Writing this paper was incredibly challenging but it was also very transformative. I really had to look in on myself and figure out what my values really were. What truly speaks to the transformation that was required to establish this philosophy of practice paper is the fact that it is vastly different than my previous philosophy of practice paper written roughly a year ago. I was much more clear in this writing and my values and beliefs are clearly stated. The fact that they are so clearly stated really points towards my understanding of them. Values are important but defining them is almost more important. Once you have defined and understand not only what your values are but how the impact other and your interactions with them, you can move on to putting those values to practice. My philosophy of practice really points towards some important ethical practices in the field of sign language interpreting and I feel the values I hold will help me better myself as not only a sign language interpreter but also as a person.
Author: intrchiarelli
SMART-ER Goals
Invoicing & Billing
| S | I want to ensure that all my invoices and billing is mistake free and up to date. |
| M | I will put aside two nights a week (depending on my schedule) to go over, edit, and update my invoices. |
| A | Once I have found days that are regularly available for me to do this I will put the task into my Google Calendar |
| R | Once I start to work it is very important to stay on top of billing/invoices to ensure that I am being paid properly and that I am keeping organized in case of a tax audit in years to come. |
| T | I will work on this for a month’s time and will try to establish a routine in my work to ensure this is a regular activity I am doing. |
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| E | After a month’s time I will check to ensure that my work is not only mistake-free but also that it is up to date (no invoices older than 4 days) |
| R | If I find that 2 times a week is too much and possibly too confusing then I may have to set up one specific day a week to do this. If, on the other hand I find that I cannot stay on top of the work then I may need to increase the amount of times I try and tackle this task. |
Invoicing is a very new thing to myself and any new interpreter. It is important to stay up to date because if there are mistakes being made then they can be easily fixed. I may also take advantage of my future brother-in-law who is a CPA and ask for help if I am unsure of the proper billing techniques required of a freelance contract worker.
Emailing
| S | I want to make sure I reply to emails within 24 hours |
| M | I will put aside time each day, maximum 30 minutes, to go through my emails to ensure that I have responded to all necessary emails. |
| A | As a new interpreter I do not think I will receive a tremendous amount of emails, I expect roughly 10-15 per day. This seems manageable for me. |
| R | Email is the main form of contact between interpreters and the available assignments. By ensuring that I am taking time to actively look at my emails it may instill a better professional practice for years to come. |
| T | Much like my first SMART-ER goal I will try this for a month’s time as I start to get used to working as a professional interpreter. |
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| E | After a month has passed I should have a good feeling in regards to if I am replying to emails in time. If I am missing assignment because I am too slow then I know something may need to change |
| R | If I am missing assignment due to a lack of email replies then I may need to keep the same amount of time to check emails (30 minutes) but do it twice per day (15 minutes x2), or even three times per day (10 minutes x3). |
In the year 2019 we have constant access to our email. In the field of freelance interpreting a lot of communication is done through email. That being said if I inadvertently look at my email and leave messages as “read” without replying to them I run the risk of missing work opportunities. If I allot time to check my emails in a meaningful manner, in that I plan to reply to emails, I lessen the risk of missing emails/work opportunities.
Active Lifestyle
| S | I want to be active every day and record my activities using Google Fit Calendar. |
| M | Being active is the most important and most helpful way to ensure that I am maintaining a healthy lifestyle which leads to better work. |
| A | Being active 7 days a week may seem daunting but the way I put it is to just go out of my way to do something active that I, otherwise, would not have done (can be a short walk, stretching while I watch TV, or going to the gym). |
| R | As I have spoken to many times, when I am living an active lifestyle all other parts of my life tend to improve. My mental being, my mood, my interpreting abilities, and my eating habits. |
| T | I would like to try this for a month’s time. Due to the fact that it is spring and almost summer there is a lot more opportunity to get outside and take time from my day to be active. |
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| E | After a month I will look at my progress and how active I have been. Have I been active every day? |
| R | If I am struggling to be active every day I need to look at the reasoning behind why that is? If I do not have time then I may need to lessen my goal of 7 days a week. If it is an unwillingness to be active I will look at getting someone (a friend or family member) to try it with me because social activity/fitness may be more impactful and successful overall. |
This is not a new smarter goal but it one that I try to maintain. When I live a healthy and active lifestyle I find my quality of life improves overall. Interpreting is a stressful job and if I can relieve even a small bit of that stress through activity then I will benefit from that. I also predict that I will have more success if I get myself a “workout buddy” to face this challenge with me. When you work together with someone else you tend to hold the other person accountable and are therefore more likely to meet your goals. For now though, I am going to try and motivate myself to meet this goal.
