I earned an MA in Interpretation from Gallaudet and have read a lot of research in the field. Like Dr. Cokely addresses in his letters and posts- this exam is NOT based on empirical data and must be re-examined with a more informed and educated eye.

Separately and in addition to all this…
Dr. Cokely- May I ask about your use of “one of us”? To me, this implies that associate members and pre-certified interpreters are not in fact “one of us,” and that only those who have passed certification are included in this group. I would argue that they are the future of “us” and in fact some of the most impacted by the current certification exam issues. All members of this organization are stakeholders and are invested in the outcome of this issue. Some of the not-yet “one of us” (associate, student, pre-certified members) are in a terribly difficult transitional period that greatly impacts our professional practice, opportunities, livelihood, and experience. Do we take the test now? Should we wait a year or two for this to be sorted out? Do we protest the NIC until it is based on empirical data? And thus, we are stuck in the not-yet “one of us” category… yet we are very involved & invested in the matter at hand. I would suggest that the use of the term “one of us” be substituted and/or clarified. This discussion is important to ALL certified and pre-certified members alike. Certification status shouldn’t determine if you are in the “us” or not, but rather your, membership, involvement and contribution to the field should.

Also, I think that we should further discuss the idea of a para-professional and professional status along with the certification discussion. Maybe before we have levels of certification, we should establish a pre-certification (para-professional) status. One that requires education, training, and skills but limits where one can work. Then a certain amount of hours of mentoring, further training and a higher level of skills and experience would be required to test and receive a professional certification. After that a level system or specialties can be further developed?

Thoughts?

Is it possible to submit a petition to halt all testing until this is resolved? That would mean a lot of people waiting for a testing opportunity and several financially lean years at RID, but creating an appropriate test has to be the top priority.

~Lauren

There are several socio-cultural reasons this comparison disturbs me. One is that users of spoken language, who may or may not be marginalized, are not automatically labeled as having a disability by virtue of the language they are using. By contrast, Deaf consumers for the most part are because from the dominant hearing perspective, cultural status of the D/deaf party is often devalued/overlooked, and sign language use (or rather lack of English use due to auditory “deficits) is often equated with disability. This is not directly the case with spoken-to-spoken language interpreted interactions. Even where one hearing client is a member of a dominant cultural group and the other of marginalized status, the concept of “disability” is not intrinsically present even if discrimination may be. I think the distinction here highlights a mental frame of reference which has serious implications for our work and places spoken/visual language interpreters in a unique category. In addition, culture and language are recognized at least intuitively in spoken-to-spoken interpreted exchanges albiet with varying degrees of respect. This is often not the case in visual/spoken interpreting where hearing clients may not realize Deaf Culture exists.

Beyond this, I believe our multi-modal cognitive processing distinguishes our work from that of our spoken interpreter counterparts. In the simplest terms, the demands of visual language processing and use are far different from that of aural/oral language. This should be enough to question whether validity measures justifying a 4 or 5 minute exam scenario in spoken language interpreting actually applies to our field (I would question if it even applies to spoken language interpreting). I’m not suggesting anyone has stated that it should be, and I do like the suggestion by Daniel to look outside our language pairs and our field for broader understanding. However, I’d like to know if RID’s support for such short scenarios came directly from test development in the spoken language interpreting industry.

It seems that many decisions are being made without considering the broad perspectives of many experts in our field. RID appears to be making decisions based on surface-level analyses, small-group discussions, and whim. All of the questions Dennis asked to the board are valid and deserve a substantive reply. Thanks Dennis for taking your letter to a public forum and for providing validity to similar (yet informal) discussions that have occurred here, in email forums, and on Facebook!

Another question I propose considering is whether certification really needs to demonstrate more than entry level skill. Think of all the other certifications that simply certify that they candidate is competent — not advanced, not expert — just competent. There are professions I can think of offhand in which there is only one certification: barber, cosmetologist, Marriage Family Counselor, lawyer. And you may have heard the one about know what they call a doctor who got all Cs in med school: Doctor. I am not convinced that our national certification needs to indicate more than basic competence.

I can imagine that it must be difficult for agencies or other hiring bodies to hire interpreters sight-unseen with only a basic measure of competence; however, we have seen how having certification levels does not always lead to fair payment practices when years of experience and skill in the field — not just the testing site — are not included in the calculations. Perhaps it is time for interpreters to be ready to prove their skills in ways other than certification; e.g., here’s my résumé, here’s my degree, here’s my sample interpretation video (perhaps like an actor’s “reel”– a compilation of samples from CI, SI, ASL-ENG, ENG-ASL), here are my letters of reference… There are ways other than certification by which professionals can demonstrate their skills and consumers can determine a professional’s worth.