Here are some of the things I learned, was reminded of, or thought about during the CIT conference I attended this past week:
- I was reminded that people remember most what they learn first and last (primacy and recency). In the future, when I teach a class or a workshop, I will begin and end with exercises that engage students in active learning that is content-focused. Also, I was taught that nothing shuts down a student more than fear and anxiety. Hmm… Note to self: in the future, do not begin a class by giving out graded homework that for several students is copiously red-penned and graded lower than they might have liked, and do not end class with a discussion of the next homework assignment!
Instead, begin a class session with a lively, fun exercise that engages students in active learning that is tied directly into the content matter of the class. End with a summary of what I taught them in class that day, or — better yet! — with an active learning exercise in which the students take turns summarizing (teaching each other) what they learned in class that day. Don’t bother marking up their papers with all kinds of editorial marks. If their writing is very poor, give them a poor grade and have them come to you after class if they want to talk about it. Hand out homework on a paper to them as they leave the classroom. Take care of “housekeeping” during the middle of class. Save the first and last portions of the class for the meat of the lesson. (Inspiration: “Designing and Delivering Effective, Learner-Engaged Trainings” by Len Roberson and Shannon Simon — one of the only workshops I ever gave all fives to on the RID evaluation form)
- A conference venue for attendees who communicate in sign language must have large common areas, wide corridors, non-distracting walls (e.g. floral patterns and huge mirrors), and lighting that is bright but not glaring. Unfortunately, the Red Lion Hanalei Hotel in San Diego was not an ideal conference venue for visual-gestural communication and traffic flow!
- Discourse analysis and genre recognition are areas that I would like to do further learning and teaching on. Continue reading →
Below I quote from this Wikipedia entry about Telecommunications Relay Service:
As much of the tele-relay system, particularly IP-Relay, is open for public use, it is possible for anyone with the proper equipment to place calls. This includes people who are not members of the original intended user group (i.e., persons who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or speech-impaired). Some such users have noted its usefulness in making long-distance or local calls free of charge and without a telephone. The accessibility even to those who are not deaf, etc. has been defended by providers as a necessary evil. This is because the principle of “transparency” – the belief that the operator and the mechanics of relay should generally go as unnoticed as possible in the call – requires that Relay be as easy to use as a normal telephone, which does not require any kind of verification for hearing people to use. This decision has been defended by leaders in the deaf community, and generally retains strong support among speech and hearing-disabled users of the service.
One of the “necessary evils” the above quotation refers to is the use of text relay services by Nigerian scam artists. Some text relay operators actually gave up their jobs in order to stop doing what made them sick and be free to break the story to the news. Here are two of those news stories that are linked to from the aforementioned Wikipedia entry:
Con artists target phone system for deaf – Security – MSNBC.com and Overseas crooks abuse phone service for deaf | www.azstarnet.com ®
I feel sorry for those relay operators who lost their jobs, but Continue reading →
Posted in Interpreting for the Deaf
Tagged accessibility, ASL, deaf, ethics, FCC, interpreting, opinion, text relay, TRS, video relay, VRS
It seems that every time I get discouraged because no one is responding to my posts, I get a comment or an e-mail that reminds me I’m not just shouting in the dark. Well, I am shouting in the dark– but people are listening! Hmm… let me put that in a deaf-friendly way: I’m waving my hands over the abyss– but people are reading my signs from afar!
I checked my web site statistics, and my site has received an average of 1,592 hits per day. The site received the most hits — 2,371 — on August 29, the day I posted the video of myself singing Cockeyed Optimist on YouTube.
One thing I have found is that blogging can be very time consuming! Between this and my activities on Flickr and YouTube, as well as my reading of other blogs, I have been spending too much time on the Internet. I suppose I may as well admit now that I am powerless over the Internet and that my life has become unmanageable, as that is the first step to recovery! Honestly, I don’t know how other people manage it. I guess I’ll have to start scheduling limited amounts of time each day to get on the computer, sign on, do my surfing or uploading or reading or whatever, and sign off and be done with it. Plus, I have to schedule limited amounts of time for writing blog posts, moderating comments, creating vlogs or videos, taking photos, uploading photos to my computer and editing them, etc. It really has become too much. I look forward to finding moderation in this soon!
The current code of ethics for ASL interpreters is the joint NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct. That document contains in its preface a section titled, “Philosophy,” which reads as follows:
The American Deaf community represents a cultural and linguistic group having the inalienable right to full and equal communication and to participation in all aspects of society. Members of the American Deaf community have the right to informed choice and the highest quality interpreting services. Recognition of the communication rights of America’s women, men, and children who are deaf is the foundation of the tenets, principles, and behaviors set forth in this Code of Professional Conduct.
As an RID-certified interpreter and transliterator, I must agree to uphold and follow this code of professional conduct — and I do — but there is a bit of nonsense in that paragraph that I cannot endorse, and that is the fallacy of “inalienable rights.”
It is ironic that such a fallacy is promulgated under the heading “Philosophy.” Anyone familiar with philosophy knows that rights are social constructs: they are given by society and can be taken away by society. “Inalienable” means “cannot be taken away.” Well, the fact is that rights are given and rights are taken away.
It may sound paternalistic to say so, but Continue reading →
Posted in Deaf Culture, Interpreting for the Deaf
Tagged accessibility, ASL, Code of Professional Conduct, CPC, deaf, ethics, interpreting, NAD, opinion, RID
Here are some of the LiveJournal communities I found last night:
- aslterps: started 5 October 2003; c. 240 entries; last entry 18 August 2006.
- anti_bad_terps: started 5 March 2004; c. 40 entries; last entry 23 April 2006.
