Two videoconferences organized by St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation jointly with the MoU partner universities were a final chord to the 2012/2013 academic year.

On 27 May the telebridge brought together the students from St. Petersburg, ESIT (L’École Supérieure d’Interprèteset de Traducteurs) and the experts from SCIC, European Commission. The speeches were interpreted consecutively by the trainees from each school, and this allowed to compare the quality of interpreting as well as learn not only from experienced interpreters but also from the peers at ESIT. The topics varied from shale production to recreational hunting and races. The SCIC experts were satisfied with the quality of interpreting done by the School students.

On the following day another team of young interpreters from St Petersburg took part in the videoconference with the colleagues from the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Geneva University. The trainers from both universities prepared speeches which were interpreted consecutively at each school. At our side the students not engaged in the actual conference interpreting practiced the same speeches simultaneously in dummy booths. A speech in Spanish done by the Geneva trainer gave our student a rare opportunity to practice this language in the simulated conference setting. All reports came under the single topic “The changing paradigm of the family in politics and society”, and such thematic unity proved to be a productive principle to build a conference on.