Academic teaching in Translation and Interpreting in Russia: Student expectations and market reality

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework for translator and interpreter competence in an ever-changing professional environment and provide recommendations to improve academic teaching in translation and interpreting in Russian universities in order to meet the needs of the language industry. To this end, the author discusses the results of three surveys carried out in 2017-2018. In the first survey, chief executives and vendor managers of major Russian translation companies share their experience of hiring university graduates. In the second survey, young professionals entering the Russian translation and interpreting market reflect on their university experience versus the expectations they had when enrolling in translation and interpreting programs. In the third survey, teachers of translation and interpreting from Russian universities reflect on existing academic programs in translation and interpreting.

The Basic Requirements To Translator Trainers Competence

“…The results of a survey of university teachers conducted by Malenova (2018b) show that "42% of them were constantly engaged in providing these services, 42% of respondents did it from time to time, 14% used to work as translators and interpreters in the past" (p.108). The result is quite encouraging.…”

Professional Preferences of Translators/Interpreters-to-be: Survey Results

“…Such a trend reflects the rapid increase of training programs both in Europe and Asia (Yan, Pan, & Wang, 2018;Pym & Torres-Simόn, 2017). Though there is no shortage of papers dealing with teacher point of view on ways and means of teaching, teaching aids and assessing the results, research effort is still needed in investigating training from the learners' perspective (as well as from the point of view of their potential employers) and some investigative work has already been done (Durban et al, 2003;Borissova, & Knyazheva, 2017;Malenova, 2018).…”