On the morning of November 11, the second open class of interpreting at Xiamen University, jointly organized by the XMU Interpreting Research Institute and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, entered its second day for a demonstration of simulated conference interpreting teaching. Nearly 170 interpreters from colleges and universities all over the country gathered in the CFLCauditorium to observe the lesson. They were deeply impressed by the outstanding performance of CFLC interpreting students and sign language interpreters in the classroom.

The lesson on simulated conference interpreting was given by CFLC Professor Xiao Xiaoyan. The speakers for the simulated conference were Mr. William Hildebrant from the U.S. and Mr. Feng Gang, a deaf artist from Beijing.

The most special part of this lesson was that the demonstration of both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting and the perfect blending of English-Chinese consecutive interpreting and whispering simultaneous interpreting with Chinese sign language simultaneous transmission.

A number of CFLC master’s students specializing in interpreting acted as consecutive interpreters for the simulated conference. The two sign language interpreters were Yang Chaoran from the Zhengzhou Institute of Engineering and Lin Lingling from Xiamen Special Education School.

Visitors who observed the lesson included university teachers from throughout the country, deaf people from South Korea and Xiamen, and international students at Xiamen University.

After the two speakers finished their speeches, the simulated conference entered a question-and-answer session. Prof. Xiao invited the audience to ask questions. For many interpreting teachers from all over the country, this wasthe first time they hadobserved the use of sign language. Moreover, Mr. Feng Gang’s witty and humorous performance aroused a strong interest in sign language among many guests. They asked many questions about sign language learning and sign language interpreting.

At the end of the course, Prof. Xiao invited the spokesperson of the simulated conference and the American students and CFLC interpreting teachers in the room to comment on the performance of the interpreters. Through the lesson, students identified their weaknesses in emotion communication and language expression.

The demonstrated lesson featured the interpretation of a talk given by a deaf person in sign language, which was immediately rendered into Chinese by a consecutive interpreter, and the Chinese interpreting was then rendered into English by another interpreter, forming a three-stage relay interpreting exercise.