[LTA intro music]
LiveTextAccess.
Training for real-time intralingual subtitlers.
This is Unit 1. Understanding accessibility.
Element 3. Embedding accessibility in working environments.
In this video lecture, we show the second part
of an interview with Mohammed Shakrah,
a real-time intralingual subtitler from Sweden.
He will talk about the role of real-time subtitles in the educational setting.
My name is Piero Cavallo
from the Internationale Hochschule SDI München, in Germany.
I have prepared this video lecture in collaboration with Rocío Bernabé Caro,
also from SDI München,
and the European Federation of Hard of Hearing, in short, EFHOH.
On completion of the training sequence,
you will be able to advise customers about how to best set up
an accessible real-time working environment
for persons with hearing loss
in the trained working contexts and settings.
To achieve that,
we will show testimonials and interviews of professionals.
The agenda is very short.
First, I am going to introduce our invited speaker, Mohammed Shakrah.
Then, I will illustrate the topics of the interview.
Finally, we will end the video lecture with a summary.
Please note, that this is the second part of the interview.
First of all, let me introduce you Mohammed Shakrah.
Mohammed Shakrah is from Sweden.
He has medium long, brown hair and a beard.
He has been working as a real-time subtitler for 15 years.
He is the founder of Svensk Skrivtolkning,
a company which provides real-time subtitles services across Sweden
since 2013.
Let me give you some information
before watching the second part of the video.
In the second part of the interview,
Mohammed talks about the differences between working on-site
and online, remotely from home.
Then, Mohammed talks about the relationship
between the real-time subtitler
and the students for whom you provide the service
and those for whom you don’t.
Finally, Mohammed gives his suggestions to future professionals
who want to work in this field.
OK, let’s watch the video now!
[Piero] And you were talking about the differences in terms of equipment
between online and on-site.
Are there any other differences between the two settings?
[Mohammed] Yeah, I'd say there are two different situations when you are not
in the same room.
One is when everyone is participating remotely.
For example, during Corona.
Everyone is at home, in front of their own screen,
with their own microphone.
That’s one situation which is pretty easy to handle
because you don’t need more than your own software
and like a meeting software such as Zoom, for example.
And then the only thing you have to make sure is that the teacher has,
you know, like a headset or a good microphone,
so that you can hear what they are saying clearly.
You can’t usually ask that from the students,
the other students.
But at least for the teacher, we always try to make sure
that they have a good microphone.
But the other setting where, you know--
For example,
we interpret...
for students at schools in remote parts of Sweden.
And to be able to handle that situation, obviously, we work remotely,
but they're all in the same classroom.
Then, what we usually do is either ask the school to...
themselves get (or we provide)
a phone with a Bluetooth microphone,
that the teacher can hang on a cuff
or something.
And also,
remind them to just repeat questions.
Because we only have one microphone on the teacher.
And we can't hear what the rest of the class is saying.
Instead of having them pass around this microphone
every time someone wants to speak,
we ask the teacher to first reply with the name of the person asking,
“Yes, Maria, you were asking me if…blah blah blah?”
So that we can actually catch
the interaction between the teacher and the students.
The reason we go for, like, cordless, Bluetooth microphone
is because if you ask the teacher,
"We are going to call your phone, just put it on the table."
which we did at first,
because we thought that we didn’t want to ask for too much from a teacher,
we noticed that some teachers, especially those in the sciences,
they tend to walk off across the room,
around the room talking and they forget the phone there.
But if they had the phone on them with the microphone,
they can wander away, walk around,
as much as they want, we are always going to catch what they say.
I'd say don’t be afraid to ask what you need.
And usually,
we're not used to requiring or asking
from any of the parties, for everything that we need.
I think in this context,
working within education, it's actually crucial
that you be the authority on what you do,
but also, obviously, try to be inclusive with the teachers.
And try to establish a relationship built on respect and trust,
rather than just authority.
Because they want to help you. They want you to succeed
because they want their students to succeed
in their education.
-[Piero] Yeah, of course. -[Mohammed] That's what I like.
[Mohammed] That’s what I really like about working in this field.
You get to actually work with people, not just for people.
[Piero] Yes, of course. And what would you say are the...
the pros of working remotely?
[Mohammed] I’d say the pros with working remotely is,
for one, the technical setup.
The technical and the ergonomic setup. You get a really, really good setup.
You can talk to your colleague, if you are two working together
on a separate line.
Sometimes, obviously...
if you are working on-site, you have to whisper to each other
or write on paper, so you can talk freely
without anyone actually noticing you.
That makes cooperation a lot easier.
But also the fact that
you don’t have to travel around a lot from one place to another,
so you can be more efficient with work
Interpreting is what most of us really want to do the most of our time.
For us it actually raises the amount of fund that we get to have on the job,
rather than spending hours
in a car or on a train from one place to another.
And last but not least I’d say that
working remotely also makes it a lot easier with planning.
And you can obviously sit home in shorts.
And drink coffee,
take pauses without anyone noticing.
You get the working environment that you want rather than...
having to rely on...
the places that you go to to work. To have whatever you want.
[Piero] And what about the relation between you
and the student or the students you are interpreting for,
and also the relation between you and the other students
and the relation between the students themselves?
[Mohammed] We've discussed this thing a lot,
me and my colleagues.
I think most of my colleagues are about my age,
a little bit post-university age.
