Author: Christopher Tester

ARTICLE: Treachery: Why Sign Language Interpreters Don’t Correct Each Other’s Work?

Personal commentary: A fantastic article by Darren Byrne, which was submitted to StreetLeverage. An ongoing issue within the interpreting community, including deaf interpreters. From a Deaf person’s perspective, this can be even more challenging because if we stand up and complain about the interpreting services, we may seem ungrateful and demanding, however, if we sit still and do not complain, we are not receiving the complete interpretation. My ability to respond/react/object/complain often is contingent upon the situation and who are present in that moment. It is especially more challenging for me now as I am also a colleague and not necessarily always a consumer of the services. This type of reaction has made me realize that I have made this a personal issue when it should be a professional and a competency issue.

This is something that needs to be explored further and have an ongoing dialogue.

Check this video clip, it is a really innovative new design for wheelchairs, and seems to allow wheelchair users far more mobility in their daily lives.

http://www.wimp.com/newdevice/

I recently created the above title workshop/seminar which will be presented at the Long Island RID’s chapter meeting on Saturday, January 11, 2014. This is a very new workshop, and I look forward to sharing with my colleagues and hopefully improve it further. This seminar explores the relationship between some specific settings such as child protection services and court, and how the role of the interpreter can and will have an impact on the case. The goal is to shake the idea that legal interpreting is contained only in the court.

I was recently interviewed by Michael Schulman and he gave me a shout out in his article: Hands Down, posted in the New Yorker on January 6, 2014. His goal was to find out more about the professionalization of sign language interpreters in New York City, especially in the wake of the “Fake Interpreter” scandal at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. All Hands in Motion’s owner, Janice Rimler, who is also a fellow interpreter assembled a fantastic team for this article, which included Bill Moody, Lynnette Taylor and Candace Broecker-Penn. Here’s the link. You have to be a subscriber in order to read the article in its entirety.  http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2014/01/06/140106ta_talk_schulman 

I’m starting my Masters in sign language interpreting by flying out to Helsinki, Finland, this week’s primary focus seems to be about learning Finnish deaf culture and Finnish Sign Language! Can’t wait to start!

Starting tonight, I will be leading an introduction to Deaf Interpreters training which will take place at LaGuardia Community College. I am keeping the series small with 15 students, and I have already maxed out all the seats! Looking forward to meeting all of the participants. My focus will be on translation work, and hands on activities in regard to interpreting and group discussions. Hope it will be successful!
This is a 3 weekend series, one weekend a month, culminating in November.