The Project PACI - Professional and Accessible Community Intepreting, a Gateway to Migrant´s Integration, provides a unique approach to one of the biggest challenges of language professionals and their education: providing well developed background education materials for community interpreting and institutional translation. We would like to teach the newest techniques of community interpreting and institutional translation through innovative digital learning materials and didactical tools, such as e-learning courses, translation technologies, systems to process terminology. The main goal of the project is to develop a template model of education of community interpreting and institutional translation considering the broader former analysis about the needs of the market of language services in the partner countries, and this in the specific language combinations the market does not provide a fair amount of qualified translators and interpreters. There is no presence of such high qualified education of their competences. They are going to be developed in the scope of this project for our language combinations of the project partners. The small and specifically profiled filological departments of languages of limited diffusion can not provide all aspects and competences of education of community interpreting and translation in the classical curriculum. Therefore it is essential to cooperate on the supra national level within the Erasmus+ framework sharing know-how, research and hardware. In combinations of Languages of lesser diffusion, the number of participants of this kind of special education is rather limited, this is why it is better concerning the effectivity and to share finances and to organise a summer course on international level. After a thorough analysis of the needs of the labour market and starting from our year-long experiences in education of students of Dutch studies within a translation studies curriculum, the Dutch department at the Comenius University together with the Department at the Palacky University in Olomouc and the University of Wroclaw, and with their long-time partner VUB, Free University of Brussels decided to create this partnership, each partner in the project chosen so as to contribute with their own specialisations, therefore we are able to develop a highly intensive and professional firm educaton programme focused on the needs and competences of the translator and interpreter in practice. We offer in our project basic theories of community interpreting and institutional translation in the form of online courses and blended learning, as well as fully specified guest lectures from our partner universities, resulting in a summer school and an accessible comprehensive terminological database. Impact will be multiplied through scientific conferences, intellectual output in articles and conference proceedings, as well as a website of the coordinator. We focus the intensive dissemination of the education model in relevant groups of specific audiences, who are able to apply this model into other language combinations, which will ensure the endurance, stablity of the intellectual outputs and enhance the effectiveness of the functioning of state and public institutions and the integration of migrants who are entitled to use the services of community interpreters and institutional translators.
The Erasmus+ Key Action Strategic Partnership Programme PACI – Professional and Accessible Community Interpreting: A Gateway to Migrant’s Integration. The project involves a unique pioneering approach to providing sustainable training in Public service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT) for Languages of Lesser Diffusion (LLD’s). The project’s primary goal is to develop a didactic model for PSIT training. Based on the concept of blended learning, PACI’s didactic model requires students to combine (independent) online learning with onsite training. The learning objectives and materials in PACI’s PSIT module are in line with market needs related to the provision of PSIT services in the partner countries. Given the great demand for professional training of PSITs in languages of limited diffusion (LLD’s), the three Central European university partners – i.e. the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia), Palacký University Olomouc (the Czech Republic), and the University of Wrocław (Poland) – decided to join forces with the Department of Linguistics & Literary Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). VUB has many years of experience in training translation and interpreting students, on the one hand, and in offering courses on terminology and translation/interpreting technologies, on the other hand. Since each partner individually cannot address all aspects and competencies considered necessary for PSIT training in the respective language combinations (Polish – Dutch; Czech – Dutch and Slovak – Dutch), the project benefited from a supranational partnership within the Erasmus+ framework. Each project partner contributes its own expertise to the development of PACI’s didactic model. The Comenius University of Bratislava initiated the PACI partnership. The university has a long tradition of providing translation training to students enrolled in its Dutch studies curriculum. The PACI didactic model – available in Dutch and English – can serve as a template model in PSIT professional training for other language combinations. It is currently offered as a separate PSIT training module within the existing university curricula of the Philology Departments in the two Central European universities in Poland and the Czech Republic, and a professionalization track within the translation studies curriculum of the Comenius University in Bratislava. The intellectual outputs of the project use the latest PSIT techniques in practice, contain innovative digital learning materials such as e-learning courses in 4 areas: translation in public services, interpretation in public services, language technologies in PSIT, and ethical and institutional aspects of PSIT. The courses are directly related to the requirements of the EMT (European Masters in Translation) and reflect the recommendations of process organizations in the field of PSIT (ENPSIT - European Network of Public Service Translators and Interpreters). In addition to basic theoretical knowledge in the field of translation and interpretation relevant to PSIT, students are acquainted with an overview of technologies of computer-assisted translation, machine translation, corpus tools for searching terminology. Role exercises and practical translation studios during the training week support the development of practical translation and interpreting skills and the ability to solve ethical dilemmas. A Didactic handbook: Framework structure PACI - Professional and Accessible Community Interpreting: a Gateway to Migrant Integration. Handbook for users of the training model will make it easier for those interested in using this educational model to implement it in a specific educational institution. Our Monograph - Training of Interpreters and Translators in Public Services: A European Perspective provides an overview of current PSIT research and current studies on the state of PSIT in Central European countries compared to countries with well-developed PSIT systems (Belgium, Spain, Austria) as examples of good practice.