Multi-Languages Annual Conference 2018

Topic: Failing With the Brain in Mind – Neuroscience

Many of us are encouraged to succeed, but we often ignore the role failing plays in that success. Contrary to popular practice, failure is not something we should avoid because failure helps us adjust and improve future outcomes. The brain is naturally wired to detect errors and adjust accordingly and therefore serves as a useful strategy for improving performance. This session will introduce participants to the neuroscience of failure in order to help re frame failure as natural and necessary as part of the process of learning and succeeding. 

Dr. Mandy Wintink, PhD is a Life Coach, Author, and CEO who focuses on applying knowledge of the brain to life skills and personal development. She earned her doctorate degree from Dalhousie University in Neuroscience and Psychology in 2005 and then founded the Center for Applied Neuroscience in 2010 where she trains people to become a life coach through understanding neuroscience, psychology, yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. She also teaches neuroscience and psychology as a faculty member at the University of Guelph-Humber. 

Topic:  Improve Your Memory, Improve Your Outcomes

Forgetting to pick up milk from the store is something that happens to all of us at one time or another. Fortunately, a lack of dairy doesn’t usually have major consequences. However, in the world of interpretation and translation, forgetfulness and an imperfect memory can lead to serious problems. Errors of omission are among the most frequent errors that interpreters commit.

Translators can lose time and productivity by having to re-research terms and ideas that they failed to retain.

An interpreter’s inability to recall complete details, terms, can have major negative outcomes. Interpreters’ renditions that end up as part of a record – either in depositions, courtrooms, or a doctor’s offices are done in consecutive, which is the most taxing on memory.

In this session, we take an in-depth look at the interpreting process, find strategies to improve retention and learn techniques to improve both active/working memory and long-term retention.

Chief Quality Officer
Translation Bureau of Canada: Because Quality Matters

Julie Poirier graduated in translation from the University of Ottawa in 2001 and was recruited by the Translation Bureau the same year. Over the years, she has contributed to major projects such as the translation of transcripts of the Gomery Commission hearings. In 2006, she made the transition into management and took over the reins of a legal translation unit. In 2015, she became director of a team of 40 interpreters providing interpretation services to Parliament. In November 2017, Julie was appointed the Translation Bureau’s first Chief Quality Officer.

Special Advisor to the VP
Translation Bureau of Canada: Because Quality Matters

Matthew Ball joined the Translation Bureau as Conference Interpreter, then Senior Interpreter, Director, and currently with the office of the Vice President, Service to Parliament and Interpretation (SPI) Sector. The SPI sector’s three interpretation services provide interpretation in Canada’s official languages as well as in Indigenous languages, and foreign languages and sign languages and in closed captioning at thousands of meetings every year on Parliament Hill, across Canada and even abroad.

Technology

Cloud Services for Translators and Interpreters
After providing an overview of popular cloud services, this presentation will explore ways translators and interpreters can leverage them to work smarter, securely and more collaboratively.
Lionel Tona, C. Trans., is a graduate from Glendon College, York University (MA in Translation & Certificate in Professional and Technical Writing). Over the years, Lionel held various positions in the Ontario Public Service as a Translator, Reviser and Policy Advisor. He also teaches translation and professional writing at Glendon College.

The Indispensable Value of the Human Interpreter

Before becoming an interpreter, Qjinti Oblitas explored many worlds: a political science student in France; a local staff member at UNESCO in Bolivia; a community organizer in the suburbs of Paris; and even, briefly, a theatrical clown… Over time, she was drawn to interpretation, graduating in 2008 from the Master of Arts in Conference Interpreting at the prestigious Université de Genève. Professor Oblitas then began her career as a freelance conference interpreter in Europe. She is an accredited interpreter with the United Nations, the European Union and the Translation Bureau of the Government of Canada. She taught interpretation at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest, in Angers, and at the Université de Strasbourg. Currently, she is a full-time professor at the Glendon MCI, in Toronto, where she settled in 2014. Amongst her many pursuits, she undertook graduate studies in Quechua linguistics at the INALCO, in Paris, and studied American Sign Language. Her main areas of interest are: note-taking visualisation in consecutive interpreting, orality and non-written languages and online interpretation training.