Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access originally published online on March 15, 2006
The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2006 11(3):388; doi:10.1093/deafed/enj035
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Educational Interpreting: It's more than interpretation
Department of School Psychology, Rochester Institute of Technology
B. C. Seal (2004). Best Practices in Educational Interpreting, second edition. New York: Pearson Educational, Inc. 288 pages. Paperback. $71.00.
"Thinking is all about mental imagery. Interpreting is all about thinking; therefore interpreting is all about mental imagery." (p.166)
Brenda Chafin Seal's Best Practices in Educational Interpreting is an engaging, informative, and practical book. The author defines best practices as "tried [educational interpreting] practices that have brought success." The seven chapters are organized by educational level (primary to secondary) with one lead chapter on the administrative aspects of educational interpreting services and a final chapter on the review of current interpreting research. Each chapter is structured in a question–answer format, provides a variety of relevant case studies with "best practices" solutions, and is referenced. The author's intended audience is practicing interpreters, interpreter students, teachers, administrators, and deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Although the author recommends that the content be read in sequence, the chapters can stand-alone. The benefit of self-contained chapters is that busy professionals, especially administrators and teachers, who work with interpreters and who are not familiar with deafness-related issues can read the selected chapter that best fits their setting.
Overall, the author highlights relevant developmental aspects that apply to important educational interpreter issues. For example, when discussing how to interpret for primary-grade students, the author discusses how the development of eye gaze relates to the use of sign motherese—waving hands and moving the sign in the child's visual field, using exaggerated facial expression, larger sign-articulated slower and repeating signs. Furthermore, the philosophical differences of the interpreter's role, especially at the primary ages, are addressed. At these younger ages the complex and dynamic interplay between cognitive, language, and social development is pronounced. Social development is highly related to communication development, which is supported by language development. Often, the interpreter at this age level is one of the primary language models for the deaf child. Accordingly, the author outlines why the interpreter's role at the primary levels is clearly expanded to include the helper, the language model, and the teacher of language in the natural context.
The problem-solving approach of the numerous realistic case studies presented challenges the reader to consider possible courses of action for each situation. The final solution proposed, which is framed as the best practice approach, often is as thought provoking as the presented scenario. It would have been interesting to provide a sample of selected educational team members' responses to the case studies from their professional best practices orientation.
This book has provided me with some answers to educational interpreter's role(s) and reminded me about a few teaching strategies. I think it is a must read for educational interpreters and a good resource for educational team members who have basic questions about the role of the educational interpreter.
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