SCIT students for many years and has more than once supervised SCIT interns at UNON, spoke about the importance of the Russian language for interpreters, which should be flexible and terminological at the same time. Experienced translators wished all applicants good luck in the aptitude tests!

Director Irina Alekseeva spoke in detail about the educational process and aptitude tests. “The main place in the training process is given to practical classes, since we train primarily for the UN. Of the six UN languages, we have all except Arabic, but we have German instead, because we also train our students to work in the Russian market and try hard to keep up the professional standards. For the whole year, our students learn simultaneous interpretation, as well as consecutive interpretation and written translation. The most popular program we offer is Conference Interpreting and Translation, where two thirds of the classes are devoted to developing interpretation skills,” she noted.

Irina Alexeeva described the aptitude tests in detail, telling what skills applicants need to demonstrate and what mistakes they should try to avoid. She stressed that SCIT applicants should not only be fluent in two foreign languages, but also be able to express their thoughts competently in Russian, since good knowledge of their native language is no less important for an interpreter. She also added that most SCIT students are people  who have been working as translators for several years and want to upgrade their skills, but recent university graduates are also welcome.

This year’s students talked about the training process at the school and about the recently completed internship in Vienna.

At the end of the meeting, the audience was invited to ask questions.

SCIT students at UNOV

From 29 January to 2 February SCIT students are having a week-long internship at UNOV. From day one the trainees got immersed in intensive work: dumb booths daily sessions supervied by experienced UN interpreters who also hold master classes in interpreting technique,  glossary compilation, sight translation, compression in interpreting, relevant resourses and professional growth. Of note is the fact that one of the lecturers on translating texts for the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Outer Space was Dmitry Osadchuk, 2011 SCIT graduate, who is currently a staff UN translator at UNOV. An additional bunus for the trainees was a series of interpreting master-classes from/to French and Spanish.

We are grateful to those many who worked to make this internship possible: Marianna Matakova, Chief of the Interpretation Section, supervisors Anna Chevrieux and Olga Mostinskaya,  Igor Soloviyov, Head of the Russian booth, interpreters Sergey Nagradov, Ludovic Martin, José Manuel Follan and Ksenia Speranskaya. Their master-classes were full of insights and good advice which will help our students to grow into real professionals. Of that we are convinced.

All trainees will receive diplomas upon completion of the internship. The general supervision was conducted by Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director.

SCIT takes part in UCG IAMLADP meeting

On 15 December SCIT took part in the work of UCG IAMLADP meeting. We have been active members of the University Contact Group for many years now, and were happy to use the occasion to discuss with the colleagues from partner universities and international organizations the plans for the nearest future.  In March, the UN translation services are planning to hold a two-day vitual seminar for translators and heads of the translation programs in the universities. On its agenda is the updating of translator’s skills, their development and assessment, as well as the use of AI in translator training and working practice.  The parties are also interested in exploring the new ways to strengthen the colloboration with humans and technology. The international organizations expressed their readiness to assist the universities in adapting their training programs  to the requirements set by the IOs to language specialists. There is a lot of interesting projects ahead!

Seminar at the UN Information Centre in Moscow

On 1 December the UN Information Centre in Moscow held an annual seminar for the MoU universities.  The seminar became a meeting place for the university representatives, heads of linguistic services in the UNHQ in New York and UN offices in Geneva and Vienna, and the MoU coordinatiors from partner-universities. The Department of Linguistic Support of the Russian MFA acted as a co-organizer of the seminar, and was represented by Sergey Chudinov and Alexey Fedorov. The participants discussed a wide range of issues pertaining to the staffing of linguistic services in international organizations and the training of language specialists at the MoU universities.  The colleagues from the UN shared their vision of how to maximaize the impact of the Memorandum of Understanding, and university representatives spoke about  their work in 2023 stressing the benefits of the pedagogical exchange between partner universities and the importance of quality assurance. SCIT was represented by Deputy Director Angelique Antonova. She spoke  about the practice of organizing seminars for interpreters of international organizations with Russian and of other efforts to promote the Russian language  on the international arena.  One of such events was the international conference dedicated to SCIT’s  15th anniversary  “Quality of Translator and Interpreter Training in the Era of Globalization, Human-Centric Innovation and Artificial Intelligence” which took place on 11 and 12 of October at Herzen University. Such meeting are undoubtedly very productive as the exchange of ideas allows to maximze the benefits of the mutually beneficial cooperation.