Although interpreting services have been provided in one way or another in the courts of the United States since the nation was founded, recent stories in the press (e.g. Woo, 1993) have focused the public's attention on the caliber of language services now available in our courts and the critical role of the interpreter in ensuring that justice is done. As Repa (1991) states,
From time immemorial, an untrained bilingual person was brought into the court to help with the understanding of evidence given by a foreigner ... It appears that virtually centuries went by before the internationalization of our societies brought a new perspective into court interpreting. It was not until the sixties and seventies in North America that a complete lack of structure in court interpreting was gradually recognized as an issue. (p. 595)
In fact, only in the last 16 years have any formal steps been taken to control the quality of interpreting in legal proceedings: Landmark legislation at the federal level (the Court Interpreters Act of 1978, Pub. Law 95-539) and in the State of California (Assembly Bill 2400, 1978) established mechanisms to test and certify court interpreters and required the courts in their jurisdictions to use only interpreters who had passed these exams. During the 1980s, other states followed suit.
In the process of implementing these programs, officials discovered that the problems were more complex than they had originally thought. Merely testing language competency is not enough to ascertain whether a candidate has adequate interpreting skills; the knowledge, skills, and abilities of court interpreters first had to be identified, and then a valid test instrument had to be designed to determine whether candidates could demonstrate such interpreting ability. After the first administration of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam in 1980, a lawsuit was filed by an unsuccessful candidate who challenged the exam, claiming that it was invalid (Seltzer v. Foley, 1980). The validity of the exam was upheld by the court, but the low pass rate (8.8% the first year it was given, 4.7% the second administration) continued to generate criticism and controversy (Gonzalez, Vasquez & Mikkelson, 1991).
The California certification program experienced just the opposite problem: The poorly designed exam resulted in a high pass rate, to the point that in the mid-1980s, questions began to arise about the laxity of standards and the low skill level of some of the interpreters who were deemed qualified to interpret in the courts. In response to such criticism, state officials gradually increased the difficulty of the exam, and the pass rate declined accordingly (Gonzalez, Vasquez & Mikkelson, 1991). As a result, the skill level of interpreters who were certified in different years was very inconsistent, and the mere fact that a prospective interpreter was certified did not tell the courts whether that person was really qualified.
The problem of the disparity in interpreter qualifications came to the public's attention in December 1989 when two reporters from the San Jose Mercury News (Ewell & Schrieberg, 1989) wrote an exposé on the interpreting services provided in California courts. This series of newspaper articles prompted Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas of the California Supreme Court to appoint a Court Interpreter Advisory Committee to study ways of increasing the quality and quantity of interpreters available to the California court system. The authors were among the 13 members appointed to the Advisory Committee, who included interpreters, judges, attorneys, and court administrators. As the committee gathered information on the state of the court interpreting profession, it became apparent that the lack of training was at the root of all other problems (low exam pass rate, ethics violations, erroneous interpretation of witness testimony, etc.). Consequently, one of the measures taken by the Advisory Committee was to put on a series of orientation workshops for working and aspiring interpreters throughout the state. The authors were contracted to design and conduct the workshops.
Between May 1991 and May 1993, a total of eight two-day workshops were presented at various locations in the state. The intended audience was interpreters who were working in the courts but had not passed the certification exams, either because no exam was offered in their language or because they had taken and failed the exam. The workshops were also attended, however, by aspiring interpreters who had no experience at all, and by certified interpreters who were so hungry for information that they would attend anything related to court interpreting, regardless of the level of instruction. The results of the workshops will be discussed below.