Body Break!
I have always been, as long as I can remember, an active person. Whether it be sports, cycling, going to the gym, hiking, or yoga I have always enjoyed the feeling I get when I get my body moving. The interpreting program at Douglas College showed me just how much I value an active lifestyle. There were times, especially in my first semester at Douglas College, where being active became less of a priority for me. During this time my mental health struggled alongside my physical health. I was eating poorly, spending most of my nights in front of the television, and felt little to no motivation to be active. The lack of motivation for activity led to a lack of motivation to do much else. It was at this time that I made the connection between an active lifestyle and my mental health and overall performance in both school and life. Since that time I have made being active a high priority in my life.
Due to the busy schedule of school it is often hard to find ways to be active. Therefore, I had to be creative at times. Douglas College Coquitlam campus has a beautiful lake two minutes from campus. The lake offers a nice 20-30 minute walk outdoors to get your heart pumping and your brain relaxed. While I was on Christmas break back home in Ottawa I had the chance to go skating with family and friends on a trail through the forest. People often complain about the cold but when the cold gives you the opportunity to skate through a forest trail, you take that opportunity time and time again. Lastly, when I was in Moncton, NB for my first practicum I made sure to find a place to stay that had a gym within walking distance. Not knowing the Moncton area I felt like my outdoor options were limited, so the YMCA that was a 5-minute walk from my apartment allowed me to fit “Body Breaks” into my schedule.
I have become much more aware of when I am meeting my physical/activity needs and when I am not. When I am not I tend to feel tired or lethargic and have a tendency to not perform as well as I could or as well as I want to. Self-care is more than just something you do it is also an awareness of your needs and I have become much more conscientious of when I need a “Body Break”.
Physical Health = Mental Health.
Professional Reading List
Akamatsu, C. T., & Cole, E. (2000). Meeting the psychoeducational needs of deaf immigrant and refugee children. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 15(2), 1-18.
Association of Visual Language Interpreters of Canada. (Ratified July 2000). Retrieved May 1,2019, from http://www.avlic.ca/ethics-and-guidelines/english
Baker-Shenk, C. (1986). Characteristics of oppressed and oppressor peoples: Their effect on theinterpreting context. Retrieved May 1, 2019 from Interpreter Education: http://www.interpretereducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Characteristics-of-the-Oppressed_110314.pdf
Cokely, D. (1986). The effects of lag time on interpreter errors. Sign Language Studies, 341-375
Dean, R. K. & Pollard, R. Q. (2013). The demand control schema: Interpreting as a practice profession. North Charleston: CreateSpace Independence Publishing Platform.
Hall, B.C. (2017). Self-care & sign language interpreters: 8 ways to ease trauma. Retrieved May 1, 2019 from Street Leverage: https://streetleverage.com/2017/06/self-care-sign-language-interpreters-8-ways-to-ease-trauma
Hall, M. L., Hall, W. C., & Caselli, N. K. (2019). Deaf children need language, not (just) speech. First Language, 0142723719834102.
Harding, Anita. 2011. The Interpreting Profession and Audism. AVLIC News 27:1, Winter/Spring 2011. 1, 4. Copyright AVLIC.