We kind of, at least visually, blend in pretty well
with the rest of the crowd or the teachers.
That helps a lot.
I think it’s always tricky to try to establish
any type of relationship with people
that’s other than the professional relationship,
because you don’t want to be liked or disliked by any of the students.
I think that's the most important thing to keep in mind.
You're there to do a job. You can answer questions, you can...
say what you kind of need to get the situation working
from an interpreting point of view, but...
going further than that, I think it easily becomes a slippery slope.
So I'd say the main relation
or relationship you should try to focus on strengthening is with the teacher.
And also you don’t want classmates
to have any opinion about you being there
or not being there because
that's also going to affect the environment around the student
and the interpreting, in a way, because...
other subjects might come up that wouldn't have come up
if you weren’t there
or were there,
however you like to see it.
You don’t want to be an influence or have an influence on the room.
You just want to make sure that it works from an interpreting point of view.
[Piero] And about the relation between you and the other students
in the classroom?
[Mohammed] There are two ways to go about it, I’d say, you know.
One is where you tell the teacher what your job is about
and you had them introduce what you are going to be there doing,
so that the students hear it from the teacher
rather than you having to tell every other student what is about, because...
I think either the student him or herself should be the one
handling or being responsible for the situation.
I mean, telling people why you are there,
what they themselves need,
or the teacher,
so you don’t...
overstep
in, maybe, saying things that the teacher is not comfortable with you saying
or the student is not comfortable with you saying.
Say for example, I've had the question,
“Can we have this transcript afterwards?"
"Why is she getting it? Can we have it too?"
And rather than you saying,
“No I’m sorry, it’s just for her.”
you can have the teacher say it and then you haven’t really...
been the one to disappoint.
I usually try to...
make sure that the relationship
between me and other students is establish before I even get there
by the teacher of by the students.
But obviously this depends on how...
how low you go in terms of age.
Because, if you are interpreting for someone in, I don’t know,
second grade, third grade, then obviously you are going to have to interact more
and reply to questions,
and be more of a responsible adult,
at the same time as you are an interpreter.
But the higher you go, I think, the more...
professional you have to be.
[Piero] Maybe to wrap up a little bit
will you give some suggestions to future professionals
who want to work in this field?
And in particular who want to...
to be involved in the educational setting.
What are your suggestions?
[Mohammed] I’d say that, you know, students are going to be different.
Some students will read and study a lot,
some students will sleep through all their classes,
some students won’t even show up or give your notice.
Students are students, no matter what age.
It’s important to...
to do what you can,
in order to make sure that you’ve done what you could.
Whatever happens after that, it’s up to the student,
or up to the classmates, or whatever.
I think really do your utmost in terms of planning,
and the rest will pretty much...
reveals itself or go the way it would have,
if...
conditions were equal on students.
Your role is to...
make conditions or create the conditions
for equal access.
But whether the person you are working with actually...
makes use of this access service or not is not on you.
And working over time with the same person
tends to try to pull you in to relationships,
because you are a support or a--
an aid in one way.
And try to really put the boundaries
or make the boundaries clear from the beginning
and stick to those boundaries, because you never know
what’s going to happen further down the line.
But if you’ve made the boundaries clear from the start, then,
hopefully you won’t end up in situations that are going to be...
tough to get out of, later.
I think those...
those are my advices.
Also it's really, really fun. I mean.
I forget to say.
I've worked within educational interpreting for 15 years.
Seeing someone actually understand things for the first time,
asking questions that you thought are brilliant,
or hearing a lecture, seeing a lecture that is really inspiring,
learning new stuff,
it’s really great.
I think it’s challenging, it’s rewarding, and it’s extremely fun.
I couldn’t imagine doing anything else than this.
This is fantastic in so many ways.
[Piero] Wow. Nice words.
Do you have any last remarks you want to point out?
[Mohammed] Yes, one thing is just, I think:
if you're going to work as an interpreter within an education setting
try to get in from the start.
I mean, it’s difficult to jump in in the middle of a semester, for example.
Or just for a lesson, or two lessons.
The longer you’ve been with the same student or with the same course,
the better you are going to feel with your efforts.
Don’t feel bad the first or the second lesson.
You build your competence within the subject
or understanding the teacher's way of speaking over time.
Give yourself a couple of lessons before you judge yourself too harshly.
I think that’s it.
[Piero] Many many thanks for all your nice suggestions.
I’m pretty sure that trainees will really enjoy this interview.
The summary.
To briefly sum up, we can say that, when working remotely,
it is essential to have good acoustics, especially from the teacher.
The advantage of working from home
is that you can choose the equipment that you are most comfortable with.
Then, we have seen that it is important to build
a mutual relationship of trust and respect,
both with the teachers and with the students.
Finally, we have learned
that it takes time to build competences within a subject.
So, take your time to learn and grow.
Exercises.
The exercises for this video lecture are in the Trainer’s Guide
and the PowerPoint file of part 2.
[LTA outro music]
LTA - LiveTextAccess.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
SDI - Internationale Hochschule.
Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici.
2DFDigital.
The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People - EFHOH.
VELOTYPE.
SUB-TI ACCESS.
European Certification and Qualification Association - ECQA.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
Erasmus+ Project:
2018-1-DE01-KA203-004218.
The information and views set on this presentation
are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion
of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any person acting on their behalf
may be held responsible for the use
which may be made of the information contained here.