After three phenominal weeks in the South Island of NZ, we have crossed the sea (via the biggest ferry we've ever seen....10 stories high!) to the North Island. We have three weeks to go before heading to Sydney Australia on Dec 3rd.
Today we had the opportunity to visit the only Deaf Unit of a mainstream highschool in this area to interview a teacher of the deaf and a service coordinator for the school. Although these students are in an environment of nearly all hearing peers, they have the opportunity to have an itinerant teacher from Van Asch Deaf Education Centre provide them with Deaf culture and NZ sign language to boost self-confidence and identity.
With a serious shortage of interpreters in NZ, the mainstream school have what are called "Communicators". Communicators are not qualified interpreters because they have not gone through the interpreting program in Auckland. Many have learned sign language through friends of the Deaf community or community classes to work as teacher aides/communication facilitators. Interpreters have had formal training and are often called to medical, legal, job interviews and other major assignments. The Deaf and hearing communities of NZ are aware of the differences between a Communicator and Interpreter as they strive to encourage more people to go through formal training.
Tomorrow we will travel to NZ's capitol, Wellington to visit the Deaf club and learn about the research program at Victoria Univeristy (instrumental in developing the NZ sign language dictionary). Stay tuned...
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2 comments:
"Communicators" vs Interpreters.
It's really the "Terp's Dilemma."
The Code of Ethics for Interpreters forces them to be OBJECTIVE in their translation from ASL (or any other Sign Language) into English, or the other spoken language.
It's not just about who can translate Sign Language into Spoken Language, it's about who can translate DEAF CULTURE into HEARING CULTURE. WHO is doing THAT???
"Formal training" doesn't do that. English, ASL, BSL, NZSL, Auslan: it's just a bunch of WORDS. Technology ought to solve the translation problem. Pen and paper, blacknerries. But it still doesn't bridge the gap between the Hearing and the Deaf.
THAT'S why I SUPPORT DDW, what you're doing. To expose the greater, Hearing World to Deaf Culture around the world and all its many facets.
Keep the blog updates coming! Sounds like things have gone well in the last month! JM
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