- certified_terps: started 2 February 2006; 14 entries, last entry 15 August 2006.
- itp_students: started 1 February 2006; 14 entries; last entry 23 July 2006.
- vrs_411: started 21 June 2006; four (4) entries; last entry 28 June 2006.
(By the way, it took me an ungodly amount of time to compile those data. Does no one know of an easy way for a LiveJournal Community visitor to see when the community was started and how many entries it has without having to page back through all the entries?)
I guess these really are more journaling “communities” rather than “blogs.” Online interpreter communities have been around for a long time, especially in the form of ListServ’s, Yahoo! groups, etc. These communities differ from ListServ’s in that they are out in the open for all the world to see. They each have their group originators and moderators, but no one person seems to be the main blogger of any of them. Some of the posts and comment discussions are interesting. For the most part, they don’t seem to “log the web” in the sense of providing links and commentary about other Web documents, as discussed in Journal vs. Blog. They are more a collection of discussions about either real or hypothetical interpreting situations, or bad experiences they had with other interpreters.
Continue reading →
It wouldn’t be the first time I was the first one on the Internet to do something (see my Style Sheets Demo Page and HyperHaiku), but thankfully, I am not the first ASL interpreter to have a blog. I did some more searching this morning on DeafBlogs and found some other interpreter blogs. Here they are:
- certified_terps, a LiveJournal community
- anti_bad_terps, a LiveJournal community
- OakHomey– I don’t see much there about interpreting, except that he feels he can’t blog about his personal life because it would damage his relationship with his clients. Hm…
- Shanni’s Blog– I don’t see much about interpreting there, but there are some posts that mention her experiences as an interpreter, and there are lots of beautiful photos.
In a recent post, I bemoaned the lack of interpreter-client relationship that comes of the anonymity imposed upon video interpreters. When I first wrote that, about a month before I published it on my blog, my morale about video relay interpreting was in a bit of a slump. Getting out and doing more interpreting in the community, i.e. face-to-face, has revitalized me, I guess. Lately, I really enjoy going in to work, and I’d like to share here some of what I think is great about VRS (in no particular order).
- I love going to the call center and working 4–6 hours in one place without having to drive all over the county to several shorter jobs.
- I love using technology to improve the lives of deaf people and their hearing family members, friends, and co-workers.
- I love being on TV in homes all over the country. It’s what I always wanted!
- I love it when I interpret a call and the hearing and/or deaf people say to their interlocutor, “Wow! I finally understand you!
- I love meeting deaf people from all different regions of the U.S. and learning all their different regional signs.
- I love the “cross-pollenation” that is happening with deaf people and interpreters in various regions talking to each other in ASL, and I believe this might help to standardize ASL a bit more and make it easier for people to understand each other wherever they’re from.
- I love how my voice interpreting (ASL-to-English interpreting) has improved since I began doing VRS interpreting!
- I love exploring the unique challenges that come with VRS interpreting such as: register variation (from intimate to frozen, sometimes in the same call), unfamiliarity with topic, personnel, and specialized vocabulary.
- I love the fact that, since I got a regular job doing VRS interpreting, I’ve been able to buy a home and begin saving for my retirement!
- Oh! And I love seeing people’s adorable pets on camera! Brightens my day!
There are others things I love, but that’s all I can think of for now. 
Is it possible that mine is the first ASL interpreter blog? I have searched the Internet for other ASL interpreter blogs, and I can’t find any. There are hordes of Deaf Blogs and Vlogs out there—hooray for deaf people!—but where in the blogosphere are my interpreting colleagues?
I wonder if there are no ASL interpreter blogs because we have to keep our mouths shut about our work to protect client confidentiality. Yes, we need to protect our consumers, but we can talk about our work publicly! I believe it will benefit our profession and our consumers, too, if we talk about our work in a way that is illuminating without betraying any confidential information.
That is my goal here—to talk about ASL signing and interpreting in such a way as to inform and stimulate discussion while maintaining a sense of professionalism and respect for my colleagues and our hearing and deaf consumers. I look forward to the time when this blog is full of comments from deaf and hearing readers engaged in meaningful dialogues that have a profound and positive effect on the work we do and the people we serve. I look forward to adding other ASL interpreter blogs to my blogroll and being added to theirs.
Blog on, ‘terps!
The differences between text relay and video relay are so vast; it amazes me how the FCC and, in turn, the VRS companies continue to treat VIs (Video Interpreters) like CAs (Communications Assistants; i.e. text relay operators). The effects of this treatment are sometimes unrecognized until something happens to remind an interpreter of what it’s like to feel like… well, like an “interpreter” again, rather than an “operator.”
Recently, I took a break from my regular video relay interpreting job to interpret in a seminar for which I was requested by the client. The client and I had professional and social relationship that went way back. While on that job, I experienced emotions that I had long forgotten as a VI: the pride in being asked for by name and the joy of being wanted for who I am, not just for what I do.
What is the point of anonymity when the deaf client can see you? At some point, they are bound to find out who you are; what’s more, if you are active in your profession, they should find out who you are! Sign language interpreters are professionals who bank their businesses on their professional reputations. They make a name for themselves by publishing, doing community service on the boards of interpreting organizations and governing agencies, teaching classes and workshops, mentoring new interpreters, and socializing within the deaf community. Text relay operators, or CA’s, do not need to do any of these professional activities, and they are literally invisible to their clients. It makes sense for them to be anonymous. It does not make sense for video interpreters, who are visible on television screens in people’s homes all over the country, to be nameless. Interpreters who follow the NAD–RID Code of Professional Conduct are never truly anonymous, as they are active and visible members of their communities.
Anonymity robs from us what many of us have spent years to develop: Continue reading →