As noted above, other states have followed California's lead in developing court interpreter testing and/or certification programs, and some have been able to avoid the pitfalls experienced in California. In particular, Washington and New Jersey have implemented rigorous tests in a variety of languages and have sponsored training programs to help candidates prepare for them. This effort has involved a considerable investment of resources. Other states have begun to take steps to regulate the interpretation services provided in their courts, but they are daunted by the expense of the undertaking. In response to this dilemma, William Hewitt at the National Center for State Courts has designed a program that will allow states to pool resources. In its initial four-state pilot project, Oregon and Minnesota have entered into a cooperative agreement with Washington and New Jersey whereby Oregon and Minnesota will have access to Washington's and New Jersey's existing exams, and they will finance the development of tests in new languages, to which Washington and New Jersey will have access.
In view of the low pass rate that has characterized all court interpreter certification exams, the National Center for State Courts has included training workshops in its pilot program. Once again, we were contracted to design and present the workshops, following the model that was originally conceived in California and adapting it to the other states' needs. A total of six two-day training sessions were presented in Minnesota in the months of March and April, 1995, and they are to be repeated in Oregon (with adaptations for that state) in May, June, and July 1995. A discussion of the content and results of these workshops follows.
In an ideal world, court interpreters would be trained in university degree programs involving years of intensive work on language, interpreting skills, and knowledge of the law. No such program exists in real life, however. The court interpreting profession is made up of a heterogeneous cadre of bilingual individuals who, in many cases, have learned interpreting by the seat of their pants. Some of these autodidacts have taken it upon themselves to offer courses so that their newer colleagues will not have to learn the hard way, as they did. Nevertheless, court interpreters with formal training in the field are still the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, any instruction at all is an improvement. We have no illusions that any miracles will be achieved by presenting weekend workshops to large, polyglot groups drawn from the community at large with little or no screening. We have tried to keep our goals as realistic as possible, and to make clear to everyone involved that there are limits to what can be accomplished in two days.
Accordingly, the term "orientation" has been emphasized in the title of the workshops, to stress that the objective is to provide an orientation to the court interpreting profession, informing participants of the role of the interpreter and the knowledge, skills, and abilities they must possess to practice the profession. In this way, working interpreters can assess their own compliance with these requirements in their current practice and make the necessary adjustments, and aspiring interpreters can determine whether the profession is attractive to them and whether they are suited to its demands. In addition, all interpreters who will be subject to certification examinations will know exactly what is expected of them and how they can prepare for the exam.
Prior to attending the workshop, participants are sent a quiz on ethics to take at home and bring to the session. In addition, the first item on the workshop agenda is a pretest of English language skills, to help participants assess their strengths and weaknesses in English (they are told that their proficiency in the other language should be at an equally high level). The two tests are submitted to the workshop presenters for scoring. At the end of the workshop, the tests are returned to the participants and discussed in detail.
One salient feature of the workshops is small group practice. We ask state court officials to identify the most experienced interpreters in each area where a workshop will be given, and those interpreters are asked to serve as small group facilitators. The agenda calls for periodic break-out sessions during which groups of approximately ten participants perform exercises designed to give them more hands-on experience. Wherever possible, the languages of the small group facilitators are matched to those of the participants so that they can perform the exercises in their working languages; when that is not possible, the exercises are done in English in mixed-language groups.
Thus, not only do the interpreters have a chance to assess their own abilities, but the sponsors of the workshops (state court administrators) have an opportunity to see the level of preparedness of the interpreters who are working daily in their courts. Sometimes this comes as a shock to them; in Minnesota, for example, after the first two workshops were presented, state officials decided to postpone the administration of the first certification exam for a few months to give candidates more time to prepare.
As noted above, the agenda of each session was adjusted according to the needs of the audience and in response to comments received from previous workshop participants, but the same basic pattern was followed throughout. Here is a typical schedule:
Participants are given a binder containing the materials referred to during the workshop as well as other information for further reading. They are encouraged to keep the binders for permanent reference and to continue adding to them as they acquire more resources. Here is the table of contents of a typical workshop binder:
In presenting the workshop, an effort is made to avoid the "talking head" syndrome by alternating between lecture, demonstration (skits using audience participation when possible), and small group work. The demonstrations and break-out groups are time-consuming, but they keep the participants involved. With a view to making the event as interactive as possible, questions from the audience are welcomed at all times. The ethics portion of the workshop is enhanced by the showing of two videos produced by the Office of the Administrator for the Courts of Washington State: "Working With Interpreters" (produced for judges' training) and "Interpreters: Their Impact On Legal Proceedings."
