Transforming the Interpreting Classroom in the age of AI

Critical Thinking in Focus: Transforming the Interpreting Classroom in the age of AI

This workshop invites participants to rethink interpreter training in an era dominated by AI, when both students and teachers often find themselves caught between overreliance on AI tools and a healthy scepticism about all that they promise.

The aim is to discuss and exchange ideas on redesigning traditional interpreter training in such a way that students learn to use AI and tools in a context that also hones uniquely human skills such as critical thinking, judgement and discernment. To this end, we will explore and experiment with adapting methods such as problem-based learning and student-centred approaches, including the flipped classroom model, to the participants' specific learning contexts and needs. We will also examine how both in-class and independent learning activities can motivate students and empower them to make more autonomous decisions.

Target audience
This workshop will be of particular interest to interpreter trainers who want to incorporate AI into their classrooms without making the use of these tools an end in itself and thus relegating other essential interpreting skills to the background.

Venue
Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Via della Lungara 19, Roma, IT

About the trainer
Karin Reithofer is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Translation Studies in Vienna and a freelance conference interpreter and full member of AIIC, working mostly for international institutions (such as the EU and OSCE) with an accreditation for English, Italian, Spanish and Romanian into German. She holds a degree in Interpreting from the University of Graz, an MA in Conference Interpreting from the University of Westminster and wrote her PhD thesis at the University of Vienna where she was a researcher in a project on quality in simultaneous interpreting led by Franz Pöchhacker. She has also taught interpreting at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania, and at the University of Graz in Austria.