Hopcroft, R. L. (2018). The Oxford handbook of evolution, biology, and society. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Janzen, Terry, and Barbara Shaffer. 2008. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions: The interpreter’s role in co-constructing meaning. In Jordan Zlatev, Timothy Racine, Chris Sinha and Esa Itkonen (Eds.), The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 333-355. Copyright John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Janzen, T. (2008). Topics in signed language interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Malkowski, Gary. 2003. Interpreters: Supporters of an Audist or Audist-Free Zone. AVLIC News 19:3, Fall/Winter 2003. 10-13. Copyright AVLIC.
Mindess, A. (2014). Reading between the signs: Intercultural communication for sign language interpreters. Boston: Intercultural Press.
Napier, Jemina. 2004. Interpreting Omissions: A New Perspective. Interpreting 6:2, 117-142. Copyright John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Oliva, G. A. (2004). Alone in the mainstream: A deaf woman remembers public school (Vol. 1). Gallaudet University Press.
Padden, Carol, and Tom Humphries. 2005. Inside Deaf Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN-10: 0674022521 or ISBN-13: 978-0674022522
Wadensjö, Cecilia. 2002 [1993]. The Double Role of a Dialogue Interpreter. In Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger (Eds.), The Interpreting Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge. 355-370. Copyright Cecilia Wadensjö.
Wilcox, S., & Shaffer, B. (2005). Towards a cognitive model of interpreting. Benjamins Translation Library, 63, 27.
Witter-Merithew, C. S. C., & Nicodemus, C. I. (2012). Toward the International Development of Interpreter Specialization: An Examination of Two Case Studies. Journal of Interpretation, 20(1), 8.
Wolbers, K. A., Dimling, L. M., Lawson, H. R., & Golos, D. B. (2012). Parallel and divergent interpreting in an elementary school classroom. American annals of the deaf, 157(1), 48-65.
The above readings can be extremely beneficial to an interpreting student and/or an interpreter working in the field. Each reference cited here has, in one way or another, had an impact on my education at Douglas College. There have been papers, such as Association of Visual Language Interpreters of Canada (2000), that educate on the proceedings and guidelines outlining ethical and professional practice as a sign language interpreter in Canada. Some readings, for example Janzen (2008), discuss the many theories and topics involved in sign language interpreting. Other readings can help interpreters working in an educational setting and the variety of children we may encounter and the different needs they may have (Akamatsu, 2000). There are also readings relating to self-care, an essential part of being a sign language interpreter (Hall, 2017). Learning how to deal with stress and avoid repetitive strain injuries is very important in the pursuit for career longevity.
A career as a sign language interpreter, especially one that follows their code of ethics, is an ongoing career which involves continuous professional learning and development. Having references such as the above reading list enables sign language interpreters to refer back, refresh, and educate on the field in which they are working. The learning never stops and my hope is that this list continues to grow and expand throughout my time working as a sign language interpreter.
SLIAO – Sign Language Interpreting Associates Ottawa Inc
I have been very privileged to work with and get to know the people of SLIAO. My third practicum block gave me the opportunity to work with the SLIAO team. Within my time with SLIAO I felt very much like I was a part of their team. The support, the mentoring, and the involvement I had with them has led me to want to work within SLIAO’s parameters in the days and years to come. While with SLIAO I learned the importance of business skills and how much they are appreciated and how they can aid the inner workings of an interpreting agency. There are two main examples of this that I will expand on: responsiveness to emails and scheduling and willingness to be inquisitive.
Since day one with SLIAO in my third practicum block I was told that my quick responses to emails and requests was not only appreciated but was helpful to the scheduling process. SLIAO is a very busy interpreting agency and has many requests coming in daily, along with their VRS and VRI departments, there are a lot of moving parts. My ability to quickly reply to emails, texts, and phones calls meant that the mentoring team at SLIAO were able to find me interesting work and allowed everybody to prepare and confirm properly with all parties involved. Going forward, quick responses to requests and open contact lines will not only help me network and make the connections necessary in the Ottawa region but will also help me find work post graduation.
