webinar: divided attention

Our first webinar will be held on Monday 30th September at 7:30pm (BST)

It will give us a two-hour space to discuss and learn more about how we divide our attention when interpreting, and how we might do this better!

Ever felt like you are trying to look in two directions at once, whilst in the process of interpreting? It could be a meeting where participants are referring to written documents, it could be a Deaf presenter who is referring to specific wording on a PowerPoint slide, or it could be a need to look at written names or numbers whilst in a phone call. As interpreters, we are taught to focus wholly and intensively on a speaker/signer in order to be able to receive, understand and process their message, but in some situations while interpreting we must divide our attention between two sources of information. It can be momentary, but it may be a repeated action throughout an interpreting assignment. This disengagement from the source feels counter-intuitive as an interpreter and, just, difficult!

This webinar will start by acknowledging that this divided attention happens, and why this difficult skill is necessary! We will discuss practice techniques and strategies to help us do this better, so that our interpreting can be more effective.