News

12-30 September: Master-classes of Dmitri Bloshenko, Senior Revisor of the Russian Translation Service at UNHQ

From 12 to 30 September 2016 SCIT hosted Dmitri Bloshenko, RTS Senor Reviser at UNHQ.

Since the master classes were scheduled at the beginning of the academic year, Mr. Dmitry Bloshenko had to adapt the teaching materials to the beginner’s level of the students who have just started their schooling. During the classes the students analyzed and translated the letters of Permanent Representatives to the UN Secretary General, various reports, journal articles on political and economic issues. To their surprise, the students found that UN translators often have to deal with translated materials rather than original documents in English. At the classes the students worked to expand their vocabulary, analyze the sentence structure, the meaning of the text, and understand the precise idea and position of the author. As a final exercise the students did a test UN translation in true-to-life conditions (without access to dictionaries or the Internet).  Some of the  master classes were also attended by the SCIT graduates and the students from the Institute of Foreign Languages, Herzen University. All agreed that the master-classes were very useful and highly effective.

September 9, 2016: meeting with the delegation of West Flanders, Belgium

On September 9, SCIT hosted the delegation from Belgium headed by H.E. Mr. Carl Decaluwé, the Governor of West Flanders. The delegation included the representatives of KU Leuven, Antwerp, and the officials from Televic Group.

The participants of the meeting discussed the Televic offer of up-to-date e-learning equipment for conference interpreters and the possibilities of cooperation with the KU Leuven within the “Erasmus +” framework.

Mr. Carl Decaluwé thanked Acting Rector Vassily Rabosh and Herzen administration for their eagerness to cooperate: “Herzen University offers a high level of education, Televic Group offers high quality equipment, together we can offer top class services. Both structures work for people, and we are happy to be able to cooperate”.

Lieven Daneels, CEO of Televic Group, stressed that his company considered cooperation with European universities, including Herzen University, an important aspect of their work. Dirk Verbeke, Sales Director of Televic Education, presented the up-to-date solutions for interpreter and translator training. The partners learned about Televic’s participation in providing equipment for international events and organizations such as G20 meeting, the UN, the European Court of Justice, universities of Newcastle, Geneva, and Pompeu Fabra.

Prof. Hendrik Kokaert, Dean of KU Leuven, shared his experiences of using the Televic software for translation assessment and real-time feedback, which allows to save time and improve the quality of assessment.

The meeting was attended by Filip Cumps, Consul-General of Belgium in St. Petersburg, Noël Muylle, Honorary Director General of the European Commission,  Vladimir Khodyrev, Advisor to Governor of St. Petersburg and President of North-West Transport Union, Dmitry Boikov, Acting First Vice-Rector of Herzen University, and Angelique Antonova, Deputy Director of SCIT.

4-8 July 2016: SCIT-UN seminar Russian for Interpreters of International Organizations

From 4 to 8 July 2016, St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation held a successful seminar Russian for Interpreters of International Organizations.  Eight interpreters from UNHQ, UNOG and UNOV spent five busy days at SCIT discussing with their Russian colleagues, SCIT trainers, lexical solutions and semantics of the Russian public policy discourse. Both SCIT trainers and UN interpreters considered this format useful and suggested organizing such seminars in the future.

Congratulations! Recent Successes among SCIT Graduates

SCIT graduates continue to make the School proud with the news of their successful employment. Alina Kulikova is enjoying a professionally rich summer: upon finishing her contract with the Russian Interpretation Section at UNOG she will continue working at the Russian Translation Service at UNHQ. Olga Fomicheva was awarded a temporary contract with UNHQ. Vadim Ermolenko is currently working on a temporary contract at the Russian Interpretation Section at UNOG. Anastasia Gavrilina is on an internship program at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva; she will then continue in Geneva at the UNOG Russian Translation Section. Following the FAO internship program, Marina Tkacheva received an offer of a temporary contract, and Anna Vegera will hold a temporary contract with ICAO in Montreal. Congratulations graduates, we are proud of you!

6-18 June 2016 г.: Kirill Kasyanov, UN interpreter and MoU coordinator visits SCIT

On 6-18 June SCIT was happy to welcome Kirill Kasyanov, UN interpreter and MoU coordinator. Mr. Kasyanov held a series of master-classes in simultaneous interpreting from English and Spanish into Russian. Intensive booth practice in interpreting UN speeches is exactly what the SCIT students need now, with the final exams starting 20 June and UN internship programs at UNHQ and UNOG approaching fast. Moreover, Mr. Kasyanov, together with Irina Alexeeva, SCIT Director, and Vladimir Khodyrev, member, SCIT Board of Guardians, took part in the meeting with Vassiliy Rabosh, Herzen Acting Rector, and Dmitry Boikov, Acting Vice-Rector. The participants discussed the SCIT policies under the Memorandum of Understanding with the UN. Our guest stressed that SCIT dedication to training language specialists for the UN is highly appreciated, and pointed that this cooperation broadens the international scope of Herzen University.