Court Interpreter Training in the Language Laboratory

Abstract

Demographic studies and statistics from state and federal courts indicate a
growing need for Spanish-English court interpreters with special training in consecutive
and simultaneous court interpretation. The authors conducted a survey of 466 of
California's Spanish-English court interpreters to determine what the Spanish-English
court interpreter's strongest skills needs are. Survey results are reported in this article,
and the five strongest skills training needs are identified. The authors indicate how the
language laboratory may efficiently be used to develop and enhance these five skills
and how it may best serve a court interpreter training program. Emphasis is on
applying the work of G.A. Miller and the training techniques of Robert Ingram to
Spanish-English court interpreter training.