As we creeped closer and closer to graduation I made sure to take the opportunity towards the end of my third practicum block to have a meeting with one of my mentors, who also holds the position of Human Resources Management at SLIAO. In our meeting we were able to talk about how SLIAO works. We discussed the request process, invoicing, interpreting rates for a variety of assignments, and available work in the Ottawa region. At the end of the meeting we were able to discuss the possibility of my working as a part of the SLIAO team. I was encouraged to submit my resume and will then be sent their screening requirements. Due to my willingness and forwardness I was able to give myself an opportunity to join an important part of the Ottawa region’s interpreting field. Also, due to my familiarity with programs like GoReact and my overall technological skills I was able to start the screening process as soon as possible despite the fact that I would be out of town at the time of the screening.
SLIAO is an agency that helps their employees and contractors not only find work but helps in the invoicing, marketing, and accounting elements of a freelance/community interpreter. Both myself and the people at SLIAO are excited about the opportunity for me to be a part of their team and given the chance to do this I am confident that I will be able to work towards being a successful interpreter in Ottawa.
SLINC – Sign Language Interpreters of the National Capital
SLINC – Sign Language Interpreters of the National Capital
As a student we are required to be members of the Canadian Association of Sign Language Interpreters (CASLI) and their affiliate chapters. Throughout my time at Douglas College I was a student member of CASLI’s affiliate chapter, Westcoast Association of Visual Language Interpreters (WAVLI). When I began my second and third practicum placements in Ottawa, ON, I decided it would be a better fit for me to be a member of SLINC rather than WAVLI. This also made sense due to the fact that I will be living in Ottawa post-graduation. By contacting the appropriate members of the CASLI, WAVLI, and SLINC boards, I was able to transfer my membership over to SLINC as a student member.
Moving my membership over has given me a very exciting opportunity. As of April 27, 2019 I am the pending Vice-President of SLINC. I attended the AGM for SLINC as an interpreter for the person taking the meeting minutes but did end up having a chance to “change my hats” to a SLINC member and put my name in the running for Vice-President. I am incredibly excited for this opportunity to work with the interpreters in the National Capital and the surrounding regions. I know I will benefit from working with and meeting all the people involved in the Ottawa region’s interpreting processes and on-goings. I also know that I will bring a new perspective to the board. Being a recent graduate of an Interpreting Program when my title begins I will hopefully be able to provide new information and approaches to interpreting as a community and a profession. There will be a period of time with some serious growing pains as I learn the ropes but I think it will benefit me and my interpreting business skills going forward. Going forward I will be relying on the connections I currently have to aid in my role as Vice President on the SLINC board and hope to make more connections to make my role as effective as possible.
Bilingual, Trilingual, Maybe Even Quadrilingual?
Bilingual, Trilingual, Maybe Even Quadrilingual?
During my time in a K-12 setting, working with a Grade 8 Deaf student I was taught very quickly the challenges of working with someone with not only language deprivation but with language deprivation in nearly 4 languages. The student I was working with is a Syrian refugee and migrated to Canada in 2015. In his life back home it is suspected that his education and language exposure were lacking. This meant that he often communicated in a multitude of different language. The language he was most comfortable with was ASL, he then had a strong grasp on spoken Arabic, some Arabic Sign Language, and his English language skills were improving but were lacking overall. This mixture of language knowledge that he had often made it challenging to communicate with the student one-on-one.
There were times when English idioms or phrases were nearly impossible to create meaning out of without in depth explanation of the meaning behind the utterance. There were also learning goals associated with the student. There was a push from teachers, counsellors, and his family alike to learn to not only read and write in English but speak English as well. This occasionally affected the way we would communicate with the student. It was rare that we would shift to a full Sim-Com style of language use but the interpreters, myself included, would often use English word order, use more mouthing than expected, or even just speaking certain words to him (the student has a Cochlear implant and therefore has quite a bit of residual hearing).
