Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Service Learning in Interpreter Education
ISBN: 9781563685569
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Gallaudet University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Service learning.; Interpreters for the deaf;

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.