This Element is aimed at letting you develop factors for high performance
in Real-Time Intralingual Subtitling through Respeaking.
It is divided into three learning outcomes.
On completion of this training sequence,
you will be able to implement strategies and techniques for self-motivation,
like knowing your software and its multiple facets,
improving your capacity to be accurate and rapid,
motivating your team,
and knowing how to gather information on speeches before the job starts.
This is the agenda. We will first look at knowing your software,
then the training and progress,
followed by motivating students and colleagues
and finishing with gathering information and speeches.
In the end, we will give a summary.
Let's get started with knowing your software.
Your respeaking software is not just a tool.
It is your main partner to reach high levels of performance.
Getting to know it is fundamental for your career.
As you may know, there are freeware
and more professional software programs available on the market.
Dragon Naturally Speaking is the most widely used professional program by freelancers.
Its manual provides all information needed to learn all its options,
thus constantly improving your performances.
Although Dragon is a product for Windows based PCs,
Mac users can still use it through Microsoft Parallel.
Alternative options are freeware available in the market,
Google based or Microsoft based or Mac based.
Making progress is also fundamental for your motivation,
as well as keeping track of it.
Here we propose a couple of tips to daily improve your performances
or to keep a high standard.
Another aspect you must start dealing with is mistakes.
Mistakes happen and they can be more or less serious.
If you keep making the same mistake, this is frustrating.
Knowing them and how to avoid them
is fundamental to achieve better and better results.
Keep track of your mistakes.
You will learn how to deal with each of them and do a better job!
For example, after your job you can go through the text
using the spellcheck and grammar check to see if there are mistakes in the spelling.
Keep a list of words you might find difficult or in which you often make errors in spelling.
Next time you can remember how to write the words correctly.
When a word is not correctly recognized by the respeaking software,
there may be several reasons for that.
One is that the word is not in the software vocabulary.
Adding it to the software vocabulary will improve the quality of your performance.
Another reason is that you don't pronounce it
the way the software expects you to pronounce that word.
Train it and the probability the software recognises it will increase.
Of course, you also need to improve your dictations skills,
allowing you to constantly improve your skills.
One further reason is related to its spelling:
the word is not spelt as you wish.
If it is a homophone that appears on screen, you need to create a macro
so as to differentiate it from other words that are pronounced the same.
If you or your company want that word to be written in a way
which is different from the one which appears on screen,
you need to modify its spelling in the software vocabulary
by replacing the software spelling with your "house-style".
One of the best ways to improve your quality standard is to reach Mars!
Well, I should say: in order to reach your MARS,
the acronym for Most Accurate and Rapid Speech-to-text rate.
Because you must be quick but also avoid mistakes
that may hinder comprehension of what you are writing,
MARS is the maximum number of words per minute
one is able to produce while keeping high quality standards.
Knowing your MARS will allow you to understand
when you can follow your speaker word for word
and when you need to summarise in order to keep high quality standards.
It can be very useful to have colleagues or students
who go through the same process and to motivate each other.
When you are learning the system completely by yourself,
it can be difficult to stay disciplined and motivated.
But perhaps there is someone in your environment
who can help you in staying motivated and not giving up.
Maybe it is your parents, brother, sister or a best friend.
Just having them motivate you can be helpful.
When you are learning the system together in a group of students, or with colleagues,
it can work great if you motivate each other.
And discuss the progress and the problems you encounter.
Of course, a teacher or coach can help you with this as well.
Later on, when doing jobs in the field,
it is always good to discuss your problems or questions
with other colleagues who might have encountered similar situations.
The last aspect we consider important to develop factors for high performance
in real-time intralingual subtitling is gathering the information you need for the job.
This is also called pre-editing.
As you know, pre-editing consists of getting
as much information as possible from speakers on the topic.
This will help you motivate to do the job.
Every time I am called to do a job, I look at the agenda for two important things:
who the speakers are and what they will talk about.
I then surf the Net looking for previous speeches of the same speakers
and / or speeches about the same topics.
This will allow me to enrich my knowledge of the topic as well as my vocabulary.
Being prepared makes me feel much better, allows me to do a better job
and even allows me to find exit strategies more easily when in trouble.
When you know beforehand a speaker will read a speech from paper,
it can be very useful to have this beforehand.
Especially with unexperienced speakers it can be a challenge when they read a speech,
when being nervous or too fast.