In the moment, when I was at the school interpreting I did not realize the differences we, as interpreters, made when communicating with the student. However, being out in a freelance setting in Ottawa and meeting people who are Deaf and have ASL as their strongest language, and their ASL is fully developed, I see that the approach to communication I had with the Grade 8 student would likely not be effective in communication with other members of the Deaf community.
It is easier to communicate with someone like the Grade 8 student mentioned here when you are able to spend time with them to grasp their language preferences. The combination of ASL, Arabic, Arabic Sign Language, and English offered a unique language situation with this student and it took me a few weeks to feel comfortable communicating with the student in a way that also made him feel comfortable.
My hope is that with more time spent meeting Deaf people and working alongside them I will be better able to detect language preferences in shorter amounts of time. Knowing a language preference and how to meet it makes for more comfortable and more clear communication.
Skin Tone – A Lesson in Racial Oppression
During a practicum block I was given the opportunity to interpret a college course related to photography. It was an introductory course that focused on photography techniques, camera elements, and different styles of photos. It was a class and a topic I am familiar with as I consider myself a bit of a photography enthusiast. During the first class I was interpreting- the students had sent the instructor their favourite pictures of a model shoot they had done the week before. During this model shoot there were four female models that came in and the class had the opportunity to photograph them in different poses and different light. Three of the models were white and the fourth model was black. If I am being honest, I did not even realize the different races of the models as my mind was purely trying to interpret at that moment, but I digress. There came a time when the instructor was looking at one student’s photograph of one of the models. The model, one of the white women hired for this photo shoot, was on the screen, the picture was very well done and the colours used were a great match for the style of photo the student was trying to capture. The instructor then made a comment that the model’s skin tone looked really good. The meaning behind this was that the model’s skin tone and the colour of light that the student chose in combination with the colour of her outfit all really connected well and meshed the way the instructor wanted to see. What came off my hands was “skin-colour-good”. At the time, in my own brain, it made sense to me, the instructor had mentioned the importance of matching the skin tone and working with the model’s tone to get a clear and beautiful picture. Therefore, what I interpreted made sense to me.
The class went on and finished after 3 hours. After class was finished the three interpreters had a short feedback session where this utterance came up. One of the interpreters asked me what I had signed for that utterance of the skin tone looking really nice in the picture. Then she asked me to look at it through the eyes of the Deaf student, who is also black. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. Telling a person of colour that the skin of a white model is “skin-colour-good” looks terrible. Thankfully the Deaf student has a good knowledge of the topic and likely did not think anything more of it, but it was still a moment where I felt like I was being very unaware of the audience I was working with.
As interpreters we focus so much on being cultural mediators and existing in both the hearing and Deaf world. We understand our power as people who have access to both worlds and have the ability to control interactions. Sometimes, however, and in this case it happened to me, we forget the power we may hold over other minorities and/or marginalized groups. I forgot my place as a white male and the historic oppression that we, as white people, have been a part of for many years. We are asked to act bi-culturally in our interpreting practice but it is important to remember that cultures exist past hearing and Deaf. I had forgotten it in this moment and hope that the lesson I learned will stick with me and keep me from forgetting in my future work and life.
A Cohort of Support
After starting in the Interpreting Program in the fall of 2017 I immediately knew that the group of students going through this program with me were special. We were lucky enough to have gone through the Vancouver Community College ASL and Deaf Studies Program together and the majority of the Douglas College class in the Fall of 2017 came from the same program. Therefore, right off the bat we not only knew one another but we understood some of the challenges we faced the year before as well as some of the challenges we would be facing in the years to come at Douglas College. The few students in our cohort who did not hail from the 2017 graduating class from Vancouver Community College are equally as supportive and understanding of this journey and bring their own experiences and expertise to the classroom.