At the end of the workshop, participants are asked to fill out an evaluation form. These forms provide valuable information about how well the workshops are fulfilling their objectives, and serve as a basis for constant adjustments in the schedule and materials presented.
In general, the workshops have been very well received. In many cases, they are the first opportunity court interpreters have had to meet their colleagues and obtain information about the profession they are practicing. In general, their expectations have been met and surpassed, although some of the participants, especially the neophytes, have had very unrealistic notions about what can be accomplished in a two-day workshops; they have come to the sessions expecting to learn everything they need to know to pass the certification exams and be successful court interpreters. Some experienced interpreters have resented being asked to participate at all, since they assume that they already know all there is to know about the profession. And finally, despite our warnings, some of the sponsors (i.e., state court officials) have also had unrealistic expectations, in that they have assumed that after a series of weekend workshops, they will have high rates of success on the certification exams. By the end of each workshop, however these misconceptions have been dispelled.
The workshop participants are people from all walks of life and have a wide range of abilities. There are retirees looking for a a part-time occupation, women returning to the job market after raising their families, laid-off workers, recent college graduates, law students seeking a way to work their way through school, etc. Some are extremely bright, well-educated, and articulate in two or more languages; others have serious language deficiencies. Some are very comfortable with public speaking; others are terrified of it. The workshop presenters' preconceived notions have been dispelled also: A wheat farmer from North Dakota turned out to be a brilliant Spanish interpreter, and a Somali man employed as a supervisor at a turkey packing plant in Minnesota spoke better English than any of the native speakers attending the workshop. Some diamonds in the rough have been revealed, although, if truth be told, some of the participants who are already working full-time as court interpreters have proven to be appallingly ill-equipped for the job.
The feedback received from the participants' evaluations is enlightening. They suggest changes in course content (for example, some want more on criminal procedure and less on ethics, others want just the opposite) and in method of presentation (e.g. more small-group work). By far the most frequent comment, however, is that more training is needed. The participants are hungry for whatever they can get, but they especially want interpreting practice and legal terminology. It is clear that these workshops have accomplished their stated objective, to give participants an orientation to the profession and apprise them of what is expected of them, but that is just the first step.
The next step in the effort to guarantee quality interpreting services in the courts is intensive, language-specific training at an intermediate level. The California Judicial Council drew up tentative plans for such training, but the lack of funding has prevented implementation of the plans. Minnesota is planning some intermediate-level training for Spanish interpreters prior to the first administration of its certification exam. Obviously, this type of instruction is much more costly than general orientation workshops for interpreters of all languages. It must be done in small groups to optimize hands-on experience and feedback, and the instructors must be highly qualified. Washington and New Jersey have sponsored such training with very good results.
The real proof of the pudding is candidates' performance on court interpreter certification exams. It is unlikely that orientation workshops alone will guarantee a high pass rate, but they do heighten awareness of the standards of the profession and disseminate useful information about resources for self-study. Moreover, they discourage marginal candidates from even attempting the exam. In this way, they contribute to the success of qualified candidates.
It should be noted that certification is not the end of the road for the professional court interpreter. Continuing education is essential for the interpreter to keep up with linguistic and legal trends and to maintain proficiency in interpreting skills. In recognition of that fact, both California and Washington have established continuing education requirements for certified interpreters. In Washington, the first round of continuing education training was sponsored by the state; in California, it has been done through the private sector. Clearly, more needs to be done in this area. In conclusion, the court interpreter orientation workshops conducted by the authors are just the first step on the long and fascinating journey of court interpreter education.
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