The Influence of Adult Education Principles on Canadian Spoken-Language Interpreter Training Programs: A Case Study

This thesis reports on a one-year, multi-site case study aimed at characterizing current approaches to interpreter training in Canada and determining the influence of adult education principles on that training. The theoretical framework utilized was Malcolm Knowles’ (Knowles, Holton III, & Swanson, 2015) six assumptions about adult learners and eight andragogical design elements. Data collection was carried out in two stages: a recruitment survey sent to all Canadian interpreter training programs known to the research, followed by an in-depth visit of four programs involving document review, 44 hours of observation and 29 interviews. Findings indicate that Canadian programs are primarily utilizing a master-apprenticeship approach to training, which seems to be working well. The programs observed also appear to be incorporating many adult education principles. Additional contributions from the field of adult education are discussed; it is argued that sharing research and expertise in areas such as confidence and motivation building, content and feedback delivery, facilitation techniques, characteristics of adult learners, the strengths and weaknesses of the apprenticeship model, and the role of learning styles, would be beneficial to interpreter trainers and trainees alike.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education Graduate Program – Educational Research

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Werklund School of Education

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Staflund, Jeffrey Glen Patrick

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Roy, Sylvie

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Bhowmik, Subrata Kumar
• Eaton, Sarah Elaine

• interpreter
• pedagogy
• training
• conference
• community

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/37330

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/111334