During my time at Douglas, in the classroom, out on volunteer interpreting assignment, camps, study groups, online forums, and throughout practicum, I have considered, and continue to consider the group of students moving through this program with me as an amazing group of individuals. Each student brings something special to the group and no matter the issue, the struggle, or the success, there is someone around who is not only willing but happy to discuss my experiences with me. This has left me with an incredible feeling of support.
The support I feel and receive shows itself in many ways. It may come in the form of tangible things like cards, photographs, or keepsakes given to me from fellow classmates as a reminder that they are always there to support me through my journey. Other forms of support come through phone calls, texts, emails talking about challenging scenarios we have faced or asking one another where to find a certain resource and/or assignment for the program. I have always felt that no matter what I need to find or do in relation to school there is at least one person who will help me at the drop of a hat. I am lucky to have the person willing to do this change day to day. There is no one person who we, as a cohort, rely on the most. We share the duties, we help one another in whatever way we best can. Due to this fact I know that the relationships I have formed throughout this program will last for a lifetime. No matter where we are working or living I know I can reach out to any one of my classmates for advice, a debrief, or just an out of the blue catch-up on their life. I consider myself truly blessed to have this supportive group behind me, rooting for my success, and my only hope is that the feeling of support is reciprocated. This network of support will help us all in our future endeavours and our successes going forward.
Deaf Youth Today – Student Interpreters
In the summer of 2018 I was given the amazing opportunity to be a part of a summer outdoor camp run by Deaf Youth Today (DYT), a branch of the Family Network for Deaf Children (FNDC). The camp is held every year at Tribune Bay Provincial Park on Hornby Island. This camp is attended by families with Deaf members and children who are Deaf or hard of hearing. The Tribune Bay Park staff are hearing individuals who run camps throughout the summer involving outdoor activities such as hiking, swimming, kayaking, and tree climbing. Myself and five other students were accepted to go to the camp to interpret for all those attending and working at the camp. This was a chance for us all, myself included, to go in head first and really see what interpreting is. We learned very quickly and had to adapt along the way in order to achieve meaningful interpretations.
The outcome of “Interpret Meaning” was often not achieved, and I think this is the biggest takeaway from this camp: seeing the difference between when meaning is properly interpreted and when it is not. The adaptations made and the lessons learned are why this artifact falls under this outcome. When I struggled to interpret meaning I was forced to step back and adjust my interpreting to make meaning happen. I often had to focus on what the goal was of the speaker. With such an array of language users at the camp the way the meaning was portrayed was not always the same and often needed support or expansion. The expansion of the message often showed in the use of real-life demonstrations. As the Tribune Bay staff explained how to participate in the activities they were also showing how to properly and safely partake in said activities. I quickly adjusted my interpreting to include the Tribune Bay staff’s examples. This also forced me to ensure that my positioning was proper (i.e. being close to or beside the speaker) and to occasionally use the equipment myself. Knowing the goal of the Tribune Bay staff as well as the goal of the listener was essential in interpreting meaning. I was lucky during my time at Tribune Bay to have almost immediate feedback in regards to whether meaning was conveyed or not. This did not come in the form of formal feedback from other students or interpreters but rather how the camp attendees partook in the activities. When a particular activity had difficult intricacies to it and required knowledge of the skills needed to succeed I was able to see if the child followed instructions that were given by the staff or if there was a misunderstanding. As we became more comfortable with the activities and got to know them better throughout our time there I found my interpretations to be fuller and have a more clear message. The interpretations were often tailored to a specific child or group of children based on their language needs and preferences. For the most part, the younger the group of campers the more “visual” the interpretation (i.e. more real-world resources were used). Through my time at DYT camp I found my interpretations improved in regards to conveying meaning. The adjustments I made and the resources/approaches I used helped achieve meaningful interpretations and a successful message was often the outcome.
Chris Chiarelli - An INTR Journey 
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