Service Learning in Interpreter Education

Strategies for Extending Student Involvement in the Deaf Community

1st Edition

By Sherry Shaw

Categories: Translation and Interpreting Studies
Series: Interpreter Education
Imprint: Gallaudet University Press
Hardcover : 9781563685552, 258 pages, April 2013
Ebook : 9781563685569, 172 pages, April 2013
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This book introduces and develops the concept of service-learning as a tool for re-centering the Deaf community in interpreter education for the purpose of extending student involvement beyond field experience such as internship or practicum.

 
 

Description

Institutions of higher learning around the nation have embraced the concept of student civic engagement as part of their curricula, a movement that has spurred administrators in various fields to initiate programs as part of their disciplines. In response, sign language interpreting educators are attempting to devise service-learning programs aimed at Deaf communities. Except for a smattering of journal articles, however, they have had no primary guide for fashioning these programs. Sherry Shaw remedies this in her new book Service Learning in Interpreter Education: Strategies for Extending Student Involvement in the Deaf Community.
       Shaw begins by outlining how to extend student involvement beyond the field experience of an internship or practicum and suggests how to overcome student resistance to a course that seems atypical. She introduces the educational strategy behind service-learning, explaining it as a tool for re-centering the Deaf community in interpreter education. She then provides the framework for a service-learning course syllabus, including establishing Deaf community partnerships and how to conduct student assessments.
       Service Learning in Interpreter Education concludes with first-person accounts from students and community members who recount their personal and professional experiences with service learning. With this thorough guide, interpreter education programs can develop stand-alone courses or modules within existing coursework.

 

Sherry Shaw is Associate Professor in the Department of Exceptional, Deaf, and Interpreter Education and Program Director of the ASL/English Interpreting Program at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL.