Students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation of Astrakhan State University Cover Practical Training Program at EU Institutions

Thanks to the training program, our students not only learnt how institutions of the European Union operate – they could also improve their competencies in interpretation by working in booths for conference interpreters at the European Commission’s sessions. Their training has been supervised by top-level professionals of conference interpreting, who gave our master students precious comments and advice. As for translation, our trainees could learn a lot about it at the Directorate-General for Translation.

Our trainees have also had a mock conference at the European Parliament that concerned elections to this European institution. The atmosphere of the event was very similar to the real setting of a press conference, since trainees speaking different languages could understand each other only with our interpreters’ help. Victoria Tinakina, a graduate of the Caspian Higher School, has also taken part in that conference, as she is now a trainee at the Directorate-General for Interpretation & Conferences of the European Parliament. At the conference, our MA students have given their speeches related to elections to the European Parliament and to elections of the President of the European Commission. They also were to handle conference interpreting and to put down comments.

Practice at the two EU institutions has helped students of Astrakhan State University learn the essence of their future profession, why it is so interesting and what difficulties they might face. At weekends, they could see the sights of Brussels and to go to Bruges and Amsterdam.

After two weeks of studies in Brussels, the group continued their training in Paris at the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development; they also visited the Institute of 96 Languages – INALCO which is a partner of our University. Not only they obtained new knowledge, but also they got bright impressions. Our students are looking forward to getting more practical training.